edible reads
READ WELL, BE WELL
Culinary guides to inspire healthy eating.
WRITTEN BY CLAIRE CUDAHY
PHOTOS COURTESY OF PUBLISHERS
We have good news: Eating healthy doesn’t mean you have to be pro kale in the great cruciferous vegetable debate. It also doesn’t require you to eat bland food. Whether you’re well acquainted with tofu or you’ve never heard of kombucha, this roundup of wellness-focused cookbooks will provide inspiration to all home cooks looking to eat more healthful (and flavorful) meals.
Everyday Super Food
Written by Jamie Oliver, $15 – $20
In recent years, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been fighting a crusade against unhealthy school lunches and sugar-filled sodas while promoting home-cooked meals over processed fast food. Nearing his 40th birthday, Oliver decided to take stock of his own diet — and what he found inspired him to write Everyday Super Food. The cookbook features 30 nutrient-packed and affordable breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, including raspberry-stuffed French toast with pistachios, yogurt, honey, and cinnamon, and the Moroccan layered salad designed to fit inside a Mason jar.
The Spiralizer Cookbook 2.0
Published by the Williams-Sonoma Test Kitchen, $10 – $13
If you don’t own a spiralizer, then stop what you’re doing right now and get to the store. The Spiralizer Cookbook highlights 20 recipes made with spiralized — and sometimes unexpected — fruits and vegetables. The cookbook highlights dishes such as baked eggs with zucchini, apple cabbage salad with bacon and candied walnuts, Thai cucumber salad with flank steak, and fresh parsnip pasta primavera.
Real Food Heals
Written by Seamus Mullen and Genevieve Ko, $22 – $25
New York City chef and restaurateur Seamus Mullen suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, which back in 2012 led to complications and a near-death experience. After leaving the hospital, the award-winning chef decided to make a change and fight his chronic inflammation with food. Mullen began focusing on gut-friendly, paleo-inspired meals that limit sugar and carbs and are made with fresh produce, good fats, protein, and whole grains — the basis for Real Food Heals. The book contains 125 recipes — including kefir scrambled eggs with grated garlic and nori rolls with olive oil, tuna, avocado, and sprouts — and a 21-day meal plan to jumpstart healthy eating.
Food52 Mighty Salads
Written by editors of Food52, $14 – $16
Food52 transforms salads into one-dish meals stacked with vegetables, grains, meats, seafood, pasta, and bread. Think radicchio and shrimp tossed in a warm bacon vinaigrette, grilled lamb kebabs over a tomato-cucumber salad, and roasted grapes and butternut squash atop a massaged kale salad. “You’ll find salads with parts that are roasted, toasted, frittered, fried, slivered, shaved, marinated, wilted, charred and crisped, and so on,” editor Ali Slagle writes. “It’s salad at its fullest potential.”
The Yoga Kitchen
Written by Kimberly Parsons, $14 – $17
The Yoga Kitchen is for cooks who want to balance their minds and energize their bodies through nutritious vegetarian, gluten-free meals. With seven chapters based on the ancient yoga chakra system, holistic chef and yogi Kimberly Parsons provides recipes ranging from cacao tahini energy balls and chocolate beetroot wraps to za’atar green cabbage crisps and clementine, cucumber, and avocado ceviche with pink quinoa.
Kombucha, Kefir, and Beyond
Written by Alex Lewin and Raquel Guajardo, $13 – $17
Fermented foods are lauded for their health benefits; they improve digestion and strengthen the immune system. Kombucha, Kefir, and Beyond schools readers on the history and science of fermentation before providing instruction on how to make a mother starter and use it to brew kombucha, kefir, root beer, wine, and more. The cookbook explains for brewing beginners why the recipes are safe and what to do if they go wrong.
Claire Cudahy is a Zephyr Cove-based writer whose idea of a good time is sampling olive oil, touring farms, and learning how to make pasta. If she’s not daydreaming about how to get a goat cheese creamery off the ground, she’s probably out hiking around Lake Tahoe. You can reach her at Clairecudahy@gmail.com.
