Cookbook Review: Gluten-Free and Vegan Holidays

I recently won the cookbook Gluten-Free and Vegan Holidays in a drawing from Diet, Dessert, and Dogs. As I read the introduction, I grew really excited. Not only is this book free of gluten and milk, but of soy as well! A lot of vegan recipes will use soy, so I was glad to see that there were a lot of recipes in here that would be safe for Joseph. In total, there were 40 recipes that don’t need any adaption, and another 20 that I could adapt by just omitting nuts or making other substitutions.

However, as I started reading through the recipes, I started to wonder how many my family would actually enjoy. My husband and daughter have an aversion to vegetables, and mushrooms trigger my gag reflex (it’s a texture thing, not an allergy). I am excited to try a couple of the salads and their dressings, and the cakes and frosting.

Interestingly enough, this book does not call for any starches whatsoever – no tapioca starch or potato starch. All flours are unrefined, whole grains. While I am intrigued by the added nutrition, part of me doesn’t want to go out and buy a whole bunch more flours. I’ll start with the recipes that call for sorghum and buckwheat and go from there, since those are already in my pantry. I do like that the fat used is mostly coconut oil – no buttery spreads or shortening.

So while I’m glad I didn’t have to pay for this book, I am looking forward to trying out a few recipes, and adapting others to our taste.