This is a book of healthy, gluten-free recipes. When I found out that I was gluten-intolerant, I looked through many gluten-free books looking for recipes that would work for me. The recipes in those books have attempted to closely imitate recipes that contain wheat. This means, unfortunately, that the emphasis is on taste with little or no concern for nutritional values. Of course, taste is certainly important but I believe that nutrition should be as important, or rather, more important than taste and texture. Taste without concern for nutrition makes for foods with a lot of sugar, and high-calorie flours (that become sugar in the body). They have little protein and fiber. My goal has been to design recipes that use lesser amounts of sugar and avoid low-protein and low-fiber flours as much as possible. This collection of recipes includes great-tasting foods with low calories and higher amounts of protein and fiber, making them healthier dietary choices. They are meant to be helpful to anyone who needs to remove gluten from their diet who is also interested in good nutrition. Having said that, I believe that every recipe in my book tastes wonderful!
With gluten-free cooking I don’t have to give up anything, but I gain a lot. Well, almost. My first recipes were aimed at making gluten-free versions of the foods I enjoyed when I was eating gluten. This was fairly easy to do. I still can’t make a pita bread that is gluten-free and I am not totally happy with my gluten-free pie crust, but for the most part, I have pretty much made a gluten-free version of just about anything I enjoyed when I was eating wheat.
But to my surprise, when I began to explore all my options for gluten-free cooking, I discovered that there were some wonderful foods that I could not have imagined from my wheat-eating days. The many gluten-free flours have interesting flavors and nutritional advantages that I had not foreseen. I probably never would have discovered them had I not gone on my gluten-free diet.
If somehow I were to magically be free of my gluten intolerance tomorrow, I would still prefer many of my GF recipes described in this book. It is also a real kick for me when I serve my guests a gluten-free dish that they rave over and then find it hard to believe it is gluten-free.
I give a detailed description of various gluten-free flours and what they bring to taste, protein, and fiber. There are 77 different bread recipes: Breads, muffins, biscotti, sweet breads, ginger breads, and more.
But I didn’t want a book of just bread recipes. There are recipes for cakes, crackers, cereals, pies, candies, frostings. Many meat dishes and main dishes often contain wheat. We have over 30 gluten-free examples of these recipes. Then there are over 50 recipes that don’t fit into any particular category. In all you will find more than 255 recipes. I hope you enjoy this motley mix of recipes, and I hope they will help you have a great eating experience that is gluten-free, and good for you. If you have questions you can e-mail me at collinst@q.com
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