Healthy Gluten-Free Life: 200 Delicious Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Soy-Free & Egg-Free Recipes

I have waited quite a while to write a review about this cookbook because I wanted to try several recipes first. Once I got started trying the recipes I couldn't seem to make myself take a break from baking! Everything I have made so far has not only turned out perfectly, but become a family favorite. My kids even asked me to make the Olive Oil Orange Bread for their teachers this year as Christmas gifts, but only if I would double the recipe and make sure there was some left at home. Our freezer is now stocked with homemade english muffins and blueberry muffins. I have made double batches of "no-bake" cookies twice a week since the first batch went into the freezer. My husband and I consider the walnut banana bread to be one of the best travel foods ever made, and love to toast thick, yummy slices. On the menu tonight is crispy baked coconut chicken fingers and sweet and sour cabbage. And really, the first time I mixed up a batch of the biscuits I was hooked. After 5 years without a biscuit I made them every night for 4 nights in a row, until I was too embarrassed to make them again for a little while! (This is the jellied biscuit recipe without the jelly or sprinkle of sugar.)Anyway, besides the amazing recipes, there are a few things I particularly appreciate about this cookbook.First, we have multiple food allergies in our home. We are gluten, dairy, peanut, and beef free, but also use very few eggs and avoid all food colorings and preservatives. This cookbook is already free of most of those foods, and it's easy to sub sunbutter for peanut butter here and there or pork for beef. It's so nice not to have to gamble on egg replacer working in a recipe or try to sub out milk or butter.Second, I have always liked to bake and when our family first went gluten free I was on a campaign to keep my children from "missing out." I never want them to feel left out at a party or friend's house. But I was increasingly anxious giving my children the number of treats necessary to keep them included in peer "celebrations" as they were all LOADED with sugar and refined flours. A nutritionally bankrupt gluten-free diet is not ok for my kiddos. So I would make special cookies or cakes, give one serving, and then never end up letting them have much more. Or I would fret each time they wanted a "treat" and feel guilty if I indulged them. The recipes in this cookbook not only taste great, but they are generally low in refined sugars and are full of whole grain gluten-free flours. I can even enjoy the treats with them without suffering a blood sugar roller coaster ride afterward. The after-school junk food search has been replaced with something my kids like even better- "no-bake cookies." These have basic, healthy ingredients like almond butter, organic coconut oil, organic coconut, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, organic raw honey, etc. Basically loaded with seeds and good fats and low in sugar, yet my kids adore them and I don't feel bad about letting them eat what they love.Third, there's a picture of Every. Single. Recipe. Finally. I have never understood why more cookbooks do not do this. Flipping through the pages makes me want to make them all. And given enough time, I will.Thank you, Tammy! You have done a wonderful job nourishing your beautiful family, and I'm grateful you took the time to help me do the same for mine.

This is the best recipe book ever!! I have tried many of the recipes from the book over the past few months and every one has been delicious. I am not an "expert" cook by any means. Before my son was put on a gluten free/dairy free diet 2 years ago, I didn't cook at all! Stouffer's frozen lasagna and a bag of salad mix were my idea of cooking. I'm starting to get better and better at cooking and having this book is definitely a valuable resource. Some recipes I have tried from other sources don't always turn out well and it is a waste of time and money (gluten free, fresh food ingredients are expensive!). I love this book and have a lot of confidence in trying new recipes from it because they always taste great! My favorite main course so far has been the sloppy joes! I think it tastes just like the popular canned brand but without all the icky chemical additives. My favorite dessert has been the brownies!! You can't even tell they are gluten, dairy, egg and soy free! So delicious!I've bought alot of "gluten free" cookbooks over the past couple of years as I have tried to learn how to provide safe food for my son. Alot of the recipes in the other cookbooks have been too "fancy". I like that the recipes in this book are more traditional and basic. Don't get me wrong- they are FULL of flavor and delicious, but they are foods my non-gourmet family enjoys. We are simple people. :) If you like fancier foods, you may not be impressed with this book. Being that I am pretty much a novice cook, I appreciate the "simpleness" of the recipes in this book.In addition to being a trusted source of good tasting recipes, it is very well organized. I love the color coded sections. I love all the full color pictures for EVERY recipe. I love the photographic index of recipes at the end of the book even more! It is a very handy way to look through the recipes. You can tell alot of thought went into the layout and organization of the book.Not only do I enjoy the recipe portion of the book, I enjoyed reading through the intro at the beginning of the book. I really like the author. She seems real. There are alot of valuable tips in this section as well that I found very useful. She explains that she cares about nutrition and so she has purposefully and thoughfully selected certain flours for her recipes that add more nutrition than rice flour. Be forewarned that you will have to hit the health food store to find things like Amaranth flour, millet flour, teff flour, etc to be able to make many of the recipes.She also gives many tips sprinkled through out the book buried inside the individual recipes for certain recipes that she says freeze well and give instructions on how to reheat it. One suggestion I would have is that she could have included an index list of these "freezer-friendly" recipes to make it easier to identify which ones she suggests for this. I'd like to try and spend a day once every few months making a bunch of these freezer-friendly meals and having some things in the freezer that I can grab once a week for an "easy" night and it is difficult to pinpoint exactly which recipes she suggests short of reading through every recipe.

I love this book! Every recipe I have tried is wonderful. I am taking it with me on vacation to our beach house and plan to sample a lot more goodies :) Yeah, the chocolate chip cookies taste like a "healthy" cookie but they are really good too. She talks a lot about her family and how and why they came to eat this way, okay, don't really care, sorry. The English muffins are, as billed, super good but don't be expecting a white bread English muffin because they are not. But they are really good, I could eat a pile of them in one sitting! My three year old granddaughter ate one, with nothing on it, not even cut, just scarfed it down, yum! Okay here's my complaint, nutrition information! Oh boy would I love it if this book provided nutrition information. You can't just eat your fill because it's more nutritionally sound. I am guessing that I am getting a lot more fiber and nutrients from these foods but I guess I'll never know will I?! I could figure it out myself but, agh. It would have been so wonderful if it had been included! Overall though, this book is a Godsend. I am very, very happy to have found it!*2nd UPDATE* I thought one more update might be helpful, this is my last one I promise! The ingredients called for in these recipes are, for the most part, not things most people will have on their pantry shelves. For example, her "arsenal of flours" are; Teff, Brown Rice, Sorghum, Amaranth, Millet & Quinoa. She also uses Coconut flour & almond meal. For starches she uses; Potato starch, Tapioca starch and Arrowroot. For sweeteners she uses Agave, pure maple syrup, coconut nectar, honey, evaporated cane juice. Fortunately, we live near a Bob's Red Mill and we were able to go and get the entire list (well the things we didn't have anyway). It cost us $80, gulp. We bought a big plastic tub and since whole flours without any preservatives go bad so quickly, I put them all in labeled freezer bags in the tub and we keep it in our freezer in the garage. When I'm ready to bake I go get the box and everything is right there and handy. It also makes it easy to keep track of what I am low on.*UPDATE* I would still love to have nutrition information but the recipes in this book are so valuable that I HAD to give it 5 stars! I have tried the English muffins, brownies, pizza sauce, pizza crust, no'tmeal cookies, pancakes and more. Every single recipe amazing! My husband grew up on boxed foods and that is where his tastes still want to go. After serving the pizza last night (his with regular cheese and mine with vegan cheese) he said that mine was so good he would be happy to eat that anytime we have pizza! I have been pizzaless in Portland since I changed my diet and that has been the one thing that I've been really sad about. I can't wait to put a pizza on the barbeque just like old times :) You really owe it to yourself to get this book. This is simply a healthier way to eat. When I made the brownies I was in serious danger of eating the whole batch myself so I froze them. Guess what? They are delicious frozen, agh! You remember those rectangular ice cream bars with the chocolate cakie cookies on the sides and vanilla ice cream in the middle? They taste exactly like that! Oh my, I'm in trouble. I'm thinking of using the brownies and one of the ice creams to make ice cream cake for the next family get together. Oh and the pancakes?! I've never been much of a pancake lover but the morning I made them I ate 4! yikes! Had to throw those right in the freezer too. It's funny, even with all of the successes, I have tried so many healthier alternatives over the years that I am trained to assume the next one is not going to be good but I have been wonderfully, amazingly surprised each time! Get this book!!!

We love this cookbook. But specifically, I love the baked goods in the cookbook. Our family has several food allergies (egg, dairy, peanuts, wheat, sesame, etc.). At first, I was overwhelmed on what to make for my family to eat! I had to relearn everything I knew about baking and eating. This cookbook made things a LOT more simple. Other cookbooks will have you measure out different flours and weigh them... No! I'm like a lot of moms out there. I don't want to sift and weigh six different flours in order to bake some cookies. These recipes are forgiving and simple. I simply scoop the flours out and mix. Yes, you need a few different flours. But they are grains that are GOOD for you so it's worth it to me and she uses a lot of the same flours in the most of recipes. . I've made the pancakes, waffles, cookies, and breads from this recipe and I have substituted different flours when I'm out of a certain kind and they have all come out pretty great. And the best part is my kids love the food and it's good for them.The book is well written and lots of great pictures of the food. She does a nice introduction to gluten free cooking and baking at the beginning of the book. And she does a cute little intro to each recipe. Very light-hearted and fun :)I give it four stars out of five because I wasn't super impressed with the recipes for dinner or snacks (trail mixes, etc.). They were fine but nothing special. I mainly use this book for the baking.

I'm totally new to this gluten/dairy/egg free lifestyle (it's only been about 2 months). It hasn't been too hard to do since my doctor told me not to eat processed food (as we all know processed food is loaded with gluten) but my meal ideas stalled pretty quick. I knew if I was going to be able to make this a lifetime commitment I'd better get some new ideas so I don't get bored & tempted by things I'm not supposed to eat.Last night I read through the book and marked down the recipes I wanted to try right away...there are so many it's going to take me quite a while just to get through them. Today I tried 4 recipes: Grilled Lime Chicken, Simple Slaw, Flour Tortillas & Balsamic Vinaigrette. All were really delicious. I did substitute coconut crystals & nectar in place of cane juice & honey but it definitely didn't compromise anything.The tortillas were great, and I took one to work for the girls to try and they were all impressed by them. It really satisfied the craving for bread. I actually wrapped the Lime Chicken & Slaw inside the tortilla and it was delicious.At first the slaw was really tart (which I don't mind, I love lime/lemon and vinegar) but after it marinated for a while the flavors really combined and mellowed out. The sweetness came out too. I was worried about using "vegan" mayonnaise (I did use the brand she suggests), but it was delicious & creamy, not "weird". The girls tried this too & loved it (and the chicken).The other thing that I thought was cool was the recipes were obviously really well tested because each one did exactly what it was supposed to do. Sometimes I've followed recipes to a "t" and yet things don't do what the recipe says its supposed to or you have to add this or that to make it actually work. Plus I love that each recipe has a color picture and the index in the back has a thumbnail of the dish so you can easily identify the recipe you're looking for.I'm really looking forward to trying more recipes, not to mention the desserts!Great book!

Great cookbook in general regardless of needing to be GF. This is a complete cookbook and easy go to for a wide variety. We have had this book for many years, we bought a 2nd as a gift for a relative.

I will go into more details about why I feel the way I do below but for a quick run down:PROS:-Beautiful Pictures (I am talking, craving inducing photos here.)-Easy and useful layout-Unique and adorable Recipe Index-Good for someone who knows nothing about cooking and is recently diagnosed (more below)CONS:-Basically the S.A.D. diet in GF form (more below)-Over half of the recipes include some form of sugar (more below)-Tons of the recipes are obvious fillers-Lots of recipes that use processed ingredients (more below)-Lots of GF recipes for foods that were already GFI am SO disappointed in this book overall and I was SO looking forward to it. When the package arrived I still had work to do and I flew through my work to get my hands on this book I had been waiting so patiently for. The package itself flew apart and fell to the floor to become an instant cat toy as I revealed this absolutely beautiful book.My husband looked at me as if I may be insane but rather than explain I decided to sink my cooking jaws firmly into this book and without even bothering to sit down I started reading, tiny flags waiting patiently to bookmark my first experiments. I read the story, pretty much the standard everyone has with the GF diagnosis though it looks like they were saved the worst of it for which I am thankful. The family and the children are still young and were saved the decades of suffering many go through. (This part went quickly as I had already read most of the amazon preview.) Then I got to the breakfasts, I admit, most cookbooks disappoint me here and this one did too. Sugar laden crap for most of the breakfasts. But she had talked about how rare her recipes had added sugar, I mean this is supposed to be a "Healthy" cookbook, it says so on the front!!! How could this be? I was flipping through pages of muffins and scones for "breakfast" averaging about 1 Tablespoon of sugar per serving. For a normal adult our recommended sugar intake is 2 Tablespoons per day, do you really want to have eaten half of that for breakfast in one single muffin? Sure, she uses honey instead of refined sugar, though your body does undoubtedly enjoy the extra nutrients from the honey over refined sugar, research has shown that your body cannot really tell the difference between sugar sources (honey, sugar, agave, etc.) the sweet taste triggers the insulin reaction as our body is deigned to do.But at this point I still had hope. Next were entrees, most all of which are meat based (2-3 exceptions) and meat is already gluten free but I thought maybe I would find something good here, I had hoped for more plant based main courses but as I started flipping through the recipes I was aghast as I realized the actual implications of this book. This "Healthy" cookbook, has two recipes for corn dogs (one in the form of muffins), recipe for filet of fish, how to batter and deep fry any food you can find in the house (one of the very few meat free options), several options for breaded chicken, and several other obviously unhealthy options. Of the main dishes, 44 contain meat (which is fine, except that do we really need that many meat recipes when meat is inherently GF?), and 19 of the main dishes include sugar in them. Getting pretty close to half there. Why would you add sugar to steak bites? I am baffled.Still, I continued on and found that the sides were of a similar disappointment, my little flags sitting there sad and almost unused. Me being depressed at the prospects of half a cookbook gone with only 2 recipes flagged for trying. Then I hit the sauces and desserts and I started to get a bit peeved. I work hard for my money just like everyone else and the biggest section in this book is the "Dessert" category? Followed by the meat..I mean "Mains" category which is almost all meat, which is naturally gluten free? Wha?So I went and I did some counting. Of the 200ish recipes 115 have added sugars. 55 call for meat. A whopping 68 called for processed foods not only laden with preservatives but unavailable in many areas (things like vegan butter, vegan shortening, etc.) But she promises in the front of the book: "And while this book is not entirely free of sugar and starch, it is limited..." How is over half of the recipes having some form of added sugar healthy? How is an entire book full of comfort foods to only be eaten on occasion healthy? This sounded so harsh ringing in my head but then I realized something. This book is definitely not healthy at all. Nope. Not even kind of, or sort of.It would however appear healthy to someone who is eating the very standard American diet. The one used to deep fried chicken, fast food, white bread, and dessert every night. This is taking the S.A.D. and replacing gluten with various flours/starches and replacing refined sugars with other sugars like honey, maple syrup, agave, coconut crystals, etc. (These sugar replacements are just as harmful to your body as sugar they just have some health benefits to go with the harm. link to resources here [...] the research behind it seems pretty thorough) and so it is healthier than the S.A.D. Marginally so, but a step in the right direction and she does talk about how healthy is stepping in the right direction. Which I do believe full-heartedly. If only they hadn't labeled the book as "healthy" and if only they hadn't promised only occasional use of sugar... Then I would not feel so ripped off, I would not feel completely cheated out of the money I carefully saved for over a month to buy this book.I am taking the time to go over all of this because I have read every single review as of the time of this posting and there are a lot of happy people with this book and that is great but for those of you who know something about cooking, who don't live in a fast food joint, or were not just diagnosed with celiac or gluten intolerance, skip this book. There are many better options out there. Not as pretty, no but much more useful.Bottom Line: With 115 of the 200 recipes containing added sugar, this is not at all "Healthy" and in my opinion counts as completely false advertising. If you are used to the standard american diet where a meal to you is what you grab at the drive through, or fried chicken with mashed potatoes and a few green beans. This book is for you. It will allow you to get the flavors and comforts of the standard american diet but in gluten free form. Just please take time to learn more about what healthy is. Work your way towards it steadily as it is certainly worth the time, frustration, and effort.

I have to admit that I ordered this book in a hurry based on the good reviews but without close examination. I thought it was just GF recipes (for my wheat-allergic son) that I would have to tweak to accomodate my dairy allergy then pick through to find things that my picky husband and toddler would eat too. So I was delighted when I got the book and it was full of things that everyone in my family could eat. I ordered 4 other well reviewed allergy-friendly cookbooks at the same time but this is the one I go to again and again.This book isn't just about how to reproduce GF baked goods, although it has those more deliciously & nutritiously than the dry, pricey goods you can buy ready made. It starts with an explanation of the basics of cooking with the most healthful allergy-free ingrediants then covers the full gamut: not just every meal, but sauces, coatings, snacks, desserts, baked goods and even meal planning suggestions. This is not one of those books where you mix a big custom blend of flours that is the basis of every recipe, or, where the recipes won't work if you don't use a specific brand or grind of flour. Don't get me wrong, I have those books and those mixes speed things up when you want a reliable bread, pancake or cake mix on hand, but I like that here my english muffin is not going to taste like my biscuit and that I don't have to hunt out the holy grail of brown rice flour to get a good result. The baking recipes are real deal proofing, rising, chilling & rolling out- not something for a busy morning but the results are worth it. By contrast the meals are quick, clean, uncomplicated, real food.The real test of course is always will the kids eat it? My 3.5 yo son has a wheat allergy and Sensory Processing Disorder with oral defensiveness - which means that unfamiliar tastes and textures are usually rejected on sight, or end in gagging and meltdowns. If I tell him it's a graham cracker, it better look, smell, feel and taste enough like the graham crackers that he only recently had to give up or all that time I spent shopping and measuring and baking will be for naught. I'm willing to bet alot of Mamas reading these reviews know what I am talking about because so many of our high needs kids have allergies or benefit from GF eating, but getting them to even try what is good for them can be a tough battle after an already tiring day. So know this - not only does my son happily gobble up everything I've tried out of the book, but so do the rest of us. If you are new to gluten-free or allergy-friendly living, this is the one book you want to pick up.

Este libro está genial. Todas las recetas muy bien explicadas y la introducción es muy útil.Lo recomiendo a todos los que siguen una dieta libre de gluten.

Although I do not have many allergies, (only dairy), my daughter has all kinds of allergies and finding good recipes for her has been quite a rollercoaster. On the bright side her allergies are not life threatening, but I rather avoid all of them as much as I can.This book offers lots of awesome ideas and delicious recipes. I hope I can update this review in the future about other recipes I had tried. The book has a section of photos at the back divided by kind, for example, breakfasts, entrees, main meals, and desserts. (I do not have the book with me right now, but I want to give the idea of how it is). There are beautiful photos of the recipes made, I like all the introduction of the autor.My daughter loves the banana bread, and keeps asking for the snickeldoodles, I find them tasty, but quite flaky, they break easily, but it does not mean is not something I am doing wrong.On the positive side most of the recipes look very easy to prepare, most of the times you do not even require a mixer. (I am all into desserts as you have guessed).We tried the waffles and she liked them, I have some problem with the hotcakes, the taste was very good, but they ended up very flat.Sometimes a recipe that does not contain gluten may vary with the quality and brand of ingredients used. So, as long I like the flavour, I am ok with keep on trying, I would say that the flavours are really good.The only other thing is that I believe there are some recipes with coconut and almonds, to which she is allergic to, coconut to a small degree thankfully, so I am not that concern, but in the case of almonds, I will find a substitute to try the recipes, I believe pumking seeds or cashews are a good substitute, I will try them eventually.The other recipes look very tasty, and I cannot wait to try them in the near future. I will try to post on these ones.

Some good recipes in this booi. Not much around for What Free/Gluton Free folks, so usually buy books if I see them. Thanks.

It's difficult to find cookbooks that cater to those of us who are gluten-free and dairy-free, but Tammy Credicott's cookbook does exactly that, even taking into account other food allergies/sensitivities such as soy and eggs. And it's an absolutely brilliant cookbook. All the recipes I've tried so far are the essence of simplicity; they're easy to whip together, and they produce superb results. And each is accompanied by a gorgeous photograph that makes your mouth water. What I especially like about this cookbook is that it's full of recipes that people who don't have food sensitivities will enjoy too. My husband and my friends seem to enjoy the sloppy joes, baked chicken legs, teff scones, blueberry crumb muffins, and orange olive oil bread every bit as much as I do. And I no longer feel deprived of baked goods the way I used to. I'm excited about trying even more of the book's recipes.

A rather difficult cookery book, rather individual products, and they might be available in the lady's home town, but I live in the middle of the Atlantic in an island, so more difficult. I do not have time for trial and error, I wanted something that I could use right away. I will see how I get on, but seriously not over impressed.