Best of Grain Free Meal Plans, Volume 1: A cookbook for those following grain free diets by Cara A. Faus
Recently I put the rest of my family on a grain-free diet due to my daughter's losing battle with eczema so I was excited to get a look at Cara's new cookbook, Best of Grain Free Meal Plans. I have seen and even tried a few of her recipes on her blog so I knew this book would be full of yummy things to make.
This 78 page cookbook is full of recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, dessert, cultured foods, and staple foods. She even includes tips on sourcing good foods and recommended equipment. The cookbook is also indexed to help you find what you are looking for.
We tried a few recipes over a week to test how easy they were to cook, if my family would like them and if we would make them again. My recipe testers were my children ages 14, 12, and 10 who help with the daily cooking and the whole family acted as taste testers.
The first recipe we tried was Burrito Bowls which you can see below. It was easy to cook and tasted great. My family loved this simple dinner in a bowl and we will be adding this to our menu a few times a month from now on. When you are craving a taco or burrito this should hit the spot without the grains.
Here is our chef of the day rating the recipe and taste. He gave it two thumbs up because it was easy to make and tasted great.
Next up to test were the Banana Pancakes which we decided to use as dinner instead of breakfast. My 14 year old was the chef that night and changed the method of making them a little bit but they still came out great. The children liked them so much that they made them again the next day for breakfast.
I forgot to take pics of the next meal we made. I decided to use three recipes to make one meal. Our menu that night was Butternut Squash Soup, Onion Muffins, and Pea Salad. The muffins were too oniony. I think we may have used too much onion. The recipe called for two small onions so maybe we used medium? The butternut squash soup had a good flavor and the children liked the pea salad.
We also tried two dessert recipes. One was the Butter Cookies which were a big hit and the other was the Hootenanny Pancakes which we turned into another dinner and everyone loved. My parents were visiting the night we had the pancakes and were surprised at how filling they were. They also thought they tasted great.
I have a few more recipes picked out to try in the future. So far, our experience with this cook book has been mostly positive. We really only had one recipe flop. The flavors were good, the recipes creative, and overall it was full of new meal ideas for us to add to our menu. I highly suggest you check this cookbook out if you are looking for a grain free cookbook. We have been cooking grain free for years but I still found many new ideas for meals and lots of tricks(such as making pancake syrup) to try.
To purchase visit Amazon.com
Best of Grain Free Meal Plans Volume 1
on sale for $12.96(list price $18.00)
