Gluten Allergies

It is astounding to find the number of people who are finding out they are sensitive and/or allergic to the gluten in wheat. I guess it was about seven years ago now that I started having to become creative with my recipes to keep out gluten and all other sorts of normal ingredients out of our food. As a matter of fact, Noah is sensitive and allergic to so many foods that I learned to make a darn good muffin using only a few ingredients -- and none of them typical. I can come up with a cookie recipe on the fly tailored to what Noah needs on a given day -- and have them turn out tasty and well-textured.

I'm not bragging. No, wait, I am bragging -- but I'm doing it to say that all it takes is a little practice and starting out with the right cookbook. When I first started, it took me forever to gather up all the right ingredients and put them all together just right -- and I turned out with quite a few inedible trials. It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention, and I say few inventions come about without a great deal of perseverance. Anyway, that leads me to today when cooking takes me half the time (or less) than it did when I started, and the results are usually good. Often they are surprisingly good. Oh, and did I mention I can do it spending a lot less money than I did when I first started -- that's another blog post.

Okay, so now to the point. If you have recently found that you have gluten and other allergies, this is the first cookbook you need to start with. And it's not just a cookbook. It is a fabulous teaching tool that will help you to understand food allergies more clearly as well as why certain ingredients are used and how they can be put to best use.

It is called The Complete Food Allergy Cookbook (and a tag line that I can't read from the picture because I have spilled so many ingredients on the cover -- thereby proving it is well-loved). It's by Marilyn Gioannini, and you can find it on amazon.com. Happy gluten-free cooking!