Linda Marienhoff Coss Libri

A “classic” in the world of food allergy cooking, “What’s to Eat? The Milk-Free, Egg-Free, Nut-Free Food Allergy Cookbook” is a comprehensive cookbook for anyone who must eliminate milk products, eggs, peanuts and tree nuts from their diets. The book is packed with over 145 kitchen-tested recipes for everything from soups and salads to main courses, side dishes, breakfast foods and baked goods – all completely dairy-, egg- and nut-free, and most using ingredients that you can find at your local supermarket. Here are recipes that can be enjoyed by everyone, whether they suffer from food allergies or not. These recipes are irresistibly good – the entire family will enjoy them, and guests will not believe they’re being served “special diet” foods. “What’s to Eat?” also includes suggestions for complete menus, and a guide to help you determine if an ingredient is “safe” to use. As an added bonus, all 45 of the baked goods recipes in this book are also completely cholesterol-free and Kosher Pareve. If you don’t want to feel “restricted” by a restricted diet, “What’s To Eat?” will help simplify the difficult task of managing multiple food allergies. Sections Tables of Contents & Recipe List, Introduction, Ingredients, Basic Recipe Information, Soups & Salads, Beef, Poultry, Fish, Pasta, Potatoes, Rice, Vegetables, Miscellaneous, Quick Breads & Breakfast Foods, Cakes, Cookies, Other Desserts, Menu Ideas, and Glossary.

Coss (How To Manage Your Child's Life-Threatening Food Allergies), a mother of children with food allergies, has written her second book on the topic, to address the issues of how to cook without dairy, eggs, or nuts. However, a large proportion of the approximately 120 recipes in this slim volume are for dishes that would not normally contain these basic ingredients anyway (i.e., Chicken Marsala, Roasted Asparagus, etc.). While these items do indeed meet the criteria, they can also be found in a great many other sources. The book does include some introductory information on dealing with food allergies, such as the importance of avoiding cross-contamination in the kitchen, reading package ingredients lists very carefully, and a short list of resources. The most useful chapters are those on baking, which include recipes for cookies, cakes, and quick breads made without eggs, milk, or nuts. A lack of illustrations and no real explanations on how or what to substitute for these allergens make this work less informative and less useful than it would be otherwise. An optional purchase.