“100 Best Quick Gluten-Free Recipes”

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• Author Shares Story, Recipes Behind New Gluten-Free Cookbook

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  For more than a decade, Carol Fenster has been producing gluten-free cookbooks that help people with celiac disease make delicious meals without any wheat products.

  Her latest cookbook, “100 Best Quick Gluten-Free Recipes,” offers easy-to-make meals to help cooks get the most out of the limited time in the kitchen. The book is filled with colorful photos of the dishes that Fenster said “makes you want to lick the page.” It offers meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and she made sure to include desserts, too.

  It’s Fenster’s 12th cookbook and she started reinventing recipes more than 20 years ago out of necessity. After years of sinus problems that stumped doctors, a physician finally diagnosed her with a wheat sensitivity. Suddenly, she was tasked with completely overhauling her diet.

  “I went home and tried to find something to eat and quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be quite as easy as I thought,” said Fenster. “And that began my quest for revamping all of my own recipes so I could eat, and one recipe led to another.”

  Her previous book, “1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes,” took her three years to put together and is considered a tome for those with celiac disease. But, the compilation didn’t have time in mind.

  “We didn’t do anything in those recipes to shorten the time that we spent on preparing food and of course that’s what led to this latest book of more quick recipes,” Fenster said.

  Celiac disease is an autoimmune digestive disease that damages the small intestine’s ability to absorb nutrients from food. Essentially, the body is attacking itself every time a person with celiac consumes gluten, which is found in wheat, barley and rye. More than 2 million Americans suffer from the disease, or about 1 percent of the population, according to the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. It affects men and women across all ages and races, and it often goes undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

  Gluten-free diets have been gaining popularity even among those without celiac disease, something Fenster warns against.

  “I don’t think anyone should adopt a gluten-free diet unless there’s a good, medically solid reason to do so,” said Fenster.