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Allergy-Friendly Cookbook–Review + Giveaway

trying out black bean brownies

We have family members and friends with food allergies, so I was intrigued when I heard about Kiwi Magazine’s new cookbook, Allergy-Friendly Food For Families. The book is well-organized, with color-coding to quickly indicate which allergens each recipe avoids. The photography is beautiful, and I would expect most of the ingredients that the recipes call for to be readily available in an allergy-avoiding home. For those who are new to this style of cooking, the book includes an appendix with more information on the various ingredients. There is also an index where recipes are divided up by allergen.

We tried two recipes from the cookbook: black bean brownie bites and almost-raw chocolate cashew fudge – both gluten-free. I like chocolate (understatement), and one of my sisters can’t eat gluten and shares my love of chocolate, so these seemed like good recipes to try.

I had heard before that black bean brownies could taste good, and these are quite delicious – probably even more so to someone who has already been weaned off of the fabulous texture of brownies containing gluten. Emma is quite a fan of them (she’s eating one in the photo above). I recommend making them the day before you intend to eat them – I could definitely taste the black beans when I tried one still warm from the oven, but the flavor was gone by the next day – and Mike had no clue he was eating black beans when I offered him one at dinner (we made them right before lunch). I did find that the baking time was a little off – I took mine out of the oven after 30 minutes instead of the recipe’s recommended 40 minutes, and they were definitely thoroughly baked!

The fudge didn’t turn out quite right – the recipe didn’t specify to use unsalted cashews. I only had salted on hand, so used those, making for some very salty fudge! I had actually considered rinsing the salt off before soaking them for the recipe, and I suspect that would have yielded better results. It was interesting enough that I *may* try the recipe again. I also have at least eleven other recipes in the cookbook that I plan to attempt.

Kiwi magazine sent me a copy of this book to review, and they are offering a second copy for one of my readers with a US shipping address! To enter, just visit the cookbook’s website, and leave a comment with a recipe you would like to try! You have until the end of the day on June 19th to enter, when I will use random.org to select the lucky recipient.

This giveaway has now ended. Congratulations, Kristen!

MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.

15 thoughts on “Allergy-Friendly Cookbook–Review + Giveaway”

  1. I made black bean brownies recently for the first time and was pleasantly surprised!

    The fruity guac recipe looks delicious! Pomegranate seeds in guac! Who’da thought?

  2. Elisa | blissfulE

    I would be interested to find out more about the ingredients, particularly with gluten-free cooking. We sort of trying gluten-free, but there are a lot of things to figure out…

    1. I think you would find the cookbook interesting. The brownies have no flour of any type in them, which is pretty amazing!

  3. My son is ana to milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts and tomatoes always looking for yummy kid foods!!

  4. That Cherry Almond Breakfast Bake sounds amazing! I made black bean brownies one time and my kids did not have a clue. They came back for seconds and I finally told them they were made with black beans. They couldn’t believe it!

  5. My granddaughter is allergic to peanuts. I would love to see the recipes substituting peanuts and peanut butter.

  6. wow! that chicken pot pie with sweet potato topping looks really good! i LOVE sweet potatoes and my family loves potpie!

  7. My sister loves black bean brownies and black bean no bake cookies!
    I’ll have to check out this book…sounds like a winner!

  8. I am really lucky my kids don’t have any allergies, but I am very used to making weird food. Brownies with black beans sound great to me!

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