by Tosca Reno
When I was approached to review this cookbook, I was hopeful. Let me say this: I HATE the word DIET! I have an obsession with food, calories and feeling guilty when I splurge, so the word DIET makes me feel like someone is going to pry the wine glass out of my hand and feed be bean sprouts and carrots. But the CLEAN part made me hopeful.
The book arrives, right on the day I need to plan the next 2 weeks of meals. And yes, I plan my meals out at least 2 weeks in advance. Its part of the obsession-thing I have going. Plus, I can move meals around for sales, since I am cheap, as well as obsessive. At this point I must not be painting a very good picture of myself.
The first meal I tried was the seafood gumbo. Why, because my kids will actually eat gumbo thanks to Princess and the Frog. And shrimp was on sale. I loved that the ingredients were “clean”, the calories were low, yet I still got to use a roux. A roux is thickening agent made of flour and a fat, such as olive oil or butter. The Chef loved it, I loved it and it was gone before lunch the next day. The only change I made to the recipe was giving it more heat.
The second meal was the couscous salad. The use of pistachios, sweet potato, and vinegar/orange juice infused dried cherries/currants was a nice balance. I am finishing it off for lunch today. I have more planned this week and will probably make my way through the book by the time summer ends.
The book itself has recipes for breakfast, brunch, soups, grains and legumes, sauces and salsa, on-dish easy meals, vegetarian meals, lunch outside the lunchbox, proteins, salads, vegetables, sweets and breads. Obviously there is something for everyone. There were recipes for seafood, venison, chicken, salads, and gazpacho.
The recipes are easy to follow, and written in short, simple steps. The photography is amazing.
My ranking: I would give 4.5 out of 5 stars (keeping in mind that no book has ever gotten 5 stars). I would suggest this book to my mother. Only one other book has been suggested to mom….and was written by a beautiful, skinny blond too. Maybe I should go blond????
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