Customer Reviews

Living with Green Power: A Gourmet Collection of Living Food Recipes

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

 

 

This was the first raw food cookbook we got. We purchased it at the same time as our Green Life juicer, which is necessary for "cooking" with this book, as well as a dehydrator for some recipes. Everything we have tried so far has been exceptional. Not any one recipe stands out, since all we have tried has far exceded our expectations for raw food. Preparing food this way is so incredibly different, we never knew raw food could taste this good. One thinks of salads and fresh apples when one thinks of raw food. There are recipes for juices, drinks, cold soups, seed cheeses, dressings, dips & pates, loafs, crackers, porridge, breads, and endless sweets and desserts. Since using Elsya's Green Life book, it has turned us on to eatting in the raw, and hopefully one day we will reach our goal and be able to call ourselves raw-foodists.

I lucked across this gem in a used bookstore today and just thumbing through it I am SO impressed -- and I am someone who has owned no less than 25-30 raw recipe book titles over the past 15 fifteen years. The photographs are WONDERFUL, and the recipes -- what can I say? I keep turning pages and thinking to myself, "Oh yes, this is exactly the kind of recipe I have been looking for!" This book as LOTS of full color photographs of scrumptious-looking raw dishes and most of the recipes are a reasonable number of ingredients -- and ingredients with which I am familiar (unlike some gourmet raw recipe books with 15 ingredients per recipe including 5 I either never heard of or haven't a clue how to obtain).

One word of caution: The title of this book is a bit of play on words with the name of a higher-end twin-gear juicer on the market that many (but by no means all) raw foodists use. Someone not familiar with juicers in general could get the impression from the book that you have to have a Green Power juicer in order to make these recipes, and nothing could be further from the truth. I used an old Champion juicer and it does just fine.

I imagine that Elysa got this book deal with some heavy financial help of Green Power, since she writes the recipes as if you could only make them that way. The thing is, you can't really juice greens in a Champion or many other juicers the same way as in a Green Power, but you should not let that intimidate you. Just recognize the idea behind what is being done to the food ingedient(s) -- juiced or homogenized -- and you can pretty easily figure out how to get around using the Green Power -- or any juicer at all -- by using other appliances in your kitchen. For instance, for some things you could use a blender instead and for other things a food processor. Just realize that the whole thing about having to have the Green Power NOT mandatory to use and enjoy these recipes.

Same thing with the dehydrator or Rival she uses a lot. I had the Rival electric skillet (which I got when I had her other book, Warming Up to Living Foods), and it was okay but not worth to me the space it took up. When I wish to warm something up "just a little" I can innovate my own ways of doing that without having to purchase an electric skillet. One way is to simply use an electric "coffee warmer" disc and set a bowl of whatever you want heated up on it. It takes longer (maybe 35-45 min) but it works great, takes up very little room and can be purchased as a second hand store for a dollar or less. As for the dehydrator, I do have one of those and glad to have it (the Excalibur 5-drawer is a great investment for a raw foodist), but if I didn't have it I could dehydrate things in an oven set at a very low setting with the door left open until and unless I decided to invest in the dehydrator.

I love this book. The veneer of this hardcover book seems almost corny and reminiscent of Time Life books or something -- not something I would expect to find great raw creative genuis in, but it is. Bravo and Hurrah for Elysa Markowitz!

This is a great book! I am a beginner at juicing. The ingredient explanations are wonderful. I especially like the Fat-Melt down recipe. My kids like any of the dessert recipes. I

I bought this book after purchasing my Green Star Juicer. I thought it would give more juice recipes than it did. Also, I have a gluten allergy/intolerance and this book has several recipes using wheat, barley and rye. The whole point of my buying a juicer and a book to go with it was to have lots of healing juice recipes and other healthy foods. Instead, I bought a book that has so many foods that make me sick I can't even use it. The only way I'd recommend this book is if the buyer didn't have any allergies or food sensitivities.

I love the cookies and pies recipes in this book. However, you only want to get it if you have a Greenstar machine (which I do). With the raw cookies that I make with the help of this book and my Greenstar, I stay away from the temptation of eating junk food. I love it!