Book Review and Giveaway - Great Gluten-Free Vegan Eats

Finally a gluten-free AND vegan cookbook that is beautifully presented and full of great information and delicious recipes. Being just vegan or just gluten-free poses it's own challenges. If you find yourself vegan and suddenly unable to eat gluten, don't fear! Allyson Kramer has got your back in her book Great Gluten-Free Vegan Eats. There are recipes for breads, muffins, pizza, pasta and so many other things you might have thought you'd have to give up with the gluten.

Allyson has provided a very handy and informative guide to gluten-free flours at the beginning of the book. There is also a section (with recipes included) for pantry basics. I was pleasantly surprised at the great variety and yum factor of the recipes in the book.

I have a good friend of mine who is trying to eat a more plant based diet. She also has some loved ones who gluten sensitive. She asked me to recommend some books for her. One of her criteria is that she wants a book with a lot of pictures. She likes to see what the dishes will look like when they are done. She is a woman after my own heart, and apparently Allyson is too! The book is chock full of mouth watering photos. This book will be perfect for her!

The recipe I chose to make first was the Basic Brown Bread (pg. 26). My issues with baking are well known among these parts. So why not go for the most challenging thing I could? Ha. This bread contains buckwheat flour. Allyson explains that there are two types of buckwheat flour. I did not know this before I started. Apparently I had the dark variety. It gave my bread a very odd almost purple-ish hue. The color was a little off-putting to me, so next time I will use the light flour. I had never made gluten-free bread before. One thing that was very noticeable was the loaf did not rise as high as gluten-full bread. It was much more dense as well. The flavor was really good. If you make this recipe, I do recommend slicing the bread pretty thin because of the density.

I took the loaf to work to share with my co-worker. His wife has recently had to give up gluten, so I thought she might like to try the bread. They are having some challenges trying to figure out what to cook and eat. The next day he came in and asked for the recipe. He wants to get the book for his wife for Christmas. Loving it! He is a far cry from vegetarian much less vegan, but it's great he is willing to look at different options.

Today we have another wonderful giveaway courtesy of the fine folks at Ten Speed Press. A free copy of Great Gluten-Free Eats could be yours (US shipping only please). Just leave a comment about a food or dish you love but think you could never have if you had to be gluten free by midnight MST tonight. The winner will be randomly drawn and announced tomorrow 10/24/12.

Drumroll please!!! The winner of Vegan Eats World is...

#30 - Petunia!!

Congrats Petunai. Please make sure to contact me at vegintraining at g mail dot com with your shipping information.