Cookbook Review: Potato Salad by Debbie Moose

     I got this book for two reasons; for one, potatoes and vegetarians go together very well, and two, potato salad is a great make ahead dish that can be kept in the icebox for several days and it still tastes good to just about everyone on the planet. I know some people are weird about leftovers (I live with one of those people) and being able to use the make-ahead method is great to help save time during the week.

It seems that in the potato salad world there are two camps, mustard and mayonnaise. Potato Salad, however, takes you beyond that school of thought and suggests pesto, yogurt, olives, tomato soup concentrate, olive oil, and even tahini as main ingredients for new versions of an old favorite. They all sound delicious, too.

The majority of the recipes in the book are naturally gluten free, but there are a few ingredients she mentions that may be up in the air such as vinegars, mustards, and dressings. Just double check before you buy something new and all should be well. As far as being dairy free or vegan friendly, the book offers a vegan mayonnaise recipe and any eggs called for can simply be omitted without much change to the quality of the recipe. Worcestershire sauce is called for a few times, and this contains fish if I remember correctly, but can be omitted for Bragg's or tamari.

Potato Salad does not stop at just salads, Moose has included more hearty dishes pairing the potatoes with crab, shrimp, tuna, and chicken. For the vegetarians, there are recipes for Tex-Mex style dishes with sweet corn and spicy jalapeños, other recipes are more simple calling for a simple olive oil and herb dressing.

Great book to keep on the shelf for reference. I was a bit put off at first by an entire book about potato salad. Really, how many ways are there? Apparently more than I ever thought possible, and now I'm craving a good curry potato salad!

Want to check the book out before you buy it? Click here.

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AiA Gluten & Dairy Free Cookbook

     Libraries offer information for free. There, you can browse subscription based periodicals, hundreds of variations of encyclopedias, and read about wars, heroes, and places you've never known before.

For free.

      internet offers the same experience - the experience of learning and knowledge. There is a big fuss right now over some people publishing information that some people feel should not be made public. This information tells of decades of lies, cover ups, and scandals. Before this, these people released videos of American soldiers gunning down innocent people - international workers - and the people who came to collect their bodies. The soldiers were begging their superiors to let them 'engage'. It was a horrific video to watch and I am ashamed to say that these people are representing me, not just my country.

     Because of this, I am wanting to also provide as much information to people as I possibly can. This information will be mostly relevant to this site in the form of cookbooks, magazines, and other periodicals. They will all be free to you and easy to use. If you have questions, please contact me and I'll help you navigate to the final product.

     I really hope you enjoy this new feature. My goal is to show you new information and new methods of getting it.

     Information, true or false, in any form, and from anyone should always be free. And we should work to keep it that way.


In saying all that, here's the first link: The AiA Gluten & Dairy Free Cookbook

     You will be redirected and end on a page with a picture of the book on it. Scroll down and you will see a bolded section that reads "Download". Under it you will find three different .com sites that are where the book is stored. Clicking on the third link, for example, will take you to a page with many options on it. The top of the page has the file name on it. (It's a .rar file, meaning it's archived and you'll need to un-pack it or un-zip it once downloaded.) About half way down the page you'll see a section that says "Choose download type - fast or slow" You'll want to click on the slow one and that will start your download. You might have to wait for a minute or enter a captcha to verify your human-ness, but your download should start right after that.

     This cookbook is really great and has lots of both carnivore and vegetarian friendly dishes in it. My only complaint is that it focuses on "the stuff we can't have and want to replace" like breads, cookies, pies, cakes, biscuits, and the like. It then goes on to soups, pastas, meats, veggie foods, snacks, candies, sides, and various random sections.

     However, some positive notes about this book is that it is largely allergen free or has the variations available to make it allergen free. It also has recipe notes for various English and Metric measurements making it really useful to Celiacs around the world.

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