I love to cook, and every Friday I search through my pinterest board of what recipes I will make next week so I can create my grocery list. I'll never order my groceries online for delivery because I really enjoy going to grocery store, usually 3 of them each week. lol


Chloe Flavor: Saucy, Crispy, Spicy, Vegan
by Chloe Coscarelli

My favorite vegan chef is Chloe with her infection smile. Her previous cookbook I've written about here. She opened a new restaurant in Miami as she no longer has ownership of the restaurant in NYC that bares her name, due to a legal battle and drama last year. She bounced back and I loved this cookbook, there was so many delicious recipes in here! I'm mostly a fan of her Asian inspired dishes. Every recipe has a story to it which I enjoyed reading. She even makes goldfish crackers from scratch.







Giada's Italy: My Recipes for La Dolce Vita
by Giada De Laurentiis

Giada, now divorced and a single mom, with a restaurant in Las Vegas, moved to Italy to shoot two seasons of her cooking show. I saw her in person at a traveling cooking show when she came to town a few years ago. This book was inspired by her time in Italy gives these Italian dishes a lighter and healthier touch. She was born in Italy but grew up in the US, and said that going back home helped her to reconnect with her Italian roots. I loved reading the intro to the book that explained her love of Italian foods. While most of this book is meat based, I found a handful of pasta dishes that I enjoyed making. She also uses exotic pasta shapes like Creste Di Gallo and long fusilli that I had to buy! She has one dish that cooks the pasta in an entire bottle of Chianti which I tried. She also includes recipes for an aperol spritz slushee and chianti gelato. Her signature recipe is Lemon Spaghetti. With all the rich dishes in her book I was curious how she stays in shape and read that she gets up at 5:30am, eats lots of small plates during the day of fresh, unprocessed food, does yoga and takes 20 different pills from her acupuncturist. She has 9 cookbooks and some children's books. Her daughter is named Jade, Giada is Italian for Jade. You can catch her on the Today show often.



Related Posts:
Spiralized Vegetables
Must have cookbooks for 2016
New Vegetarian Cookbooks for 2015

Inspiralized: Turn Vegetables into Healthy, Creative, Satisfying Meals
by Ali Maffucci

Last year I noticed my Giant grocery store had Zucchini Noodles or Zoodles (now all my local groceries are carrying it) so I bought it on a whim. I have never heard of this before so I googled to find recipes for it and came across this amazing book which I borrowed from the library. It's changed the way I look at vegetables. After reading it I purchased a spiralizer. I figured it was cheaper than buying the noodles which cost $6.37 when I can just buy a zucchini and spiralize it myself which I've been doing for eight months now.

The very first zucchini noodle recipe I made was a Zucchini Noodles with Creamy Avocado Pesto. It was so delicious and then I made an Oil-free walnut pesto zucchini noodles. A friend of mine once gave me a tip to use walnuts in pesto instead of pine nuts because it's cheaper and tastes the same. It's been such a creative way to have pasta without pasta by turning zucchini into spaghetti noodles. If you're wondering, once spiralized I put the raw zoodles on the frying pan for a few minutes to soften them up. Spicy Sesame Zoodles is another great dish!

The author of the book doesn't just spiralize zucchini, she also does butternut squash, carrots, sweet potato, broccoli, and exotic vegetables like rutabaga, daikon and celeriac. She explains that "zucchini noodles are helpful for weight loss, thanks to their low calorie and carb count, and high dietary fiber content. They’re also packed with folates, which help your metabolism function properly." If you're trying to low-carb but don't want to eat salads, spiralized vegetables are a great option!  It's a way to turn vegetables into noodles and create fun new recipes with it. To me it's been a perfect way to make healthy low calorie dinners. Because let's face it spiralized veggies are just more exciting than chopped veggies! Plus it looks like a larger volume of food, takes less time to cook and are cut perfectly. Here are some of my recent dinners:




I was very skeptical about the last two dishes. Lasagna noodles made out of butternut squash, how would that taste? Surprisingly tasty and filling! I used Field Roast vegetarian apple sage sausages. This week I'm making a sweet potato noodle lasagna with kale and lentils.

 I had never had baby bok choy before so I probably over cooked it but with the carrot "rice" and tofu, it was another fulfilling meal. I've also made plantain "rice" and beet "rice". The possibilities are endless! Spiralizing vegetables has really encouraged me to try new vegetables and have fun making new creations with them. This year so far I've lost 10 lbs making the switch to spiralized vegetables for dinner. Have you tried spiralized vegetables?

I love to cook and love getting cookbooks from the library and working my way through one. Here are my must have cookbooks that came out this year and would make a wonderful gift for your friends.  When it comes to cookbooks one requirement I have is that it have lots of color pictures, I mean after all I need to see what I'm making to be enticed to make it.

Oh She Glows Every Day: Simply Satisfying Plant-Based Recipes to Keep You Glowing from the Inside Out by Angela Liddon  She makes delicious plant based recipes and I loved her previous best selling cookbook and use her app. This book has 100 recipes including a whole chapter on vegan cookies. Last week for lunch at work I made her Butternut Squash, Sweet Potato, Swiss Chart and Red Lentil Stew.

Ziggy Marley and Family Cookbook: Delicious Meals Made With Whole, Organic Ingredients from the Marley Kitchen by Ziggy Marley This book is made up of recipes Ziggy makes in his home and includes a few vegetarian recipes including a Frittata, Tofu in Coconut Curry, Date and Kale Smoothie, and  Coconut Curry Squash Soup.

Inspiralize Everything: An Apples-to-Zucchini Encyclopedia of Spiralizing by Ali Maffucci
I loved Ali's first book and now am making zucchini noodles every week. This book is not a hard cover and is in alphabetical order by vegetable name. It has great recipes like inspiralized apple muffins, vegetarian meatballs and Ginger Pear and Apple Sangria.

The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook: Entertaining for Absolutely Every Occasion
by Isa Chandra Moskowitz This is Isa's 11th cookbook. The book is over 400 pages with lots of holidays covered. There's lots of fancy, meat inspired vegan recipes in here. It's a great book to make impressive party foods.

Other favorite cookbooks:
New Vegetarian Cookbooks for 2015
Healthy Happy Vegan Kitchen Cookbook
Chloes Vegan Kitchen

Veggie Burger

Goddess Bowl

I've read a lot of cookbooks and The Forest Feast is the most beautiful one I've ever seen! I'm a visual person and if a cookbook doesn't have pictures for every recipe, I can't make the recipe. Erin, the author, lives in a cabin in the California woods and used that as inspiration for all her photos. The vibrant colored recipes are shot on slabs of wood and look more like an oversized art book rather than a cookbook. The layout and presentation are not your typical cookbook, for instance, there are no white page backgrounds. It's a vegetarian cookbook but Erin describes her cooking style as very simple and so her recipes require few ingredients and there's little directions in the book. It's more an eye candy coffee table book with whimsical sketches. Expect lots of creative ways to use vegetables and many of the recipes are seasonal. While it's the most beautiful book I've ever seen, the recipes are more geared for party planning as there are no entrees. But I found these balls really delicious, they're the perfect sweet treat! I stored mine in the freezer.

Ingredients:

½ cup peanut butter, softened

½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut 

1 TB raw honey

10 pitted dates, soaked

Directions: 
Recipe source: The Forest Feast by Erin Gleeson

  Ingredients:

2 cups filtered water

7 cups chopped spinach

1 small head of romaine lettuce

2 celery stalks

1 apple

1 ripe pear

1 banana

2 TB fresh lemon juice

½ ts bee pollen (optional) per serving

Directions: 

Goodreads was doing their annual Choice Awards for best books of 2015. In the final round of the category cookbooks the nominees included these 3 books which I'd never heard of so I checked them out of the library. All the books have a ton of color photographs which is really important to me. The first two books are vegan and while I'm not looking to become a vegan, I am always looking to reducing the amount of dairy in my meals as cheese in my weakness. I enjoyed these books because they offer clean, plant-based  recipes for preparing new exciting, flavorful meals.


Deliciously Ella : 100+ easy, healthy, and delicious plant-based, gluten-free recipes by Ella Woodward 

Ella is a food blogger who suffered from a rare disease that left her bed ridden and when medicine didn't help she changed her diet. She said, "I made a rule when I first started eating this way that I’d never serve a salad as my main dish to non-heathy eaters, as no matter how delicious and beautiful the salad is it's still salad so it may still play into their stereotype that veggie food is only about salads!" Her cookbook is filled with delicious recipes including a Coconut Thai Curry with Chickpeas, Black and Kidney Bean Chili, Lentil Bolognese, and smoothies.








But I Could Never Go Vegan!: 125 Recipes That Prove You Can Live Without Cheese, It's Not All Rabbit Food, and Your Friends Will Still Come Over for Dinner by Kristy Turner

Kristy, another food blogger, was a former "die-hard cheese nerd" turned vegan. I love how she says,"No one cares about your protein intake until you become vegan." Her book includes delicious recipes such as Lentil-Mushroom meatloaf, Tempeh bacon, Mediterranean tofu scramble, Samosa cakes, Corn fritters, Lentil Curry, Cauliflower bisque, dairy free gnocchi alla vodka, and Pea Guacamole.








The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen 

This book is full of rich dishes and is the bible of all cookbooks at 400+ pages. You'll understand why being a vegetarian does not automatically mean you will be skinny. The recipes are American classics and from all around the world. It shows pictures of how to cut different vegetables.There's tons of delicious soup recipes and 5 different chili recipes! It has 4 different veggie burger recipes. There's a chapter on tofu, which you won't see much of in the other chapters. There's another chapter on salads and one on just eggs. I think this book would really appeal to meat eaters wanting to add more meatless dishes to their menu.

I first heard about Chloe when I heard all the buzz around her new vegan restaurant in NYC that just opened this summer.  The menu is pretty small and consists of salads, burgers, two pastas and dairy free ice cream. I looked her up to see what her story was and she attended the Natural Gourmet Institute of Health and Culinary Arts school in NYC. Also completed Cornell University’s plant-based nutrition program, and she was an intern/worked at my favorite San Francisco vegan restaurant, Millennium (now closed). She was on the TV show Cupcake Wars and was the first vegan baker to win. She has several cookbooks and included the winning cupcake recipe in this one. The Ginger Nutmeg Spice Cupcakes look delicious but unfortunately with one cup of sugar I won't be making these myself.


I have only tried a few of recipes so far, but everything has turned out absolutely amazing! The color photos alone are drool worthy. My favorite was the Peanutty Perfection Noodles which is simple to make and was so tasty that I will be putting in my regular rotation. I think this cookbook will convince you that vegan cooking can really be delicious.

My favorite recipes from the book are:
Curried Lentil, Squash and Apple Stew
Minted Couscous with Arugula, Butternut Squash, and Currants (made this my lunch for a week)
Coconut Mashed Yams with Currants
Maple-Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Toasted Hazelnuts
Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Sage Butter
Peanutty Perfection Noodles
Pineapple Not-So-Fried Rice

For another vegan cookbook I enjoyed check out this post.

Lunch - Black Rice Peanut Kale Bowl

via

Recently a friend of mine had me over for a rooftop bbq where she made skewers of marinated whole wheat bread and artichokes and an eggplant recipe from the book Plenty. The book was written by Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi who has 5 restaurants in London. Although he's not a vegetarian, he's known for his amazing vegetable recipes. I picked up a copy of the book from the library and every other page is a full page color picture of a mouth watering recipe! As a garlic lover, I was immediately attracted to this Caramelized Garlic Tart. I had to go to Whole Foods to find the specific cheese and my total for all the ingredients to make this recipe was $40. I did see online someone saying she made this recipe with feta and halloumi cheese instead. I'd recommend buying a pre-made ready crust instead of fooling around with the puff pastry which proved to be a pain. Fair warning, peeling the amount of garlic needed for this recipe was rather time consuming.




Ottolenghi was on Martha Stewart's show and this link has the video and recipe. I think you'll find this recipe rich and delicious and your kitchen will smell heavenly! I haven't bought a recipe book in years as I now just find everything online, but this book has so many recipes I want to try that I'm working my way through it. So far I've also made his take on the Tuscan ribollita soup  and Caramelized fennel with goat cheese.

I read Tosca Reno's book Eat Clean Diet Stripped and am doing the plan along with my Clean Eating Stripped Challenge Group. I find it really inspiring to be doing the plan along with a group of people.

As a vegetarian I have to be mindful not to get a lot of my calories from starchy sources so I always measure rice/pasta on my food scale before cooking it and I tend to stay away from beans which are high in carbs. I also watch my dairy intake that it's not high in sugar which is easy to do with yogurt! Tosca Reno calls white sugar poison and says to stay away from it. To be honest for me that is hard, so I try to get low cal dessert options.

The key to my weight loss is to take in as much protein as possible, although the body can only process 20 grams of protein at a time according to a study by American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In case you're wondering where I get my protein from, check out this chart from Tosca's book:

I eat high protein grains like oatmeal and quinoa and add protein powder to my oatmeal to give it more protein. A word of caution, if you're using protein powder read the ingredients of everything you put in your mouth! A lot of protein powders contain chemicals, artificial sugar, and a host of other ingredients you don't want in your body. That's why I love Shakeology, it's completely natural, you can read every ingredient because it's all whole foods and no artificial sugar or chemicals.

Here are the Eat-Clean Stripped principles which I already follow:

1. Eat more! Eat 5-6 small meals each day, spaced at 2 1/2 to 3 hour intervals.
2. Eat breakfast every day, within an hour of rising.
3. Make your last meal three hours before bed.
4. Eat a combination of lean protein and complex carbohydrates at each meal.
5. Eat sufficient healthy fats every day. Chia seeds, avocado, coconut oil, nuts and nut butter.
6. Drink two to three liters of water every day. 
7. Carry a cooler packed with Clean foods each day. I bring my lunch to work everyday.
8. Depend on fresh fruits and vegetables for fiber, vitamins, nutrients and enzymes.
9. Adhere to proper portion sizes. 
10. Eat only foods that have not been overly processed or doused in chemicals, saturated and trans fats and /or toxins.

This week for lunch I made Tosca Reno's recipe "From India with Love Quinoa Pilaf" (pic below). I talked about the benefits of quinoa in this post, which by the way is gluten free. With it being summer I had to get some watermelon which tastes so refreshing mixed into my Shakeology and I've never felt so stuffed afterwards. I have to say shakeology is a life saver for me as a perfect snack option! Here's my meal plan this week on the stripped plan, I left the weekend open since I will be out a lot.
I bring my lunch to work everyday because I think that's really critical for me to maintain my goals. If I buy lunch out I'm not going to be eating clean and will be consuming too many calories. Making my lunch on Sunday for the entire week ensures that I stay on track and save money! Here's my lunch this week - Red quinoa, baby portbellas, red swiss chard, topped with 1 teaspoon of pine nuts.