Book Review: No Wheat, No Dairy, No Problem

Edited by Tara Fitzpatrick

iUniverse 2009
by Lauren Hoover

Operators must deal with food allergies and sensitivities more and more. Realistic recipes without unfamiliar or hard-to-find ingredients can go a long way in having staples on the menu that can be labeled “Gluten Free” or “Dairy Free.”

This no-frills cookbook delivers what it promises. There really is no problem with these wheat-free, dairy-free and refined-sugar-free recipes. These are not exotic items that you'd never think about offering on your menu.

Recipes are reassuringly “everyday.” Think chili, meatballs, soups, breads, mashed potatoes, fried chicken, puddings, cookies and more.

Author Lauren Hoover was classically trained at California Culinary Academy and became an accomplished pastry chef. When she discovered her wheat sensitivity, she had to quit working with pastry.

Hoover provides numerous examples of when and where to use such popular gluten- and dairy-free ingredients as coconut milk, almond milk, agave nectar and oat flour. Rice-Flour Pancakes use almond milk and create delicate, thin pancakes. Strawberry Smoothies use coconut milk and agave nectar.

In the introduction Hoover shares with readers that she “cannot tell you how many wheat or dairy alternatives I have purchased and thrown away because they tasted terrible,” and grew frustrated with cookbooks that call for “unfamiliar or weird ingredients and refined sugar.” There is no refined sugar in No Wheat No Dairy No Problem.

To read more about accommodating gluten-free diets, see “Thinking Outside the Bread Box,” an FM article from May 2010, at www.food-management.com/thinking-outside-bread-box-0510/index.html