Sweet and Sugar Free: An All Natural Fruit-Sweetened Dessert Cookbook Review

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(More customer reviews)"A Reader" from 1998 is reviewing the wrong book. "Sweet and Sugar Free" by Karen E. Barkie, does not contain any recipes calling for date flour. The book "A Reader" is referring to is called "Cook With Me SUGAR FREE" by Sharon D. Gerstenzang. It is also available here at Amazon, and is an excellent book.
This book, "Sweet & Sugar Free" by Karen E. Barkie, is also an excellent book. The recipes are not as simple as your recipes calling for 2 eggs, 2 cups of sugar and 2 cups of flour. When cooking with fruits and fruit juices, you need slighly different techniques to come up with a tasty finished product. That said, the techniques are explained in detail and after making a few of them, you really feel confident enough to try to alter some of your own recipes, to make them with fruit juices instead of sugar or honey.
Karen Barkie's recipes are reliable. The baked goods have a nice texture, a sweet flavor, and are family-friendly. After learning and experimenting with fruit-sweetened recipes and techniques, the recipes become quite easy. If you are avoiding artificial sweeteners or sugar, honey and other sweeteners that send your insulin soaring, these recipes will really hit the spot. They taste good, feel good in your mouth, satisfy the kids, and are relatively inexpensive easy to prepare.

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At last there's a way to have your cake without the calories and harmful effects of sugar, honey and artificial sweeteners.Karen Barkie has created over 200 imaginative and easy-to-follow recipes for cakes, pies, cookies, breads, sherberts, custard, and much more, sweetened with a variety of fruit and fruit juices--and without one spoonful of sugar!Luscious pinepple cream pie, easy-to-make apple raisin bars, and peach cheesecake are but a few of the delectable--and wholesome--treats in Sweet and Sugarfree.Complete with charts listing caloric and nutritional values, tips on baking with a dozen different flours, and instructions for creating hundreds of toppings and fruit combinations, Sweet and Sugarfree is a delicious contribution to the better health of us all.

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Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Time-Honored Ways are the Best - Over 700 Recipes Show You Why Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is an amazing tome of culinary secrets that I've been in love with ever since it arrived. First of all, the quality of the book itself is top notch. It's a rough textured hardback sans paper flap cover. Darina Allen is drawing comparisons to Julia Child, and that marketing pitch seems to have translated into the layout of the pages. They are glossy and in the exact style of every cookbook of Julia's that I own. It reminds me in particular of The Way to Cook, Julia's master class, which was uncustomarily accompanied with ample photos.
Admittedly, there are things in Forgotten Skills that I'll never venture to try, such as the tripe on page 184, or the brawn on page 320. I'm not exactly tempted by the recipe for beef dripping on toast on page 177. But there are plenty of examples of recipes that are staples in many of our kitchens, reimagined from a fresh, farmy (to invent an adjective) perspective, such as beef stew (pp. 163), quiche Lorraine (pp. 250), and a delicious bacon and cheddar cheese strata that you absolutely must try (pp. 579). It seems like we've skipped spring altogether this year and headed straight into summer. In this current heat, I can't wait to try the recipe for Ballymaloe vanilla ice cream (no ice cream maker required!) on page 207. The simplicity reminds me of how my grandmother used to wait for a second snow, and then set out a large metal bowl to collect enough flakes to add in condensed milk, and, voila!, delicious ice cream.
Don't be discouraged by the opening chapter, which addresses various edible flowers, herbs, and weeds that you can scavenge and prepare in various dishes. Those recipes set the tone for the rest of the book, but in no way define it. In fact, if I had to try to sum up the essence of this book, I'd go back to the comparison to Julia Child's The Way to Cook. Julia's book was meant as a step-by-step class for the uninitiated to the steps of traditional French cooking. Ms. Allen's book is rather a guide to the traditional country cooking of Ireland, often with hints of the global culinary influence of France, Italy, and even the United States (she has a delectable recipe for American-style short ribs on page 165). And then there are the traditional recipes like calves' liver with caramelized onions on page 183 that put me in mind of my grandmother's kitchen.
A great deal of these recipes and skills are indeed forgotten legacies of the Old World, but the majority are at least relatively current and adapted for modern kitchens. Scattered throughout are notes on farming, slaughtering livestock (a note from Ms. Allen: don't bend the chicken's neck back too far, lest you pull off the head!), instructions for making everything from homemade butter to sausage, and natural cleaning agents for around the house. Ms. Allen's book will no doubt be an indispensable source of inspiration and reference for my culinary adventures. Also, the Amazon price is a steal. Highly recommended!

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In this timely new book, Darina reconnects you with the cooking skills that missed a generation or two. The book is divided into chapters such as "Dairy," "Poultry and Eggs," "Bread," and "Preserving," and forgotten processes such as smoking mackerel, curing bacon, and making yogurt and butter are explained in the simplest terms. The delicious recipes show you how to use your homemade bounty to its best, and include ideas for using forgotten cuts of meat, baking bread and cakes, and even eating food from the wild. The "Vegetables and Herbs" chapter is stuffed with growing tips to satisfy even those with the smallest garden plot or window box, and there are plenty of suggestions for using gluts of vegetables. You'll even discover how to keep a few chickens in your backyard. With over 700 recipes, this is the definitive modern guide to traditional cooking skills.

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