After learning of her son’s intolerance to gluten and dairy, Silvana Nardone set out to “blur the lines between gluten-free and gluten-full”. Like every other mother of a child with food intolerances, she did not want for her child to long for something that he could not eat. She wanted Isaiah to stop thinking about the fact that the food she was serving was gluten-free and dairy-free and instead “ experience firsthand that removing gluten from a recipe could mean that food could taste and look just as good, if not better than it’s conventional counterpart”. Cooking for Isaiah: Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free is filled with not just child-friendly recipes, but recipes your whole family will enjoy.
My intention was to try a couple of recipes from each section before sharing my review. Once my kids started flipping through the book, I feared that I would never make it out of the Breakfast section. Their first request? Chocolate-Dipped Chocolate Donuts: 
My daughter had not had a doughnut in almost 3 years and these were everything that she missed in a doughnut. I can not wait to make waffle cones for her, so she can finally eat an ice-cream cone!
Nardone realizes that children with newly diagnosed food intolerances want to eat food that looks and tastes like regular food and for the most part she strives to deliver just that. However, her deviations from normal are as creative as they are delicious. She serves Sloppy Joe’s in potato skins, includes a recipe for making Belgian Waffles with hash browns, and uses savory waffles to make sandwiches.
Cooking for Isaiah includes many recipes that are naturally gluten-free and/or dairy-free. Rosemary-Garlic Potato Cake, Pumpkin Pie-Spiced Cider-Glazed Roasted Carrots, and Spinach and Roasted Vegetable Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette are easy to make, delicious, and do not require a trip to a specialty store for ingredients. For the recipes that require a flour substitute, Nardone provides recipes for flour mixes. Her All-Purpose Flour Blend makes about 4 pounds and her Pancake Mix makes about 2 1/2 pounds. The flour mixes simplify the baking process allowing you to focus on preparing food your family will love rather than finding the right combination of gluten-free flours.
Many of the recipes are accompanied with photographs, which I personally find helpful; I want to know what the finished product is supposed to look like. The descriptive recipe titles give you a good sense of the flavors in the recipe, though “Chicken Rice Tetrazzini with Mushroom Gravy and Mustard Crumbs” does not exactly roll off the tongue when your kids ask what is for dinner. My only complaint with this cookbook is that it does not include a cracker recipe. Hopefully, Nardone will correct this oversight in her next cookbook!
My family knew that I was sent a free copy of Cooking for Isaiah to review and thoroughly enjoyed their job as taste testers. However, I knew the cookbook was a real hit when my daughter asked me if I got to keep the book after I was done with the review. Cooking for Isaiah will be released on August 26th, but is available for preorder at any major book store.
Is there a gluten-full or dairy-full food that you (or your child) had to give up that you still miss? This book has addressed the top two on my daughter’s list: doughnuts and ice-cream cones.
To read more gluten-free related articles, visit Gluten-Free Wednesdays at The Gluten-Free Homemaker.
Photo Credit: Stephen Scott Gross
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