Customer Reviews

Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source with More Than 200 Recipes for a Healthy and Sustainable You

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source with More than 200 Recipes for a Healthy and Sustainable You is a winner!

I am not a vegetarian or vegan, but I eat only whole foods and little meat (and only from animals that have been allowed to freely roam.)However, I am always searching for flavorful meat-free dishes--and this book is loaded with them!

There are lots of exciting ingredients that interest me, an experienced cook and former caterer. I love the layout of the book with one recipe per page in attractive but easy to read graphics. Beautifully done!

I also love the seasonal approach to cooking. I have been cooking seasonally for quite awhile now, and there is something that just feels so good about going to my local farmer's market, and buying and preparing that food.

Last night I prepared quinoa and black bean salad with apricot lime vinaigrette and it was delicious and flavorful, as well as easy to make.

Highly recommend!

Author of Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify & Energize Your Life, Your Home & Your Planet.

I am a busy yoga studio owner and mother of three vegetarian children ranging in age from 13 to 2. I am always on the lookout for easy to make, simple and wholesome recipes that we will all eat. This cookbook never lets me down.

Clean Food seems to magically provide healthy and yummy recipes to prepare with ingredients on hand. I also am able to pick up any unusual or tempting vegetable in season from my local farmer's market and Clean Food will offer an easy way to prepare it. If I need a potluck dish for a party, this is the cookbook I turn to for something delicious, healthy and sure to please. Kale Tofu Lasagna is my personal favorite recipe to make right now. Last week I served it at a party with a lot of teenagers and it was gone before I got the salad on the table.

I love the way this book is laid out according to the seasons. With fall on the way, I am looking forward to Roasted Kobacha Squash with Cremini Mushrooms and Fresh Herbs. Before I owned Clean Food, I would never have purchased Kobacha because I had no idea how simple and yummy it is. Now I absolutely love to prepare our New England squashes and root vegetables that are in abundance. Before I purchased Clean Food I also knew that I should eat a wide variety of grains,root vegetables and greens but I did not because I did not understand how easy they were to prepare or how delicious they could be. This book changed all that and I feel that I am a healthier person because of it. I now love cooking and feel that the food I prepare aligns with the way I want to feel and be.

For a book that is strongly rooted in eating "clean foods" that are fresh and in season (this book is organized according to the four seasons, after all), I would not expect to see a recipe like, "Roasted Squash with Fennel and Asparagus" in the Fall season. Yes, I do buy produce when it's out of season, but I purchased this book specifically to eat more local, fresh produce.

Also, like another reviewer mentioned, the bulk of the protein sources use in this book are tofu, tempeh, etc. She doesn't work a lot with lentils, beans, or other more unprocessed forms of protein. That was a personal downfall for me since I don't like to get all of my protein from soy.

For me, this felt like a book that was very strong in soups and side dishes but terribly weak for main course recipes. It's a book that will inevitably collect dust on the bookshelf. I could see where others with a strong interest in new vegan side dishes and/or cooking with sea vegetables might have a special place for this though.

As a non-vegan, picking up and thumbing through a cookbook that doesn't include beef, pork, chicken or lamb isn't exactly an avid pastime for me. As a generally picky eater, I often find that cookbooks are filled with exotic (and complicated) recipes that try too hard to be unique - kind of like those weird outfits that you sometimes see from fashion designers.

So, in thumbing through the recipes in this book, I was actually amazed to find so many different recipes where I noted "I'd eat that" or "Now that looks interesting". And the simplicity of so many of the recipes makes it much more likely I'll use this book than use it as a paperweight or dust collector. I would like to have seen more recipes that complement other entrée choices to my personal choices but can adapt a number of recipes to suit personal preferences.

I particularly liked the salads and dressings which might suffice as a meal on a hot Arizona evening, but also compliment a non-vegan main course. And although I am not a big desert eater, there are a number of recipes that I'm dying to try.

The organization of the book by season was an interesting approach instead of the old appetizer, salads, soups, entrees, deserts organization you'll see. I found the author's notes to be warm, friendly and family-focused without being preachy like you see in so many other new age cookbooks. Given the simple goodness of the recipes, the lack of photos in no way reduces detracts from this book.

A great book for even those of us with a different tastes!

This book is not what it purports to be: healthy, seasonal, local food. I wasn't aware that sea vegetables (kombu, nori, kelp, etc.) are local foods. If you don't like kombu, you're out of luck, it's in practically everything. If you're a new macro adherent or a dabbler, this book may be just what you need, since Terry offers a lot of helpful hints on prepping legumes, substituting and making the cook's life easier. The tone may be a tad obnoxious and patronizing, but the advice is solid. If you are a seasoned vegan or vegetarian and are looking for a change of pace, this is not the book for you. The recipes are so-so and the spice combinations and taste layers are pedestrian and more miss than hit. Adding kelp to smoothies is just putrid to me! I would recommend taking this book out from your local library, scanning or copying the recipes you think you'd like to try and buying someone else's books. Lorna Sass, for example; her "Chickpea Curry in a Hurry," "Tempeh Adobo or Italiano" and "Grand Marnier Sauce" to name just a few, are in a class by themselves.

I have been using this cookbook almost every day since the day I bought it. We are not vegetarians or vegans, even though this book seems to be for that type of diet. However, we do enjoy eating "clean". Out of the 20 or so recipes I have made, there has only be one that none of us (including our 16 year old daughter) would eat - the rutabaga puree. I think that's because we do not have a fondness for rutabagas.

The cookbook is very easy to follow. The recipes are relatively quick and simple, and I really enjoy how it's broken down into seasons! Even though there are a few "unusual" ingredients (like mirin, kombu, and ume vinegar), I don't feel that they are a waste (meaning you buy it, use it once, and lose it on the back shelf for numerous years). The ingredients are used many times throughout the book and can easily be found at your local health food store or Whole Foods Market.

I would HIGHLY recommend this book to everyone! The only 3 warnings I have: 1. You (or the cook in your family) will spend numerous hours looking through the book and cooking the wonderful recipes (not that they take that long to make (they're actually very quick recipes), but because you'll get so excited you'll want to make as many recipes as you can in one day); 2. You'll have a hard time going out to restaurants after eating these meals; 3. Your grocery bill will increase significantly (however, you will save money NOT going out to eat).

I hope this review influences you to purchase this book for yourself and all of your friends! It's money well spent![...]

I passed by this cookbook a number of times, as the minimalist book design didn't jump off the shelf for me--and I didn't know it was vegan. The irony is that for years I have been looking for a cookbook just like this, as Walters has the same priorities I do. I wanted a big workhorse cookbook that was 1)vegan 2)seasonal 3)contained relatively simple recipes with not a lot of ingredients 4)was current on nutritional research and knowledge. And yes, delicious!

I'm not a strict vegan, but I notice I feel a lot better when I do eat vegan. I don't know where the other reviewer got the idea that Walters was preachy about veganism--quite the reverse. There's no polemic here at all, and in fact she says she prefers to avoid labels for the same reason I do. I live with non-vegans and really the only thing you have to do to please them is put some cheese on top or grill them some fish or bison once in a while. The fact is, a healthy omnivore diet and a healthy vegan diet look pretty much the same--lots of fresh produce, whole grains, nuts, seeds, etc. The difference is that an omni diet adds a garnish of animal food. Not a big deal for us.

I love that the book is organized in a seasonal way. I frequent our local farmer's market and want to support local agriculture, but a lot of books geared for locavores are animal ingredient intensive. I also believe eating seasonally is better for my health and my money.

I very much appreciate that the recipes are rather simple and quick, even though they are not billed as such. These are recipes I can make everyday in my kitchen. Most don't require a lot of ingredients. As for exotic ingredients, well, as someone who has been reading cookbooks as a hobby for 20 years, there are cookbooks that are twenty times worse than this one. So far I haven't had to go far afield of my normal Martin's grocery store. Martin's is a good grocery store, but it doesn't have everything that a Whole Foods or the like would have. I also live in a small college town in the south, so you don't have to live in San Francisco or Portland to enjoy these recipes.

Walters also knows her nutritional stuff, and she will tell you in clear language why you need more Omega fatty acids and why you should stick to organic non-GMO soy. There's a lot of nutty nutritional propaganda out there, like from the soy-is-poison crowd, but Walters steers elegantly around the muck pile and just gives the straight info.

All the recipes I've tried so far are excellent and make me and my fiance feel vitalized. I have to wonder at the other reviewer who complained about the recipes not tasting good. My first thought is that this is a person who would be happier with Taste-of-Home's Guilt-Free-Cooking (which in fact is so loaded with unhealthy ingredients it would make *me* feel guilty). Sure, everyone's taste buds are individual, but I would hope that even people with more conventional tastes would give these recipes a fair shake. Tastes can change and be educated if given a chance--sorry if that sounds snobby, but sometimes healthy food takes getting used to if you're not used to it. It can be done.

My only criticism is that I wish the cookbook contained a nutritional analysis for the recipes. That would have made it perfect in my view. I know some people are anti-analysis because they can't be exact given the variables in cooking--but I really would like a general idea of calories, fat, fiber. Also, some people love the "clean" cover design, but I'm a visual person and would always like more color photos of nummy food.

Again, I see this cookbook being my day-to-day reference. I'll still keep Tal Ronnen's The Conscious Cook and Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's Vegan Table for when I want to make something special, or Robin Robertson's Vegan Planet for more inspiration. But I see Clean Food as the cookbook I have hoped to find for years that will keep me healthy and simplify my life. I'm very happy with my purchase!

I love this cookbook! As a nutrition and lifestyle coach, I purchase many cookbooks for my personal and professional use. I own well over a couple hundred books. This cookbook is broken down into seasonal eating recipes so the ingredients used are in season and at their peak of freshness, taste and nutritional value. Each recipe I have made and I have made several, are easy to prepare and tasty...definitely go to recipes again and again. I own several copies of this book so I can loan it out to clients and they have purchased copies for themselves. A great book to add to your collection or if you don't have many cookbooks, you're sure to use this one. Several GF(Gluten Free) friendly recipes.
Enjoy,
[...].

I'm not a great cook and I'm new to eating vegetarian. But the recipes in this book are so simple and good that I can't wait to try another one. Next week it's the Kale Tofu Lasagna with crimini mushrooms and a Sweet Potato Pie! The Three Sisters vegetable pie recipe was so delicious that one morning I ate it for breakfast. You can only find some of the ingredients in a specialty store but she uses them over and over in different recipes so you're not wasting anything. What I also love about this book is that it's divided into seasons -- I can never remember which fruits and vegetables are "in" when -- so you know what you can actually find in the produce department. I would buy this for anyone!

I absolutely love this book. I've often found vegan recipes a bit blah, but the ones I've made from Clean Food combine different and sometimes unexpected flavors. I also like that attention that is paid to people, like me, who need to avoid gluten, and the recipes for the most part are simple and easy to make. I've only found one thing so far that I didn't care for (Spiced Kukicha Iced Tea), but my family loves the Baked Maple Mustard Tempeh, and I had a guest that ate their way through half a batch of the Teff Ginger Molasses cookies.

The only real drawback is that the book is very hard to keep open when you're making something because it's so tightly bound.