Fresh gluten-free recipes from the U.K.
I liked the premise of The Easy Kitchen: Gluten-free Recipes; Simple Recipes for Delicious Food Every Day
Layout and design:
The book is organized with an introduction (about safety, celiac disease, and cooking and baking gluten-free), breakfasts, savoury snacks, light meals, home-cooked comforts, treats, and breads. It’s beautifully designed and compact size.
Photography:
Every recipe features a full-color, full-page photograph, beautifully styled.
Recipes:
Recipes include breakfast muffins (with whole eggs, bacon, and tomato baked in), pork sausage rolls, courgette fritters with minted yogurt, shaved broccoli and buckwheat salad, saffron and pepper frittata with roasted garlic aioli, chicken tagine, caramel shortbread, and pear and almond sponge (cake). Recipes include sugar, dairy, eggs, and meat.
What I liked about the book:
I love recipe books from other countries, because they just bring a different flair to ingredients and combinations. The recipes are bright, appealing, and highly savoury.
I wasn’t so keen on:
Recipes were not coded for special diets; nutritional analysis is not provided, which would be helpful for low-sodium eaters. The book is written by multiple people, so it doesn’t have a point of view. One recipe, for semolina crumpets, might not be able to be made gluten-free here, as a search has not turned up gluten-free semolina (semolina is made from wheat).
Recommended for:
vegetarian, celiac, gluten-free diets
Not recommended for:
Migraine, paleo, vegan, low-sodium diets
A note about my cookbook reviews: In the past, I tested at least three recipes from each book, took photos, and described my experience. Due to my dietary limitations (extremely-low-sodium for my Meniere’s Disease and trigger-free foods for migraine relief), it is no longer possible for me to test the recipes and do them justice.
Required FTC disclosure: I received one copy of this book from the publisher for the giveaway on February 25th, 2016.
Here’s the book if you want to see more:
I have a bucket of semolina wheat berries in my closet. It’s hard to imagine how they could make a semolina flour gluten free!
I love that you give both perspectives on how you feel about the cookbooks you review: the things you like and the things you’re not so keen on. It truly gives your reviews an authenticity that is rare.
Hey Susan, thanks so much! I created that format a few years back after taking a food writing class from Dianne Jacob. People really seem to appreciate the format. After reviewing more than 100 cookbooks, I have strong opinions about design, layout, and how well the recipes are written. LOL