Customer Reviews

Smoothies, Shakes & Frappes

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

 

 

I purchased this book based on the number of recipes - wrong move! I found many of the recipes to be redundant in all the drink categories. And frankly, most just weren't that tasty. I don't know who Sally Ann Berk is, but it is evident that she isn't a chef. If volumes of marginal drinks are what you are looking for, perhaps you will find this appealing. However, you may want to save your money and buy a book with less recipes and more quality.

My situation: I received a brand new blender and I had very few good recipes. My first smoothie book was decent, it was Super Smoothies: 50 Recipes for Health and Energy ISBN 081182540X. I was a little disappointed with this book. I knew from the title it would only have 50 recipes, but the money I was paying for this book really wasn't going towards recipes, but to the fancy design of the book and tons of pictures of the smoothies.

I decided for my second smoothie book, I was doing away with the pictures and going for as many recipes as possible. When I stumbled across this book for about half the price and FIFTEEN TIMES the number of recipes (including shakes and frappes), I was in heaven.

All recipes include complete nutritional analysis (so you know how good or bad it is for you!). Drinks are divided into alphabetical listings. Here are a few samples of the drinks in this book: Pineapple-Mint Sour, Fuzzy Pink Splash, Kiwi Quencher, and Chocolate-Raspberry Shake. With some recipes books, I worry that I'll never make a good portion of the recipes within. With this book and 750 recipes, I know I'll never get to that point...

Overall, the book is a good value price-wise if purchased used, and it has many ideas & recipes. However, the book suffers from poor organization & occasional errors, which make it difficult to read & use.

GOOD PRICE. I purchased a used book here, and I was very happy with the condition in which it arrived - there was only one page that was dog-eared. Other than that, it looked brand new, so I saved quite a bit purchasing used.

INTERESTING RECIPES. There are a lot of interesting recipes and ideas in this book. The recipes range from coffee drinks to juices, plus the smoothies, shakes & frappes mentioned on the cover. The book itself is compact yet easy to read. The pages are glossy and in color. There are drink pictures every few pages or so. Unfortunately, I have found a number of errors in the recipes (e.g., calorie counts and amounts) and picture titles.

POOR ORGANIZATION. However, the book is poorly organized. The recipes are presented A-Z, with names such as "Cat's Paw" and "Palm Desert Cooler." There is no way to tell which of the recipes are smoothies, coffee drinks, juices, etc. without reading the recipe itself. The index is not helpful - many ingredients are missing in the index and there are pagination errors in the index. The book could have been outstanding if recipes were organized by type (fruit juices, veggie juices, hot coffee/tea drinks, cold coffee/tea, desserts, etc).

I purchased this book based on the number of recipes - wrong move!. I found many of the recipes to be redundant in all the drink categories. And frankly, most just weren't that tasty. I don't know who Sally Ann Berk is, but it is evident that she isn't a chef. If volumes of marginal drinks are what you are looking for, perhaps you will find this appealing. However, you may want to save your money and buy a book with less recipes and more quality.

Yeah, I didn't think so. I wanted a book on making smoothies with everyday items, and this wasn't it. It seems you should have a juicer to utilize the majority of the recipes in this book....I was unaware of that. Even if I had the juicer, I really wasn't that impressed with this book. A lot of the recipes seemed very similar to me. Well, I'm off to find the perfect smoothie book so I can get that VitaMix earning it's keep!

A lot of the drinks have odd names, they are listed alphabetically so if your looking for a smoothie you need to read each recipe and define which one is a smoothie, a shake, a frappe or a regular mixed drink. I was hoping to turn to the smoothie section and pick a recipe. Guess I'll look for another book and be more careful about the one I choose.