Customer Reviews

Super Natural Every Day: Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen

5 star:		(64)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this book because I follow the food blogs and everyone was raving about it. That love continues here on Amazon, where she's got nothing but 5 star reviews. I like the book, but ...

I don't know who she is trying to reach here. You would expect that most people who follow food blogs and know of her would know some basics about cooking, yet she has some pages devoted to things that quite frankly I find condescending. Recipes for fruit salad, pita chips and egg salad seem a waste of space, not to mention pages devoted to making rice, whipped cream, tea (tea! as in boil water - add tea - steep) and compound butter. The two pages devoted to how to poach an egg are kind of insulting. To me. Not to everyone.

That's my problem with the book. I cook a lot. I follow the food blogs too get inspiration and to get some recipes without having to buy the newest cookbooks. I know basic techniques. I figure other people who follow her blog (the people I imagine she hopes will buy this book) would, too. Or at least they have demonstrated their ability to look things up on the internet - google how to poach an egg if you must.

These basic techniques seem more silly when you consider her fancy-pants ingredients lists. "I shop alongside some of the best chefs in the city ..." If you can't poach an egg or cook rice, are you really using harissa and membrillo?

I bought this book thinking it would be a nice inspiration for summer veggies. But this is a pantry-heavy cookbook. Yes, its vegetarian, but it is what my husband calls "roly-poly vegetarian." Lots of beans and pasta and potatoes. There are at least ten recipes that basically dress up a pound of store-bought pasta or a 15oz can of beans.

There are pretty pictures (though many are of flowers and trees and Heidi - not all the recipes have pictures and no pictures accompany her how-tos). I mean, it's a nice book. But I would recommend Kim Boyce's "Good to the Grain" Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours if you want to bake with whole grains over the breakfast and sweets portions of this book. And like I said, the rest is pasta and beans and tea and egg salad.

My recommendation - if you aren't looking for link love from Heidi for your own blog, skip this and just visit her web site, where you can get similar recipes and pictures and chit chat - for free.

I'm in love with the recipes in this cookbook for 3 reasons:

1 - Nearly every recipe has loads of vegetables and plenty of protein.

2 - Most recipes leave room for improvisation and many have suggestions for alternatives and substitutions.

3 - Each recipe contains at least one knock-you-socks-off component.

Brown butter, creme fraiche, harissa, toasted seeds and nuts... I feel like this is the style of many of her 101 Cookbooks recipes and I love it. I doubt there is a single boring recipe in this cookbook.

For example: I made my first recipe from it tonight, Black Bean Salad, which called for beans, feta, lemon juice, pepitas, and caramelized oven-roasted cherry tomatoes. Fantastic.

Heidi Swanson loves to cook and it shows: her newest book, Super Natural Every Day: Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen, is a delight. Beautiful photos and terrific descriptions of the recipes and how to prepare them (often with stories and helpful cooking tips) reading this book will inspire you to try many of the recipes.

Most of us wear about 10% of what is in our closet...same with cooking--we make a handful of our favorites over and over again. For this book, Swanson recorded her everyday meals for a couple of years and voila--simple and delicious dishes to enjoy daily.

The book surprises with unexpected pairings like potato salad with tofu. I tried and loved the fennel salad, which features paper-sliced thin ingredients....A simple recipe like the chickpea wrap in whole wheat Lavash flatbread was yummy (I happened to have the bread and other ingredients on hand and made it impulsively...Yum!)

To Swanson, natural food cooking means an abundance of fruits and veggies--local (and organic) whenever possible. Living in San Francisco, she is able to take advantage of the abundance of fresh produce and food from farmer's markets. However, as the popularity of local food grows, many of us can do the same.

Swanson loves to cook with whole grains--I discovered you can actually buy frozen wild or brown rice--but don't bother...whole grains take up to an hour to cook, but need no attention once they have boiled. And, if you are not familiar with wild or brown rice, farro, wheat berries and other whole grains, you are in for a treat!

You don't have to be a vegetarian to love this book--it is literally filled with healthy and interesting recipes that anyone would love! Plus, if you do eat meat and are looking for ways to cut down, this book is a terrific starting point.

Norma Lehmeier Hartie, author of Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify & Energize Your Life, Your Home & Your Planet

I've been waiting for this book to come out for months, and I was not disappointed - it was worth the wait. As expected, the photography and layout are beautiful. Every recipe made my mouth water. I patiently read through the entire thing, and I've decided not to flag any recipes to try - I want to try ALL of them. I feel inspired by the fact that these are Heidi's every day recipes - cooking my way through this book will give me the confidence to come up with my own every day recipes. Heidi's previous book, Super Natural Cooking, is a great book from which I have discovered several favorites, but Super Natural Every Day comes down to my rushed, basic-ingredients, substitute-what-you-have, on-the-fly, weeknight universe. It will inspire me on the days I feel like just having a lazy dinner of cheese and crackers - I know I can feel the calming comfort of a good meal with basic ingredients, a few classic techniques, and just a little bit of patience.

For those who are unfamiliar with "healthy" foods and ingredients, this is a great place to start. Heidi's previous book, Super Natural Cooking, gives a more in-depth description of how to add healthier foods to your diet, but Super Natural Every Day is a bit more accessible and uses more easily attainable ingredients.

As the size of my cookbook library has grown, my criteria for purchasing (and keeping) cookbooks has gotten more difficult to meet. I ordered this one on a whim, as a sometimes reader of Heidi's 101 Cookbooks blog I was curious and the sneak peek she featured on her website really peaked my interest. It has more than exceeded my expectations. Her cookbook is filled with unique recipes, gorgeous photography and inspiring, well-written descriptions of each recipe. I would say about 50% of the recipes have photos which make me look forward to making and serving them even more.

It's obvious that Heidi has gone out of her way to make this cookbook approachable by using easily found ingredients and by including substitutions in her notes for those that might be more difficult to find. She also focuses on simplifying steps and trying to dirty as few dishes as possible which I am so thankful for. So far, I have only cooked the ravioli salad with pepitas and black olives. It was simply delicious and very easy to make! I look forward to trying many, many recipes from this book and sharing them with my family and friends. Thank you Heidi!

Most of the recipes in this book are basically very good.

But by making several of them I've learned Heidi LOVES her salt, garlic, onions, Parmesan cheese and olive oil. Many recipes call for generous amounts of one or more of these. Sometimes a little too generous, in my opinion.

One that especially comes to mind is the Broccoli Gribiche recipe. It calls for TWO whole shallots(flavor is like a combo of garlic and onion), and a half a cup olive oil in the dressing! And mind you that's after baking the broccoli and potatoes in several tbsp's of it. I found out the hard way that is MUCH too much of both ingredients. Our dinner that night was hot bowls of greasy heartburn.

Never one to give up on the first try, I scaled back the shallots to HALF of a small one, and the oil to a 1/3. The result was delish and is now a family favorite. It just needed some tweaking, like many of them.

This is not a book you can go to expecting every recipe to turn out perfectly by just following the recipes to the letter. You'll probably have to cut way back on or add more of ingredients in every one. Sometimes you'll have to cook things for longer or for a shorter span of time. If you don't mind doing that and you like somewhat plainer dishes (you won't find many unusual or exotic flavors here) you might still like this.

Some other weak points I should mention are some downright silly filler recipes - 'How to boil/poach eggs', 'How to make tea', 'how to make egg salad sandwiches' and 'how to roast strawberries'. Really? -.-

The 'dessert' section is joke, and you won't find much more than hippie-dippie stuff like granola, oatmeal bars and fruit salads.

All that being said however, if you want this book and don't mind a little extra effort go for it, there are some real gems in here.

I have been following Heidi's blog, 101 Cookbooks, for years. I was so excited to hear about her newest collection of recipes (it was a gift no less). I wouldn't dare say I spend as much time in the kitchen, but I cook every day & entertain often, and my cooking style is very similar. I also live in an urban environment where I can source seasonal ingredients with little effort. She personifies the urban home cook.

The things I love the most about her recipes & cooking style:

-adaptability. Although Heidi is a vegetarian, her meals are easily adapted for meat eaters. In addition to eating meat occasionally, I am gluten free. Her cooking style mimics my own, in the sense that with a little creativity, you can customize any meal to fit your own needs and taste preferences. Always beautiful, colorful, and packed full of flavor.

-ingredients. Seasonal and nutrient dense ingredients with MUCH MORE flavor than the processed varieties. Simple food can be packed with flavor and nutrition (and much more affordable), if you buy it at the right time.

-anecdotes & style. Her whimsical musings and pictures compliment her creative process beautifully. She has become a staple in my kitchen, and my life.

This latest collection of recipes deserves every accolade it accumulates. Her newest lentil soup (Green Lentil Soup with browned butter, curry, coconut milk) is among the best I have ever eaten. The broccoli Grabiche with roasted broccoli, fingerling potatoes, hard boiled eggs, in a classic french dressing of egg yolk, tarragon, capers & shallots is to die for.

I could go on and on, but if you are still reading this with intrigue, you should just buy the book. It's wonderful!

Heidi manages to make such delicious dishes with a few ingredients most natural foods cooks have on hand. I just made the dish pictured on the cover and it was soo creamy and comforting (even on a hot FL evening!) Pictures are just as beautiful as her first book and recipes are simple and straight forward.
I also made the millet muffins using barley flour instead of whole wheat flour, chia seed eggs, half sunflower oil/half applesauce for the butter. They were moist and delicious.

I am always in the market for a cookbook that looks interesting, has fresh and local as a headline theme and knocks my socks off with accessible recipes. Heidi does all of that and, I am gong to cook my way through her book. That is a rarity for me. I will learn, have some stunning fresh food and better support my local food chain.

Heidi includes so many fresh grains, so adroitly avoids processed foods and never makes me crazy with some ingredient I've never even heard of and can't find. I went to a book signing yesterday and tried the olive oil chocolate cake, the warm white bean salad from the cover and had some little jam tarts.....so many wonderful, unexpected flavors.

I am not a terrifically experienced cook. My interest quickly outstrips my talent and knowledge. Heidi makes it easy to learn and stretch as she explains where her stuff comes from, how to get where she did and never leaves me hanging.

Buy this book, cook with your local fresh foods, and come alive.

I have long been a fan of Heidi Swanson's online 101 Cookbooks. I love it for her candor, the photography and recipes I always know I can trust. I was eager to have her new book, and it definitely lives up to her previous reputation. My whole way of cooking and eating has changed thanks to Heidi. Since I'm soon to embark on my own commercial kitchen adventure, we all thank you (myself and my future customers). Until 5 years ago, I hated cooking. Then I learned to cook, but my presentation was weak. Thanks to Heidi's artistry, people now think I'm an artisan, too! This book is a treasure-trove of simplicity, elegance, and healthful artistry. Kudos to you, Heidi!