Customer Reviews

The Healthy Hedonist: More Than 200 Delectable Flexitarian Recipes for Relaxed Daily Feasts

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a huge fan of Kornfeld's first cookbook, "The Voluptuous Vegan" so I was very excited to learn that she had a new book out. The second book is written more in the way I actually use the first book--with flexibility. I love the term "flexitarian" -- it really makes sense with the way most people I know eat. For example, using the "Voluptuous Vegan" book I might add ground turkey to the tofu lasagna or serve one of the vegetable dishes as a side for roast chicken. In "The Healthy Hedonist" Kornfeld provides fish and chicken recipes in addition to vegetarian fare and encourages the users to suit their own needs. I like the hedonist approach, I'm sick of special diets, mainly I just want to eat well and feel healthy. Kornfeld offers sensible suggestions such as purchasing organic produce when possible and exercising moderation rather than giving up foods you love.

I knew this book was a winner when I read the very first recipe (Sweet Potato-Red Pepper Spread). This is so easy to make and provides an exciting change from the pre-packaged Trader Joe's spreads I usually serve at dinner parties. Plus the leftovers made a great sandwich the next day. Many of the recipes in this new book are surprisingly simple which suits my chaotic lifestyle just fine. In addition to interesting recipes, Kornfeld provides a lot of information about cooking techniques, unusual foods, and flexible cooking styles. I didn't know that I could substitute coconut milk for cow's milk when baking, I tried it the other day with a tea cake and it came out great.

"The Healthy Hedonist" has just what I love in a cookbook: an interesting variety of recipes that are clearly explained and tasty, but that also inspire me to experiment and try my own combinations. This is the book I'll grab first when I'm not really sure what I want to cook but I know I want it to be fabulous!

Once again, I was one of the lucky recipe testers for Myra Kornfeld for "The Healthy Hedonist". I LOVE this cookbook even more than her first (The Voluptuous Vegan).
The recipes are not only simple, nutritious, and delicious, they are fun to prepare.
The Sesame Tuna is out of this world and I have prepared this recipe again and again for my family. It's a House Favorite along with the Pecan Crusted Trout, Indonesian Corn Chowder, Braised Tempeh with Curried Coconut Sauce and the Tempeh Ruebens with Carmelized Onions. The side dishes are wonderful and so easy. I just made the Glazed Brussel Sprouts for dinner last night. Even my daughter who hates brussel sprouts will eat a few of these. ( I eat the rest.)
As for the desserts, I keep a stash of her Peanut Butter Cookies in my freezer, though they don't last long. Other must-try's are: Browned Butter Berry Galette, Sesame Biscotti, both of the Luscious Puddings, and Roasted Peaches with Caramel Sauce.
This cookbook stays on my bookstand in my kitchen because I use it all the time. It's also lovely to look at with the fantastic artwork on the cover.

The book has easy, creative, and tasty recipes, with a heavy emphasis on Asian and Latino-inspired dishes. That means that if you are looking for basic middle-of-the road vegetarian or flexitarian recipes, like mac and cheese, look elsewhere.

You will also need access to well-stocked specialty markets, or resort to mail order if you live in areas of the country that have limited food market options. For example, the author uses a variety of grains, including millet and quinoa, instead of just brown rice. She flavors her dishes with curry powders and pastes, coconut oil, and brown rice syrup. She uses tempeh and whole grain pastas. The recipes are absolutely wonderful, and I finally stopped bookmarking because I had post-its on every page. My meat eating husband loves the Roast Chicken with Maple Glaze.

Please note: this book has NO photographs. If that's really important to you, consider checking it out from the library first, as I did. I loved it so much I ended up buying it.

This book made cooking the nightly dinner an interesting, fun, and easy adventure. EVERYTHING tried has been great while being quite different from my routine. And I've been re-making several. The crispy shiitake mushrooms are amazing (page 216.) We're far from being vegetarian types and it's been simple to use the meats we love. It helped with adding more variety to the large amount of vegetables we're all supposed to be including (I'm admitting here that efforts were failing miserably in my household). You really do have to find some tamarind extract, as it's a frequent and yummy flavoring. (Whole Foods carries it, as do some other groceries.)

It's going to make a great holiday gift.

I ordered this book so I can change my diet to a more vegetable, but still have meat occasionally(chicken, fish mostly) I have tired a few recipes and that majority have come out really tasteful. I will say I will not ever order pizza again and the mango chicken is good, fire roasted tomato sauce is good.

The down side to the book is that a good portion of the ingredients are harder to find unless you live in a more populated area, or you have to buy off line and that can also get expensive if you live in a more rural area. Or even if they are supplied in you area they are on the pricey side. Another thing is that they do not have pictures to show what the finished dish will look like.

Over all a good buy, but hard to find/ pricey ingredients

Unlike some reviewers, I wasn't familiar with Kornfeld's earlier cookbook. I saw 'The Healthy Hedonist' and decided that 14 people who gave this book 5 out of 5 stars couldn't possibly all be wrong. And they really weren't!
Since I got this cookbook I have made: Pineapple-Mango Salsa, Thai Jasmine Rice with Chinese Black Beans, Thai Tempeh Triangles, Fire-Roasted Tomato Sauce, Spinach Tofu Wontons, Salmon Burgers with Cucumber-Mustard Sauce, Wild Mushroom Farro Risotto, Sancocho Stew, and Smokin' Drunken Chili.
I have to say that EVERYTHING I have made has been delicious! Not just good, but absolutely something I would feel comfortable serving any guest. I am amazed that Kornfeld was able to create a recipe (Wild Mushroom Risotto) that I loved as much as I did given that I don't even like mushrooms very much. That's how good she is. Some of the dishes are definitely a little time consuming, but for the most part they are actually fairly easy to throw together. Kornfeld includes some seafood and chicken dishes and also has recipes with optional dairy so that everyone (regardless of whether you are a vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore) can be satisfied.
It's rare to find a cookbook where every dish you try is stellar. I have more cookbooks than I care to count, but this is one that I know I will come back to time and again.

This cookbook has become my staple in the kitchen! Just enough meat and fish to keep me interested (I love the term "flexitarian"; it really applies to the way I live), and the focus on fresh ingredients without denying the inner hedonist (judicious use of fats when called for, etc.) has pleased everyone I cook for. As to the pizza dough recipe, it really does work in 45 seconds! I had a "make-your-own pizza" party for my last birthday using the recipes from this book, pizza for 35 people, and they were as delicious as the dough was easy. And I now keep a stock of Kornfeld's frozen wonton raviolis in my freezer of all different fillings for last minute dinner parties. And her chocolate mousse using coconut milk is worth the price alone!

If I could keep only one cookbook, this would be it! I love this book and have given it to friends and family.
The recipes are healthy, easy to follow, clear and delicious! I enjoy experimenting and I know the result will be great! Practical information on natural ingredients, techniques and diagrams facilitate and are educational and the resource section is very useful. In addition, many of the recipes can be made in advance!
I particularly like the Roast Chicken with Maple Glaze, Laquered Carrots with Coriander, Glazed Brussel Sprouts, Braised Cabbage with Cranberries, Butternut Squash Soup with Crispy Shallots and Sage, Triple Gingerbread, Chocolate Coconut Pudding ... I could go on!
A must have for those who enjoy good, healthy eating.

I really liked The Voluptuous Vegan (even though I'm not vegan anymore), so I was happy to discover that the author had written a new cookbook.
This one operates under the premise that a hedonist wants to get pleasure not only from eating food that tastes good, but from their body feeling good as well. It's not very pleasurable to be sluggish after a heavy, unhealthy meal, or to become diseased from a lifetime of eating unwholesome foods. Under that premise the recipes are for dishes that are not only delicious, but that leave you feeling energized and truly nourished.
There's a huge variety of recipes and they all look really good. Some are more complicated then others, but they all seem totally doable by even a beginning cook and are very well-explained.
So far I've tried: the Indian-Spiced Cauliflower, Chickpeas, Potatoes, and Kale, which was easy to make, tasted great, and felt really healthy; the Asian Slaw with Peanuts, also simple to prepare and tasty (although I'm not a big Napa cabbage fan and next time will try it with regular cabbage); Baklava, which I had never attempted before and was totally intimidated by, but it turned out to be not very hard (especially if you use a food processor to chop the nuts) and was a huge hit with all my friends. It tastes different than traditional baklava because it uses rice syrup instead of honey, so it was yummy without being cloyingly sweet. Plus I made the Chai, which I loved...and that's saying A LOT because I am a chai connoisseur, and make my own from scratch all the time. The tips about toasting the spices and grating the fresh ginger made a big difference.
This is a nicely designed book, with lots of clear illustrations, good introductory material, an extremely useful glossary, and interesting side boxes throughout. My only complaint with the design is that the typeface in the recipes makes the numbers 3 and 5 look a little too similar (although once you look at both numbers at the same time the difference is very clear).
I would recommend this book to everyone who loves delicious food, whatever their eating habits.

The Healthy Hedonist, by Myra Kornfeld, is a real favorite of mine. A superb collection of palate-pleasing, health-supportive and incredibly flexible recipes, I have turned to it repeatedly to create soul-satisfying meals for clients, family and friends. The recipes lend themselves to dinner parties and weeknight meals alike. The author embraces a wide array of eating habits within the population, and elevates every dish to its highest potential. The resulting meals are delicious, colorful, and texture-rich. Mixing and matching Myra Kornfeld's salsas, sauces, and chutneys, or soups, salads and side dishes makes for endless variety and yes, pleasure. I especially appreciate this author's intelligent use of traditional, wholesome fats and Celtic Sea Salt, and her countless tips enabling you to put your particular spin on a dish. For certain soups, she even provides a pressure-cooker option. I've made over half the recipes in this book and while they are all terrific and carefully written, there are some I'd like to rave about: Butternut Squash Soup with Crispy Shallots and Sage; Moroccan Chickpea Soup; White Bean and Spinach Soup with Rosemary; Wild Mushroom Winter Potage; and Indonesian Corn Chowder. The Southeast Asian Miso is also a gem. The salads and their dressings are some of the absolute best I've ever made: Romaine Salad with Creamy Avocado Dressing; Green Leaf, Date, and Cashew Salad with Tamarind Dressing; and Baby Greens with Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette and Warm Walnut-Crusted Goat Cheese Medallions, a great holiday salad. As for main courses, the Orange-Glazed Flounder should be renamed, "I can't believe it's flounder", and the Red Snapper Provençale is simple to make and simply divine. The Seven-Vegetable Moroccan Stew, with its accompanying Harissa, is full of authentic North-African flavors. And my family never tires of the Roast Chicken with Maple Glaze. Whether you're a novice cook or a professional chef, this is one cookbook you'll be thrilled to own.