Cookbook Review: Babycakes Covers the Classics

        The boyfriend's birthday is next month and that means that birthday planning starts now. There are a couple of surprises up my sleeve this year and this year I am determined to keep this a surprise until his birthday. I'm sure if he guessed anymore than twice he'd know what I was getting for him, but I like to let myself think that I'm clever and awesome about gifting, however far from reality that may be. 

        Beyond gifts and surprises, birthdays also mean cake! There isn't much that gets me more excited for an event than the prospect of fresh-out-of-the oven cake. However, summertime in Texas makes me dread using the oven for an extended amount of time, especially since our AC duct into the kitchen is blocked somehow. The plan for an ice cream cake hatched at work while I was talking with a woman I sit near about cake in general. The conversation turned to ice cream cake and when I mentioned that I'd never had one she nearly fainted and insisted that I eat an entire one as soon as I am able. With a birthday coming up, I figured why not make one? The hunt was on for a recipe of some kind to guide my way through a vegan and gluten free ice cream cake.

        I hunted around and found Babycakes Covers the Classics by Erin McKenna, a gluten free and vegan cookbook devoted to desserts, and wouldn't ya know, there's a recipe for ice cream cake in it! It's as simple as I thought it would be, consisting of a basic chocolate cake, two flavors of ice cream layered, topped with another chocolate cake, and drizzled with chocolate sauce before being frozen. While I won't follow the directions exactly, the basic principle will be the same. I'll post about it, complete with pictures, when that goes down, because it will be spectacular!

        Besides the ice cream cake recipe, Babycakes is filled with amazing recipes to tempt you into giving your sweet tooth more pleasure than you'll know what to do with. There are so many amazing recipes in this book from one of my childhood favorites, pineapple upside down cake, to cake donuts, bread pudding, German chocolate cake, and even crispy rice squares! There are a couple of appetizers thrown in, as well, to balance things out. Everything is vegan and gluten free, and the recipes are simple to follow with well written directions, easy to find products, and a few pictures of the finished products spattered throughout. 

        Something I hardly ever mention about a book is the index, and who the heck really cares, anyway. This book, however has a very well laid out index and it's rather in-depth. In addition to the index is a store listing of where to buy the ingredients online. This is amazing and exciting for those of us who live in smaller than average towns and who sometimes have to drive and drive and drive to reach any kind of decent grocer. 

        Enjoy the book and let me know what you think about it!
- Patricia

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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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Cookbook Review: Kids Fun and Healthy Cookbook by Nicola Graimes

     While this cookbook is definitely not aimed at the gluten free community or at vegetarians, it is a fun book as the title promises! There are techniques and recipes in the book that are appropriate for children of all ages, so worrying about it not being for the right age group is not an issue if you're buying it as a gift. I would say it would be fine for kids up to 12 or so, depending on their personal skills.

I enjoy the fact that Graimes' book is readable (and enjoyable) by both children and adults. It gives plenty of safety advice, explaining things in a simple and calm manner while avoiding chastising reminders about hot stoves or making messes. I also enjoy the fact that Graimes discusses the different food groups and explains how each food plays a role in contributing to a balanced diet. I will say that the one thing I disagree with is that the book states that potatoes should not be considered as a serving of vegetables, while I think they should. Potato flakes, fries, potato chips, and the like are not considered servings, but real potatoes should be. Yams and sweet potatoes are great for you – there is no reason to not consider them vegetable servings.

All the basic cooking techniques are covered in the book, from egg cracking to whisking, stirring, basic sautéing, chopping, and peeling. The book itself is divided into sections for breakfast, light meals, main meals, desserts, and baking.

It is great to see a cookbook that is geared towards kids that both explains and utilizes fresh, whole foods in all the recipes. This book really pushes the fact that kids can accomplish many things on their own and should not be afraid to try to do new projects or ideas. The book is mostly plant based with a few dishes calling for meat thrown in. The use of eggs is pretty liberal throughout, simply because they are an easy to cook item.

For those of us on a gluten free diet, the majority of the recipes can be easily converted to suit our diet and the vegetarians and vegans can just substitute proteins and omit other ingredients to satisfy other needs. Some dishes, such as hard boiled eggs, would just be useless to the vegans, but there are relatively few of these instances.

Check the book out here before you buy it!

Happy cooking!

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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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