Tuesday, July 14, 2015

A Modern Way to Eat, a review


I'm not a vegetarian but I do include a lot of non-meat based meals in my menus.  So I was very interested to peruse this cookbook, especially when it comes highly recommended by Jamie Oliver.

The author, Anna Jones, worked with and was trained by Oliver in in London so his fresh and sustainable take on food is throughout this book.  But his former student can stand as an excellent chef and cookbook writer on her own.  This is one great cookbook.  She provides not only over 200 recipes but teaches readers as she goes along.

I admit that about half the recipes are not the kind I will make at home in an American kitchen and not being vegan or vegetarian.  However, there are lots and lots of recipes using fresh ingredients and grains that tempt me into the kitchen right away.  Not to mention the desserts. 

I think my favorite sections are scattered throughout the book where the author shows us building blocks of various aspects of cooking.  For instance, the first two-page spread shows how she puts a recipe together. 

Another two-page spread shows the building blocks for assembling a great salad.  Yet another shows the building blocks of putting together various soups.  The section on assembling various kinds of pesto provided ideas I'd never thought of beyond basil.

With information like this, any cook will have a mix and match set of ideas to take to the farmer's market or peruse the pantry and put dinner on the table.

This is a thick book but the height and width are not too large that it takes up a lot of space on the kitchen counter while cooking.  While a photo does not accompany every recipe, there are plenty throughout the book that one can get quite hungry just perusing the pictures. 

I highly recommend this cookbook for anyone wanting to eat healthier meals that taste good.  If you want a how-to book with beautiful photos and yummy recipes, this cookbook is the one you have been looking for.

This book was provided by Blogging For Books but the opinion is my own.

Further information can be found at Amazon.com... here.*

*Most links to Amazon.com are Associate links.

3 comments:

Deanna Rabe - Creekside Cottage Blog said...

I am not a cookbook buyer but this sounds great. I like the fact that she shares building blocks of recipes, salads, soups. That would be valuable information!

Deanna

Deb J. in Utah said...

We are trying to eat better and have more meatless meals, so I am going to look for this book. Sounds like one I need. Thanks!

Karen Andreola said...

I find vegetarian cookbooks to be very good for helping us include more interesting veggies in our meals and larger quantities of them. Like you I can become "quite hungry just perusing the pictures" but this is sometimes what it takes to get me to try a new dish.