Customer Reviews

Skinny Bitch in the Kitch: Kick-Ass Recipes for Hungry Girls Who Want to Stop Cooking Crap (and Start Looking Hot!)

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

I loved "Skinny Bitch." It was well researched and entertaining to read, and the information in it helped me revise my eating habits. Am I completely vegan? No. Have I eliminated most processed and refined crap from my diet and replaced it with "whole" foods? Yes. I also lost 22 pounds in 3 months, and didn't miss the crap.

I was excited for the cookbook to come out with the hopes that it would contain new, innovative recipes integrating the Skinny Bitch philosophy of health and eating. Instead, it is modified retreads of old recipes. "Chicken" recipes, caeser salad, quesadillas -- I really didn't need a cookbook to teach me how to make these recipes vegan. There is actually a recipe that calls for putting a veggie burger on a bun with lettuce and tomato. Not really innovative. . . basically the recipes are the same old stuff with modified ingredients. Reubens, onion rings, garlic fries, Denver "bitchlette" (omelet), if you don't know how to substitute, buy this book!

I was also surprised that no nutritional information is available for each recipe. I was also surprised at the use of regular russet potatoes in recipes. The book seems heavy on the starch recipes, and does not have innovations on how to incorporate more good veggies and fruits into the diet of people who would consume these recipes.

I have edited this review! My original review had a lot of negative comments about the use of coconut oil in the recipes, and concerns about saturated fat. Several folks sent comments directing me to more recent research/information on coconut oil, and it is not as bad as I thought! Thanks for the info. . .

Still don't like the cookbook, though!

Disappointing, if I had previewed it (instead of preordering it) I would never have purchased it!

I just got this book. I preordered it without seeing it first since I had already read "Skinny Bitches". Big mistake. Had I seen the recipes I wouldn't have purchased it. Most people could have figured out these "recipes" without this book. How to make a reuben-used vegan deli meat, want to make a hamburger-use a vegan burger, vegan cheese and vegan bun. I would say that about 85-90% of the recipes consist of a typical meat dish with a vegan meat replacement product. I was hoping for some more alternative recipes. In their book they talk a good talk about eating natural and healthy and here the recipes are mostly proccessed food (vegan cheeses, vegan meat products). I like a good veggie burger or fake chicken breast but not all the time. There are a few recipes with tofu, TVP and seitan,and a couple of lentil recipes. There were maybe two or three recipes that I would try. Spend your money on a real cookbook.

Well, I thought the recipes were fabulous, because I actually have *tried* the recipes. Yes, at first look at the titles, you'll think, 'oh jeez, I've made that a million times before as a vegetarian/vegan'. But they introduce lots of herbs and ingredients to regular vegetarian fare that makes you enjoy the flavor and want to continue to eat healthy, not just settling for vegan food for the vegan-ness of it. Last night I made the "beef" stew -- the one with the red wine and fresh rosemary. It was deeee-lish. I had to add a couple tablespoonds of dried thyme and you must cover while you simmer, but the recipe is very hearty and scrumptuous. I've also tried the caesar dressing, the one with the silken tofu, and it is very, very good. Enjoy!

The first book, "Skinny Bitch," shocked me into a new awareness of what I was eating. I decided to try the vegetarian lifestyle to see if it would work for me. I started by eating a few prepackaged meals (spring rolls with soy and a veggie pot pie) to jump-start my efforts. It took me about a week to gather the necessary ingredients. In the meantime I had veggie burritos at Taco Time and vegetable fajitas at a local Mexican restaurant.

You may find a health food store that stocks nutritional yeast flakes, Ener-G egg replacer and Bragg Liquid Aminos. In general this book uses safflower and olive oil. The truth of the matter is that many of the recipes call for coconut oil (a little expensive $10 for 414 ml), which may or may not work for you. I found it less appetizing in savory dishes and appropriate for sweet foods like cookies. It is easy to substitute olive oil for the coconut oil in some of the recipes like Hummus and Macaroni and Cheese. Why you would want coconut oil in those recipes is beyond my understanding.

The recipes are divided into interesting sections like Bitchin' Breakfast, PMS ( Pissy Mood Snacks), Grown-Up Appetizers, Sassy Soups and Stews, Skinny-Ass Salads, Hearty-Ass Sandwiches, International Bitch, Italian Bitch, Down Home Cookin', Skinny Bitch Staple Meals, Divine Dressings and Happy Endings. This book has a sassy style and is actually quite funny in places. Some of the more gourmet offerings include:

Pecan-crusted French Toast
Crabby Cakes with Remoulade Sauce
Potato and Pumpkin Curry with Brown Basmatic Rice
Penne with Butternut Squash, Sage Pesto, and Almonds
Roasted Sausage, Peppers, Onions, and Garlic over Soft Polenta
Balsamic Portobello Mushrooms over Grilled Vegetable Couscous


Since I was throwing myself into this vegetarian lifestyle with a sense of abandon I decided to try twelve recipes. I managed to make four of the recipes in one night without much trouble. The buttery shortbread cookies looked easy enough until I noticed the quantity of orange juice and knew it wouldn't work. So I decided to substitute 5 tablespoons soymilk for the 1 tablespoon orange juice. To get the crumb mixture to hold together you may need to add additional tablespoons of milk depending on where you live. The dough seemed to work best when the crumbed mixture was pressed together in small batches and then rolled out. Each time you just add some more crumbs to the top and proceed as normal. The recipe made 32 "Buttery Shortbread Cookies."

While the cookies were baking I made the "Marinated Tofu Feta" which was the easiest recipe in the book. I'd recommend only using half the tofu and using half the salt. It would have been helpful if the authors mentioned how long you could store the marinated tofu. Actually it tasted pretty good so you might eat it up fast in a few days.

Next I tackled a "Fruit Smoothie," which was easy enough. You may want to use orange juice with the "Very Berry" Smoothie. If you use soymilk be prepared to sweeten the drink. I blended in two tablespoons of rice syrup but you could also use a packet of stevia.

To end the night's testing spree I then made the "Green Goddess Pasta" for dinner. It was fairly easy to make except I have a few tips that will make it easier. To begin with, make sure the vegan butter you buy will actually melt. I tried using a Spectrum spread and it simply would not melt. So after tossing away the garlic and unmelted spread I ended up just using a stick of butter. You can do that if you are a Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian (you can then still eat eggs and dairy products if you choose - this book frowns on such behaviors and I totally understand why). I really tried to stay true to the recipes but haven't found a good vegan butter substitute. The pasta dish really allows for variation because you could technically use any type of pasta. I used an organic penne rigate and added the broccoli and zucchini a little ahead of the kale. I also didn't use any of the cooking water with the butter. That didn't sound like a good idea and the additional salt seemed too much since I was using salted butter.

The recipes I still want to try include:

French Scramble
Granola
"Chicken" Salad Sandwich (a substitute is easy to find in the frozen section of a health food store)
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Vanilla Cake with Frosting
Caesar Dressing (made with tofu)
Hummus, Tempeh, and Cucumber Wrap
Summer Garden Pasta

Since cooking from a new cookbook is always a little risky I felt that the evening's recipe testing session went quite well. I was happy with all the dishes and was ready to try more. I'm still sipping on my fruit smoothie for dessert and I have three dinners (the pasta dish makes four servings) frozen and ready to go for nights when I don't want to cook.

~The Rebecca Review

P.S. The Recipe Testing continues...

4/29/2008 - The "Quesadillas" are delicious and so easy to make. I think you will love the recipe.

5/1/2008 - The "Apple Muffins (a variation of fruit and nut muffins)" are good straight out of the oven with some honey.

5/2/2008 - Today I tried the Chocolate Pancakes, a variation on Basic Pancakes. They were so good I ate three. They are made with whole wheat flour but you would never know it. I would buy this book just for this one recipe. The "Chicken" Salad Sandwich is easy to make because you are using meatless chicken...therefore, no cooking! The Worthington Meatless Chicken Vegetarian Protein Slices worked well in this recipe.

5/6/2008 - The Quick Tortilla Pizzas are so gourmet with a roasted red pepper sauce and Kalamata olives. The pizza sauce is easy to make in a blender, no food processor needed. If you are in the mood, add three tablespoons of tomato paste to the sauce.

5/8/2008 - Today I made the chocolate chip cookies and couldn't believe how good they were even without eggs and butter. The recipe calls for coconut oil which is perfect with the chocolate chips. My husband even asked for a second cookie.

A lot of the reviewers here on Amazon seem to be confused - and the authors of this book are, as well. Of course a balanced vegan diet can be healthy, but being vegan certainly doesn't guarantee that a recipe will be good for you! Packaged veggie burgers and processed soy cheese? That's only low fat if you compare it with frozen burgers and processed american cheese. Please, if you want healthy vegetarian/vegan recipes, this is absolutely the wrong book! Try the Moosewood Cookbook, Veganomicon, How it All Vegan, Nonna's Italian Kitchen... there are many classics.

And also, to those of you who thought the recipes tasted great, I really think you should try these other cookbooks as well... because I promise that the food will be much better. "Skinny Bitch" has some of the lamest vegan recipes I've ever seen - trust me, real vegans who want to be healthy and who like to cook real food don't eat that way.

If you are hostile to vegetarian philosophy, don't bother. Don't bother with the book, and you can save your ranting time for something more pleasant. Maybe get a massage? Shop for shoes? Help out in a soup kitchen? The list is endless.

I was working in a bookstore shelving the nutrition section when I came across Skinny Bitches. I thought it was another martini diet/how the rich stay emaciated gimmick book. I was pleasantly surprised to find instead that it is a vegan primer, with attitude.

That tickled me, because most vegan books either speak to the converted, or adopt a peacenik/I-spend-all-my-time-in-yoga-class-or-mediating persona. That's not bad in itself. I just like seeing something different, something that will speak to a new audience.

As for me, I've been a vegetarian for more than twenty years, a vegan for a third of that. I'm middle aged but often mistaken for a college student. My doctor is all smiles at my check-up, and I have the vitals of a twenty-five year old. I have good genes, yes, but I give my diet great credit for my excellent health. My siblings who are not vegetarians have not fared so well. I really doubt someone eating a low-carb/high protein diet after twenty years would be in such good shape. Most of the low-carb people I know have dull, aging skin. Why is that? But that's another topic.

As for this book as a cookbook, it has become my daily workhorse cookbook. That's pretty amazing, since I have over 200 vegetarian cookbooks in my house. No, Skinny Bitch in the Kitch isn't that innovative. But I have innovative cookbooks I use twice a year because I'm too busy to make big productions of meals. I'm a single mom with two kids, and food has to be fast, healthy, delicious and not too weird. These are comfortingly familiar kinds of meals, which appeal to me, even after years of experimenting with some very strange ingredients. The use of meat substitutes makes these recipes less strange to my kids, and presumably, to a new audience of vegan cooks.

Moreover, the quality of the recipes are excellent. The seasoning and preparation make them special. For example, I've made mashed potatoes a zillion times, but my kids liked the mashed potatoes even better than my other recipes.

The inclusion of coconut oil is a question mark for me. Even if you see coconut oil touted everywhere on the net as a 'miracle oil', and often promoted by the arch-enemies of vegetarianism who believe you need a lot of animal fat to be healthy, i.e. Nourishing Traditions, as a skeptic I will withhold opinion until the data is conclusive. If you "buy" the coconut oil sales pitch, we vegans needn't worry so much about the amount of saturated fat there, which is considerable, because we're not eating meat and dairy and getting it other places. Nonetheless, it did make the cooked greens taste fabulous--the sweetness of the coconut oil cuts down on the bitterness of the greens, and I'm sure I'll make them this way forever. Coconut oil is also a very satisfactory shortening for vegan cooking. So regardless if it is a 'miracle oil' or not, I tend to think it will have its uses in the vegan kitchen.

Bottom line: I liked this book, liked its unpretentiousness toward food, and liked its message about veganism. But again, if you are hostile towards vegetarian philosophy, don't bother.

I'm a supporter of the "Skinny Bitch" lifestyle (vegan, sugar-free, etc.) and eat a strict vegan diet myself, free of all things fake and processed. So I expected to enjoy this "cookbook". It's really worthless though. The "recipes" are for things like a ham and swiss sandwich, instructing you to just make the sandwich with vegan ham and vegan swiss. That's so NOT helpful. Anyone can make basic foods by replacing ingredients with vegan versions (usually terribly processed). If you want a real cookbook with real recipes (instead of an insult to your intelligence), you'll have to look elsewhere.

Do I seriously need a recipe for Veggie Burgers that tells me to grill 4 store bought veggie patties, put them in buns and top with lettuce? Seriously? Most recipes just suggest adding mock chicken, egg substitute, or mock bacon. Come on, not only is it expensive, it's still chemical based crap that lines the pockets of big companies.
Like other readers have pointed out, just get a good vegtarian, vegan or whole foods cookbook and you'll be way better off.
I'm not a vegan, but I do like to make healthy vegetarian meals several times a week WITHOUT mock anything. The only recipe I liked was the Falafel. It's tasty and make from actual legumes. Go figure.

This is a decent vegan starter book for those who are unsure of how to switch from regular eating to vegan eating. It takes very basic recipes and incorporates the staples of vegan cooking, like Bragg Aminos, nutritional yeast and tofu and shows us that eating vegan is all about replacing what we're used to eating with vegan substitutes. And if you don't agree with an ingredient (coconut oil), just replace it with your oil of choice. Granted, we don't need recipes telling us to put a patty on a bun and add lettuce, tomato, then eat...but it does show us that going vegan isn't as difficult or bland as people may think. A bit of nutritional information would have been nice (calories, protein, fat, carbs) at the end of each recipe. If you're looking for a "skimming-the-surface" kind of vegan cookbook, then start with this one and branch out from there; so many options, it's overwhelming! Better yet...go to the bookstore or library FIRST and peruse the vegan cookbook aisles before purchasing a book online so you don't leave reviews about regretting ordering something without first seeing it. Don't blame the authors for that. That's what bookstores and libraries are for! Overall, an adequate, unintimidating place to start, but there are better cookbooks out there...

Being a male vegetarian, I was unsure what to think about a cookbook for "Hungry Girls who want to stop cooking crap (and start looking hot!)" However, after checking it out from the library, my wife and I were amazed at the great quality (both in terms of health and taste) of these recipes. They are generally easy to follow, quick and provide great tasting meals. If I could have only 5 cookbooks, this would definitely be one of them.