grains

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Post Script: The Good Carbs Cook Book – Dr Alan Barclay, Kate McGhie & Philippa Sandall

Good Carbs Cookbook

The Good Carbs Cook Book

Dr Alan Barclay, Kate McGhie, Philippa Sandall

Murdoch Books

ISBN: 9781743368169

 

Description:

100+ simple, delicious and satisfying recipes to keep you feeling fuller for longer.

Good carbs are essential. They supply the feel-good, taste-good fuel to keep you strong, boost your energy and help you stay healthy.

 

The Good Carbs Cookbook helps you choose the best fruits, vegetables, beans, peas, lentils, seeds, nuts and grains and explains how to use them in 100 refreshingly nourishing recipes to enjoy every day, for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner and dessert. The recipes have short ingredients lists, are easy to prepare, quick to cook, long in flavour and full of sustaining goodness, so you feel fuller for longer. There is a nutritional analysis for each recipe and there are tips and helpful hints for the novice, nervous, curious or time-starved cook.

 

 

My View:

This book celebrates the notion “Eat foods made from ingredients you can picture in their raw state or growing in nature.”(p.9 Michael Pollan) and if you adopt this principle you cannot go wrong as Dr Alan Barclay, Kate McGhie and Philippa Sandall demonstrate.

 

This book is full of useful advice, tips on cooking, storing, nutritional information on the featured ingredients and its “hero” recipes. In the introduction Barclay et al list 10 Things they “Love About Good Wholesome Carb Foods” – let me share that information with you:

  1. We love the way they power the brain.
  2. We love the way they fuel the body.
  3. We love the energy they give.
  4. We love the good stuff (vitamins and minerals) that comes with them.
  5. We love their keep-it-regular fibre habit.
  6. We love preparing meals for family and friends with them.
  7. We love traditional foods they put on a plate.
  8. We love the variety and pleasure they bring to the table.
  9. We love the way they feed the world.
  10. We love their lighter footprint on the planet.

 

 

I heartily agree with all of the points mentioned above. This book ticks all my home cooking needs and more (particularly points 6 and 8).  I can’t wait to try out some of the recipes here and to share some of the recipes with you. This book is a keeper.

 

 

 

 

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Post Script: Deliciously Ella Everyday – Ella Woodward

Deliciously Ella Every Day

Deliciously Ella Every Day

Ella Woodward

Hachette Australia

Yellow Kite

ISBN: 9781473633162

 

Description:

The new book by the record-breaking bestselling author of Deliciously Ella!

 

 

The Deliciously Ella way of eating isn’t about following a diet, it’s about enjoying delicious, natural food to help you look and feel your best. Luckily, Ella understands that nourishing your body with wholesome ingredients needs to fit in with your existing lifestyle and not feel like something difficult, which is why she has written this book – to help you make the right choice every time and start to glow from the inside out. With Deliciously Ella Every Day, her easy-to-make food will become a natural part of your life.

 

Ella’s much-awaited second book is packed with 100 more of her trademark simple yet tempting plant-based, dairy-free and gluten-free recipes. Be inspired by her quick weekday dinners, slow-cook comfort food designed to be shared, amazing colourful salads and incredible food to take with you when you’re on the go. Add to these a selection of easy yet delicious breakfast options and smoothies, an array of sweet treats and a variety of soothing drinks – and this may just be Ella’s best collection yet.

 

Featuring the top ten rules for living the Deliciously Ella way, lists to help you get organised, plus tips and tricks to help you get ahead, this is the cook book you’ve been waiting for to help you get your life and your health on track – with zero hassle.

 

 

My View:

You dont have to be a vegetarian to enjoy Ella Woodward’s recipes – variety is the key to healthy eating and Ella provides us with some colourful, tasty and easy recipes. Plant based eating has never been so simple or delicious.

 

This book is packed with healthy eating recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, snacks, smoothies, biscuits and truffles! As a very plain and boring salad maker, I love the choices this book offers. I don’t know about you but I grew up in an era where a piece of tomato, a limp lettuce leaf and some cucumber = salad; boring, unappealing and dull. This book gives me so many colourful, easy options that the word boring will never be applied to my salad making again! In particular I love the use of legumes and beans mixed into salads – making a tasty side dish or a hearty snack or the basis for a vegetarian meal. The Carrot Beetroot and Sesame Salad is easy and delicious and a favourite (and stores well in fridge for a few days), Chickpea and Squash Salad taste great (these two ingredients work so well together), Wilted Spinach and Black Bean Salad, this warm salad makes a quick vegetarian meal with the addition of quinoa or rice!

 

This book has so much to offer! (And did I mention the Chocolate Caramel Slices – the base made with almonds, pecans, dates and nut butter?)  YUM!

 

 

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Post Script: Real Delicious – Chrissy Freer

Nutrition and flavour are not sacrificed when making any of these recipes.

Real Delicious Cover

Real Delicious

Chrissy Freer

Murdoch Books

ISBN: 9781743365960

 

Description:

Whatever happened to eating real food? In a world of fasts and fads, whirlwind diets and mealtime anxiety, isn’t it time we took back the joy of eating real, whole food and enjoyed the good health, energy and glowing vitality that can go with that? We only need to look at the increasing incidence of diabetes, food intolerances, allergies and digestive irritations and disorders to see that whatever it is we’re doing to our food, it’s not agreeing with us…In Real Delicious, Chrissy Freer will show you how quick, easy, satisfying and invigorating it is to cook and eat real food. These are simply delicious recipes to share with family and friends for your whole life…Eat real, eat well and love it!

 

 

My View:

This recipe book matches my cooking/eating preferences exactly! Give me real food any day – meals made with fresh produce, made with flavour and encompassing ingredients from the wide spectrum available to us – nutrition and flavour are not sacrificed when making any of these recipes.

 

The book is helpfully divided into chapters –

Grains

Legumes

Meat and Tofu

Eggs, Seeds and Nuts

From the Vegetable Patch

From the Sea

From the Dairy

From the Orchard

 

The recipes are easy to follow and easy to make – successes are guaranteed. What I love the most aside from the helpful descriptions/discussion regarding ingredients/nutrition under each chapter and the chapter dedicated to From The Vegetable Patch (this was always going to be a favourite for me) is the design and layout of the book; beautiful images (I love to see how a finished recipe should look /be presented) and ingredients are listed in order of use in the recipe. I cannot emphasis how important this listing of ingredients is – so many times this experienced home cook has made the mistake of getting almost to the end of a recipe to discover I have missed something out /or I am out of step with the addition of the ingredients – it make so much sense to list the ingredients in the order of their use – why don’t all cook books follow this simple rule?

 

This is the book to have on your recipe shelf!