Healthy Cookbooks | Holiday Gift Guide

Healthy cookbooks can make great gifts for the healthy cook on your list, but there are a lot of them to choose from. Here are some of my favorite real food cookbooks, with options for the beginner and the intermediate/advanced real food cook.

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100 Days of Real Food Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone Local Flavors Nourished Kitchen Home Grown Paleo Fermented Vegetables

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Moosewood Restaurant New Classics Cookbook Review

As promised, I've been cooking up a storm and have my first cookbook review for y'all! This one is for the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook, one of many published by this vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, New York.

The Pros

This cookbook offers a wide variety of recipes (350 total) from the basic to the exotic as well as many international-inspired dishes. It's a great resource for anyone who is vegetarian, enjoys meatless recipes, or is interested in exploring this way of cooking. All of the recipes I tried were quite tasty and I'll keep many of them in regular rotation from now on.

The Cons

Many of the recipes are quite involved and require a lot of prep work. For me, as someone who enjoys cooking, this isn't a problem. But, it's definitely not a quick, 30 minutes or under kind of cookbook. You'll want to save these recipes for when you have a little more time.  Also, most recipes that call for flour use white flour and even the whole wheat recipes use some white flour too. In my opinion, this is completely unnecessary as whole wheat flour can easily be substituted for white. Lastly, most of the recipes dirty a lot of dishes, making clean-up (my least-favorite part), a pain.

Overall, this is a great vegetarian cookbook with a wide range of recipes that I will turn to again and again. However, it's not the best for quick, no fuss recipes and they use white flour when whole wheat could easily be swapped in.

New Cookbooks!

I love a good cookbook. Besides being full of delicious recipes, they can also provide inspiration and promote the addition of new techniques and skills to one's repertoire. With that said, I received some wonderful cookbooks (along with lots of other foodie gifts) as Christmas and birthday presents. Below I've listed three that I think would be good additions to anyone's shelf, but also fill niches that can be difficult to address. I'm going to post a review of each after I get a chance to cook through them a bit. I'll try to work though one at a time, but they all look so amazing I might have to skip around just a little bit.

1. Moosewood Restaurant New Classics

This is one of twelve cookbooks from the Moosewood restaurant, located in Ithaca, New York.  Established in 1973, they have been leaders in vegetarian cuisine, taking inspiration from familiar favorites as well as international dishes. With a menu that is always changing, they have an extensive collection of recipes at their finger tips. The recipes in each book are tested not only in their kitchens, but in the restaurant itself, ensuring only the best make the cut. Whether you are a strict vegetarian or just looking for new nutritious and delicious recipes, this book is for you.

2. Super Natural Every Day by Heidi Swanson

Heidi Swanson is the author of one of the most popular food blogs, 101 Cookbooks  (a great recipe resource). In this, her second cookbook, she presents some of her favorite recipes that she uses again and again in her everyday life. Besides being vegetarian, her recipes emphasize a natural, whole-foods approach with delectable results. If you want a little taste, the book's website includes a sample of 6 recipes from the book that you can download for free (just click the picture above).

3. The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa by Marcus Samuelsson

Ever since going to a local Ethiopian restaurant I've been on the hunt for a good Ethiopian/African cookbook. I'm hoping this will be the one. Written by Marcus Samuelsson, a revered chef of Ethiopian descent, this cookbook not only features authentic and African-inspired recipes, but also includes beautiful photos of food and people. It could seriously sit on your coffee table with no questions asked.

Do any of these sound like the cookbook you've been looking for? Is there a favorite cookbook you turn to again and again? Let me know in the comments below!