"My Gluten-Free Kitchen" Cookbook Review

This week we have "My Gluten-Free Kitchen" by Gearóid Lynch to review.

I was quite excited about this opportunity as, quite frankly, it's a gluten free cookbook written by a coeliac! There are lots of cookbooks out there but few that we could be described as "the-go-to" cookbook. This could very well make the list. 

The tagline is "Meals you missed made easy." I've tried a few and, they actually are both easy and meals I've missed! We all reach that point where we need to experiment and this cookbook is actually quite a useful tool to get cooking properly again. Nothing takes overly long to cook so you're not stuck in the kitchen for half the day slaving either (although I do enjoy a good experiment it has to be said!).

Whenever I get a new cookbook I generally scan through to see if there are any yummy looking pictures. After all, why would I want to cook something when I don't have a clue what it should look like. However, I stopped dead at the Table of Contents. Look at it! It's huge!! This got me very interested because there are over 200 pages of recipes. Two HUNDRED pages. It was hard, but I selected two dishes to test out. 

The first was the hash browns. I've been looking for a good hash brown recipe for a while because, well, I can never quite get them to stick together. Because it was the end of the week, I didn't really have all the ingredients so I may have improvised just a little bit on this, but the basic ingredients were present don't worry!

So, as you can see, you need potato, bacon, butter, salt, pepper, red pepper, a shallot, and eggs if you were so inclined. I substituted the streaky bacon with back rashers, simply because I had them and added a chilli.

 It's a relatively simple recipe, grill the bacon (chop up roughly when done), preheat the oven, grate the potato.. I actually got one of these bad boys last year which came in super handy. I didn't realise how wet potatoes are when they're grated and the useful tip on wringing them out helped. Fry the shallot and pepper in a little butter and mix it all together. 

 This is where it got a little tricky on me. This looks beautiful, right? Well I popped it all in the large frying pan, spread it out and patted it down as per the instruction and it came time to flip it over. I tried a few times to get it over in one piece, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. It did indeed break. 

 I got it over in the end and fried off the other side as instructed but transferring it to the baking tray was a little too much for it. It's not my most beautiful experiment but I bunged it in the oven to finish the cooking process anyway and got on with me fried eggs when the time neared!

The recipe had said that it should be cut in wedges, but I failed at making it one piece so this was the best I could do! It was actually pretty tasty so I'm putting this one in the win column. 

 So the second recipe I chose was from the kids favourite section. You heard me, there's no judgement here! We were just in the mood for something nom, well I was, I may have just decided and started to make them. 

I do have a small note to make here.. There was no picture on this one and, well, we all know chicken wings should look a certain way. I'd never actually made them from scratch before so when I bought them they had to be prepped. There was no prep note for them here so it took a minute of googling before I (my other half, I actually couldn't handle it) got the technique down. 

 

The sauce was pretty easy actually. It was garlic, Tamari (gluten free soy sauce), brown sugar, homemade tomato sauce, and tabasco if you are so inclined. I really should have remembered that this came from the kids section, we could have done with a lot more spice, but the sauce ended up being super tasty. We actually devoured them once cooked. I made too much so we could freeze, but they ended up in my lunch box. 

 He notes to serve the wings with coleslaw and salad. I had made sweet potato fries to go with and they were just as yum. I'm telling you if you served these at a party, no one would be the wiser. 

After playing around with a few recipes in this book, I've come to a thought. There are three types of people that would like to have it in their kitchen: newly diagnosed coeliacs searching for food, people looking to be more versatile in their cooking for coeliacs, and people who are bored with cooking the same things. 

Gearoid has some interesting passages on food, there's pages of explanations about types of foods and substitutions suitable for coeliacs, cupboard and storage tips, and explanations on coeliac disease, as well as his own story. 

This week, for Coeliac Awareness Week, we have a book to give away so you can decide for yourself! Pop over to the Facebook or Twitter and let us know what recipe you most miss for your chance to get you hands on it.. 

We expect pictures of recipes!! Normal T&C's apply and we'll announce the winner Friday!! 

"My Gluten-Free Kitchen" is retailing for €24.99. 

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