Cookbook Review: The Recipe Hacker

The Recipe Hacker: 

Comfort foods without gluten, dairy, soy, grain or cane sugar

by Diana Keuilian

Front Table Books

Diana Keuilian writes the blog, RealHealthyRecipes.com. With this cookbook, she sets out to share her healthy take on classic, comfort food by recreating the recipes into healthier versions that are free of gluten, dairy, soy, grain or cane sugar. 

In the opening of the book, she explains that when you eliminate these ingredients from your recipes, you must fill in the gaps with healthier alternatives. Her favorite substitutions are flax meal, coconut flour, blanched almond flour, almond meal, coconut palm sugar, pure maple syrup, raw honey, coconut milk, and coconut oil.

This cookbook has five chapters which cover every meal of the day:

• Breakfasts - Recipes for pancakes, waffles, and other baked goods along with hot cereal and egg recipes. Since I enjoy making homemade sausage patties, my favorite recipe in this chapter was Roasted Pepper Sausage
• Appetizers - Vegetables appetizers, meatballs, pulled pork sliders, and dips
• Main Dishes - Several pizza recipes featuring homemade pizza crust, numerous fish, chicken, beef, and pork recipes
• Sides - A recipe for cauliflower rice that is featured in different "rice" dishes, numerous recipes for breads including tortillas, cornbread, flatbreads and biscuits just to name a few, vegetable dishes, and sauces
• Desserts - The final chapter covers all of your favorite desserts - cakes, pies, cookies, and brownies

If you have decided to eliminate ingredients such as gluten, dairy, soy, grain or cane sugar from your life, you may want to investigate this cookbook to get ideas of foods you can continue to enjoy with just a few substitutions of ingredients.

Disclaimer: The publisher provided me with a copy of this cookbook; however, the opinion expressed here is my own.