by

Half the Sugar All the Love, a bookbook review

I know this doesn’t happen with everyone, but my tolerance for sweets has declined with age.  For example (and this is a true story), I drank chocolate milk every morning for probably 75% of my life. For most of those years, it was Nestle Quik.  Once I thought it was tasting too sweet, I started making my batches with cocoa powder and experimenting with things like black walnut bitters. And then, one day, I just couldn’t do it anymore.  I still like the occasional hot chocolate but it’s just that… occasional.

On top of that, I have a close family member with type 1 diabetes, so I try not to bake sweets for my family anymore.  (Instead, I’ll hoist my baking adventures onto my work colleagues.)

So with a title like “Half the Sugar, All the Love”, the latest cookbook by Jennifer Tyler Lee and Anisha Patel really got my attention.

The book is sectioned into:

  • Breakfasts
  • Snacks
  • Lunches and salads
  • Dinners
  • Desserts
  • Beverages
  • Basics and Condiments

 

I like that the book makes a distinction between naturally occurring sugar and added sugar.  There are nutritional guidelines, and explanation about the different kinds of added sugar.

Personally, I focused more on the recipes for breakfasts, snacks, and desserts.  I feel like they are the area where added sugar is the biggest culprit. The lunches/salads, and dinner chapters almost felt like “filler” chapters.  Don’t get me wrong, all the recipes sound good. Some of the recipes you’ll find in the lunches/salads, and dinner chapters are:

  • Salmon yaki onigiri
  • Alphabet soup
  • Fall harvest mason jar salad with creamy poppy seed dressing
  • Romaine and cherry tomato salad with miso dressing
  • Vietnamese chicken noodle soup
  • Beef and broccoli teriyaki bowl
  • Pineapple teriyaki salmon burgers with sriracha mayo

 

If you ate these dishes out, there probably would be added sugar.  But since these are all savory dishes, if you cook them at home, they don’t have much added sugar.  I think the only exception would be the teriyaki sauce.

I really wanted to make something from the dessert chapter.  The chocolate and peanut butter snack cake speaks to me personally, but I’ve been doing more baking more desserts than usual, so I ended up picking Blueberry Oat Muffins as my introductory recipe.

The muffin recipe does not use any granulated sugar.  It gets its sweetness from homemade date syrup. I also liked the amount of whole grain being used, which is a blend of oat flour, whole wheat flour, and flaxseed.  It’s actually quite a bit of ground flaxseed – a whole ½ cup! This is not something I see a lot of in muffin recipes, so I was quite curious.

I made a few minor changes that I don’t think had much of an impact on overall flavor.  I used raspberries instead of blueberries (because I had them and I’m trying to clean out my food stores right now), spelt flour instead of wheat flour (because commercial wheat flour generally tastes like cardboard), and I baked this in a dish instead of making individual muffins (I’m just lazy).  

It makes a lot of batter!  I can usually swap a 12 muffin recipe with my favorite baking dish and estimate the oven time without a problem.  This time I had to cook for a lot longer than I was anticipating. So, I think there’s a really good chance you’ll get more than 12 muffins out of this recipe.  That’s not a bad or a good thing. It’s just a comment.

The batter itself came together pretty easily.  Expect to take a little longer to put this together than other muffin recipes because you’re making your own date syrup and your own oat flour.  As for final results, I really liked this but it does taste very healthy. The sweetness from the dates is really mild. I wouldn’t be surprised if other people don’t like this muffin much.  I ate mine with some Fage Greek yogurt, and it made for a great breakfast.

Other recipes that I am interested to make are:

  • Cherry-oatmeal breakfast cookies (I love breakfast cookies)
  • Fruit and nut granola
  • Overnight French toast strata with raspberry sauce
  • Blueberry scones
  • Maple brown butter corn bread
  • Blondies with white chocolate and almonds
  • Double chocolate brownies
  • Pecan pie bars
  • Chocolate and peanut butter snack cake
  • Double chocolate layer cake with whipped chocolate frosting
  • Hot chocolate blocks

 

The book isn’t being released until Christmas Eve, so it’ll be difficult to gift it for the holidays but I think this is a great book for someone is health conscious or someone who is just looking for a good all-around family cookbook.  I look forwarding to baking from this book and feeling like it’s ok to share with my diabetic family member.

 

Disclaimer – I kindly received this book from Workman Publishing for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.  

 

Reference Links:

https://www.52newfoods.com/half-sugar-cookbook/

https://www.workman.com/products/half-the-sugar-all-the-love

 

 

by

Power Spicing, a cookbook review

One skill that I constantly feel like I am trying to develop is flavor combining.  Growing up, the flavors I was most familiar with were soy sauce, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, and scallions.  Cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves only made their appearance in a spiced apple cake that my mother would make on occasion because it was my favorite.  Anything beyond that can easily feel alien to me.

I think it’s the main reason why I am a tad obsessed with spices and spice mixes.  Power Spicing by Rachel Beller would have been the perfect book for me when I was getting into cooking.  It’s a cute cookbook with only about 60 recipes, and an overview of 25 spices. This is not Spice Master Lior Lev Sercarz level of cooking.  But that doesn’t mean that this book doesn’t have any value. One could argue that maybe it has more relevance to the average home cook.  

In the spice introduction, Beller mentions potential health/medicinal benefits of the 25 spices she chose to highlight.  For example, “studies show that cinnamon may help regulate blood sugars, improve insulin sensitivity, and reduce hemoglobin A1C levels.”  She also includes some general helpful information on each spice that varies from where you can find a certain spice to flavor substitutes.  She also offers from spice pairings based on absorption enhancers, synergistic actions, or doubling potential health effects.  

The book has seven main chapters:

  • DIY spice blends
  • Daily power beverages
  • Spicy and sweet breakfasts
  • Mains that pack a punch
  • Sizzling up your sides
  • Dressings and dips
  • Snacks and sweets

A lot of the recipes are plant based, but not all of them.  Some recipes that were of interest to me are:

  • Red-hot chili cocoa
  • Butternut squash and apple bake
  • Apple-zested muesli
  • Tzimmes oat crumble
  • Lentil salad with spicy vinaigrette
  • Vegan creamy brussels sprout Caesar
  • Warm fennel salad
  • Green goddess fenugreek tahini sauce
  • Spiced nut and date bars

Since the temperatures are dropping here in New England, I was mostly interested in the spiced warm drinks.  I made three of them (but only remembered to take photos of two). The first one I made was the golden choco-latte. The purpose of this drink is to help soothe inflammation and to balance your blood sugars.  Honestly, I just thought that it was pretty tasty.

View this post on Instagram

spice blend 🙃

A post shared by @ awesomesauceeats on

The second drink I tried was the saffron and cardamom latte.  This was the recipe that caught my eye first when I initially received the cookbook.  Made with saffron, green cardamom, cinnamon, and fennel, it’s supposed to boost your mood, strengthen your immune system, and help with bloating.  I was mostly curious about using saffron and cardamom as a blend. (I use cardamom today when I’m making masala chai.) Sadly, I was disappointed in this one.  Also, my efforts looked nothing like the photo. It just didn’t taste interesting enough to me. Maybe the fennel is a little too strong? I think I would have preferred just plain fennel tea (which is something I do from time to time).  Maybe I’ll play with the ratios of cardamom and fennel next time (if there is a next time).

View this post on Instagram

Matcha, cinnamon, ginger

A post shared by @ awesomesauceeats on

So then I made the stabilizing matcha in hopes that it would make up for the latte.  The stabilizing matcha says that the “combination of ginger, cinnamon, and matcha has been shown to stabilize blood sugar levels and decrease the risk of diabetes.”  I was a little worried that the cinnamon and ginger would completely overwhelm the matcha, but that didn’t seem to be the case. The spices hit the tongue first, but I think the matcha lingered afterward the most.  Final review? Yeah, I think this made up for the latte. I’m normally a plain green tea kind of person, but I think I can make an exception for this recipe from time to time.

While I recommend taking health claims with some skepticism, I don’t think there’s any harm in experimenting with whole and natural foods to try to increase benefits.  Especially if those experiments are tasty. Anyone with an interest in general spice blending or looking for a starting point in spice blending will find Power Spicing to be useful.

 

Disclaimer – I kindly received this book from Clarkson Potter for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.  

 

by

Home Made in the Oven, a cookbook review

I got excited when I first found out that Yvette Van Boven was releasing a new cookbook in the US.  I had the pleasure of meeting her about a year ago during her book tour for Home Made Christmas. She and her husband Oof are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.  I really believe that her endearing personality comes across in her cookbooks: in the little recipe sketch drawings, and in the little stories she writes. I often skip recipe introduction when I flip through a cookbook, but I won’t skip hers.   

The latest book (available Oct. 15th) by Van Boven is “Home Made In The Oven: Truly Easy, Comforting Recipes For Baking, Broiling, And Roasting.”  There’s over 80 recipes, I believe, all meant to be cooked in the oven. The book is simply broken down by:

  • Vegetables
  • Fish and Meat
  • Baking

Each of these sections have recipes that are categorized by month, but don’t assume there’s an equal amount of recipes for each month. There are five January recipes in the Vegetables chapter, and nothing for July or August.  To be fair, those are hot months in the Northern Hemisphere and therefore turning on the oven is the last thing anyone wants to do. The reality is there are only three July recipes and one August recipe in the whole book.

Each recipe comes with a sketch of how to make it, and a little photo in the top right hand corner.  And I do mean little.  Without grabbing a ruler, I estimate the photos are a little more than an inch by an inch and a half.  The sketches are cute, and the recipes are fairly simple and straightforward (that does not equate to boring).  

Here are the recipes that I’m most interested in making:

  • Sweet potato and spinach gratin
  • Leftover focaccia
  • Cupboard cannelloni
  • Smoky butternut squash and papaya salad
  • Oven asparagus with cashew cream
  • Stuffed autumn portobellos
  • Comforting meatballs (I’ve never seen a beef meatball with shrimp in it before)
  • Salmon, fennel and lemon with spinach miso-mayo
  • Apple almond crumble
  • Clementine yogurt cake
  • Almond apple cake
  • Baked apples with blueberries
  • Royal carrot cake muesli bars
  • Peach scone pie
  • Blackberry ricotta cake
  • Yogurt cake with lemon and ginger
  • Chocolate nut cake

 

For now though, I made the veggie filo pie (which is technically a May recipe even though it’s currently October – but it’s fine!  There’s nothing very seasonal in this dish). I’ve never bothered making a filo pie on my own before so recipe testing seemed as good a time as any.  It has leeks, garlic, spinach, chickpeas, egg, ricotta, nutmeg, smoked paprika, and crumbled feta. You make the filling, pile some filo dough strategically in a pan, and then bake.

It was so easy to make!  It’s not unhealthy either, since Van Boven’s point to this dish is to eat more vegetables.

It seems pretty easy to customize.  Since I have some leftover ingredients, I plan on making a second time this weekend.  But I’m tempted to change the spices. While I love nutmeg and smoked paprika, I felt like nutmeg was the dominant flavor.  I have an overwhelming urge to try curry powder or ras el hanout? I haven’t decided yet. (Your comments will be considered if you have other ideas.)

In general, the whole book is very approachable.  I can’t really think of a recipe in it that’s too intimidating.  If you’re picky about high quality glossy cookbook photos, then maybe this book isn’t for you, but I think everyone else will enjoy it through and through.

 

Disclaimer – I kindly received this book from Abrams for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.  
Reference Links:

https://www.instagram.com/yvettevanboven/

https://yvettevanboven.eu/

https://www.abramsbooks.com/

by

The Pasta Friday Cookbook, book review

Pasta is a food near and dear to my heart.  (I’m sure many people feel the same.)  During my last year of college, my dinner on most nights was a big plate of pasta and red sauce.   It’s cheap.  It’s pantry friendly.  It’s amazing that I didn’t get sick of it by the end of the year. 

I don’t eat like that anymore.  I don’t make pasta very often, not even once a month.  (It’s not like I’ve cut out simple carbs, as rice and noodles are in regular rotation in my kitchen.)  Pasta tends to be “emergency cooking” for me.  Something to make when I should make something but don’t have a ton of time.  So, it just isn’t part of my regular rotation of dishes.  But for a pasta dish that feels inspiring?  I can get behind that.

“The Pasta Friday Cookbook” by Allison Arevalo is collection of recipes from the weekly gathering of the same name that Arevalo created back in 2017.  The purpose of Pasta Friday is to share a simple meal of pasta and salad with a large group of friends and family once a week. Her cookbook is a reflection of her mission.  It has 52 pasta recipes and 16 salad recipes, divided up by season. It’s almost an instruction book for holding your own Pasta Friday, but while Arevalo feeds 30+ people, the published recipes serves 4 to 6 or 6 to 8.

I like how the book mixes traditional and non-traditional recipes.  Here are the recipes that I’m most interested in:

  • Pam’s Pasta with Sausage, Tomatoes, and Peaches
  • Farfalloni with Smoked Salmon and Creamy Corn Sauce
  • Trofie with Pesto Cream, Potatoes, and Green Beans
  • Cucumber Basil Salad with Anchovies and Croutons
  • Cacio e Pepe with Pici and Mushrooms
  • Mafaldine with Porcini and Eggs
  • Crispy Cauliflower with Kale and Rotini
  • Strozzapreti with Sunday Pork Neck Ragu
  • Papparedelle with Roasted Pork and Mushrooms
  • Lentils with Buffalo Mozzarella and Roasted Peppers
  • Gnocchetti with Chorizo and Fried Lemon
  • Asparagus and Cannellini Beans with Mint and Grana Padano

 

For this review, I went with Dad’s Famous Roasted Red Pepper Sauce.  Why? It has two of my favorite ingredients: roasted bell peppers and smoked paprika!  It also doesn’t hurt that this is a fairly easy recipe. The other ingredients are heavy cream, butter, roasted garlic, pepper, salt, and pasta.  You make the sauce. You boil the pasta. And then you finish the pasta in the sauce. Done.

Verdict?  I loved this.  I also love how Arevalo instructions you to add just enough cream to achieve a gold, orangey pink sauce.  It’s a perfect description, and the exact color I achieved.  The recipe instructs for a pound of cannolicchi pasta, but I went with penne. 

Every recipe in the book has pasta shape substitutions, and at least one of the substitutions will be one that is easy to find in any supermarket.  Every recipe also offers wine pairing suggestions, as well of what to serve the dish with.  In the case of the roasted red pepper sauce, the book says to serve with crispy/spicy prosciutto, grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, a medium-bodied and spicy California cabernet franc, or an unoaked and crispy French Chardonnay.  This information is especially useful if you decide to entertain guests and/or host your own Pasta Friday.

I think I’m going to want this sauce all the time. (But I’m also thinking about lightening up of the recipe to make it a little more waistline friendly.)

Is this book worth its salt?  Yes! I’m sold on the roasted red pepper sauce alone.  What can I say? I’m a simple girl. I’m not sure I’m about to holding Pasta Fridays at my house every week, but I can get behind the message of building a community face to face.  Spending more time with my favorite people can never be a bad thing, and I like cooking for them so perhaps I’ll make pasta and salad for them next time we’re all together.

Reference Links:

https://www.pastafriday.com/

 

Disclaimer – I kindly received this book from Andrews McMeel Publishing for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.  

by

A Place At The Table, a cookbook review

“A Place At The Table”, a new cookbook edited by Rick Kinsel and Gabrielle Langholtz, is a compilation of recipes from 40 beloved chefs across the US who are all immigrants.  The contributing chefs range from Dominique Crenn (France) to Marcus Samuelsson (Ethiopia/Sweden) to Michael Solomonov (Israel). The subtitle is “New American recipes from the nation’s top foreign-born chefs,” but I feel like it’s not descriptive enough.  Some of the recipes are fusion types, and some are recipes taken from cultural heritage. And then, there is a smattering of recipes that are just high end restaurant cooking.

There are no chapters.  The book is simply divided up by chefs.

The photos are beautiful, and it looks like every recipe has a photo.  However, there is a caveat… Not all photos exactly match the written recipe.  The most obvious culprit of this was the pegao norteño (a Chifa lamb dumpling dish by Carlos Delgado).  The photo is of the restaurant version, made obvious by the large flecks of gold leaf garnishing the dish.  

Overall, the recipes themselves sound enticing.  I think my only real critique is that not all the recipes are home friendly for me.  I know some homecooks like the occasional large project, but I don’t like fussy recipes with an ingredient list the size of the entire page (*cough*geoduck tartelette*cough*dominique crenn*cough*).  Nor do I want to look for ingredients that are hard to come by.  I live in a city, and I go to several supermarkets and ethnic markets pretty easily but if I have to go online to shop for an ingredient, I lose interest very quickly.  For example, I cannot make the smoked honey yogurt with whey snow and white grape syrup recipe because I have never seen smoked honey for sale in my area.

Luckily, there are still other recipes that appeal to me.  The ones I am most curious about are:

  • Shrimp and okra pancakes and charred scallion dipping sauce
  • Soy- and sugarcane-glazed grilled pork chops and tomato-peach salad
  • Winter melon soup
  • Banana bibingka (I almost made this… but didn’t only because I’ve had too many sweets lately)
  • Coffee-braised brisket
  • Banana layer cake with vanilla cream and candied walnuts
  • Hand-torn noodles with cumin lamb
  • Pancake stack cake

 

In the end, I opted to make Nite Yun’s coconut milk marinated pork.  It’s pretty straightforward – you marinate thin slices of pork loin in coconut milk, brown sugar, garlic, fish sauce, and black pepper.  However, it does need some pre-planning because the instructions tell you to marinate for 4-24 hours. Then, you cook up in a grill pan for a couple of minutes per side.

My attempt looked nothing like the photo.  I’m pretty sure the photo version cooked the pork on a real grill which I don’t have.  To be fair, I used a regular pan and not a grill pan, but I had trouble getting the pork to really brown because there was just too much moisture on the surface.  No pan was really going to fix that.  (Note, I did try to remove as much of the marinade as possible.)

The first photos I took looked a bit terrible (so I’m not posting them) but I originally served the pork with some of the leftover mushroom rice I made from my last post. Honestly?  I was a little underwhelmed. I sliced the pork as thinly as I could by hand, because the instructions indicated thinly sliced pork no further specifics. My recommendation now is to not go less than a quarter of an inch.  I might even suggest half an inch slices, just to reduce the likelihood of overcooking.  

Sizes of slices aside, I couldn’t taste the marinade in the meat that well even though I had the pork marinating in the fridge for about 16 hours.  4-24 hours seems completely unnecessary to me. But the marinade itself is fantastic. I didn’t have the heart to throw it out, so I boiled it for a few minutes to make it safe for consumption and kept it as a sauce.

The photo below that I will share is the second serving of the recipe, dressed with the leftover cooked marinade and served with plain cabbage.  (You can scroll the photo over to see the book photo.)  I loved this version! I’m thinking that next time I’ll cook the pork (probably in the oven to pinkness), then separately take the other ingredients and serve as a sauce.  

So, this book… hard to review because it’s a compilation.  I can’t really judge the book on one recipe but I’m not a “cook the book” type of person either.  I’m recommending this book to foodies who want to sample recipes from critically acclaimed chefs, cooks looking for creative inspiration, and people who want to learn more about the chefs featured (there’s a nice little bio page for each chef).  If you’re someone who identifies as a functional cook, check the book out from the library before deciding you want your own copy.  

Will I cook from this book again?  Definitely.  Will it be in the immediate future?  Probably not.  Take that as you will.

Disclaimer – I kindly received this book from Prestel for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.  The book is released September 24, 2019. 

by

The Gaijin Cookbook, a review

“The Gaijin Cookbook” is a very different creature from its predecessor “Ivan Ramen,” both books by Ivan Orkin and Chris Ying.  When “Ivan Ramen” came out, it was self evident that the recipes were from the noodle restaurant of the same name, and artisan ramen is a complex process.  The Shio Ramen chapter itself is divided into making the eight components of the dish. “The Gaijin Cookbook” is practically the antagonist to the first book.  It’s about cooking Japanese food at home for a weeknight or for a party.

The layout of the book is a bit odd.  I’ve added quotes from the book about what each chapter is about.  And each chapter had some recipes that were grouped together, and sometimes recipes that only related to the chapter and not to each other.  So I’ve done my best to reflect that.

  1. The Recipes by Category
  2. Eat More Japanese – “… foundational recipes and flavors that taught [Ivan] to understand Japanese food”
    1. The Vanishing Japanese Diner
    2. Natto [Fermented Soybeans]
    3. Feeding Our Kids
  3. Open to Anything – “… fusion… recipes that have mingled… leading to new and delicious collaborations”
    1. (various recipes)
    2. Sandwiches
  4. Empathy – “nurturing through food”
    1. (various recipes, mostly rice and stews)
    2. Nabe
  5. Otaku [Geeking Out] – “more intensive recipes”
    1. (oden, dan dan noodles, gyoza)
    2. Frying
  6. Good Times – “dishes that are conducive to sharing while you sip on an adult beverage”
    1. (various recipes)
  7. New Year’s – “symbolic snacks that will ensure prosperity in the coming year”
    1. (various recipes)
    2. Jubako
  8. Pantry

 

If this were a novel, I’d be ok with this layout.  But as a cookbook, I find it a bit confusing if I’m looking for a recipe.  It almost feels random instead of intentional. If there’s a specific recipe you’re looking for, it’s the index you’ll need to depend on.

But the recipes themselves look good.  Here are some of the recipes I want to try:

  • Seasoned Ground Chicken (Tori Soboro) – I want to compare this version to the soboro I already make today
  • Mentaiko Spaghetti
  • Miso Mushroom Chili
  • Pork and Tofu Meatballs with Buttermilk Sauce
  • Smoked Fish Donburi
  • Okinawa-Style Soba with Pork Belly and Tatsuobushi
  • Salmon and Miso Hot Pot
  •  Sweet Dashi-Poached Prawns
  • Candied Sardines
  • Sesame Furikake
  • Katsuobushi Furikake

 

For my inaugural recipes, I made shimeji mushroom rice from the Empathy chapter, and the chicken meatballs (tsukune) from the Good Times chapter.  Both were straightforward to make, and ingredients were easy to come by where I live.

For me, the meatballs were decent but not necessarily a recipe I will remake as written.  It’s just a very ginger forward flavor even with the accompanying sauce. But I still like the general instructions, so I’m thinking about messing around with it, maybe using Chinese black bean paste as the flavoring agent.  It’s just a personal preference, not a critique on the recipe.

That’s when I decided to make the mushroom rice.  I wanted to see how a second recipe would work out, and I loved the results.  It’s a light flavor, and the cooking instructions are spot on. I used haiga rice (haiga is a semi-polished short grain rice where the bran is removed but not the germ, and cooks like white rice), and skipped the bonito flakes.  The recipe instructs you to soak the rice for at least 20 minutes, and up to 1 hour. I chose 30 minutes. For garnish, I just used scallions (no photo documentation, but I also used store-bought furikake as a garnish when I was eating leftovers).  Next time, I’ll use the katsuobushi and see how it changes the flavor. I can see myself making this regularly going forward as it stores in the fridge well and is great for meal prep.

Another thing that I enjoyed about this book was the photography.  The food photos are enticing. The portraits of Ivan scattered among the pages give insight to his personality.  And because I’m a romantic at heart, the photos of Ivan and Mari are endearing.

If you don’t have a cookbook on everyday Japanese cooking or don’t have one you like, give “The Gaijin Cookbook” a try.  I think it’s very home cooking friendly, and there’s a good diversity of recipes.  

Disclaimer – I kindly received this book from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.  The book is released September 24, 2019.

Reference Links:

https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/The-Gaijin-Cookbook/9781328954350

https://www.ivanramen.com/

 

by

Umami Bomb, a cookbook review

Umami…  One word with so many expectations!  Or rather, I tend to have high expectations when I see it thrown around.  The last time I reviewed a cookbook with the word ‘umami’ in it, I was underwhelmed by the recipe testing result.  Would “Umami Bomb” by Raquel Pelzel be equally underwhelming or will it pass expectations with flying colors?

The chapters are sorted by the main umami ingredient of the recipe.  The chapters are:

  • Parm and Other Aged Cheeses
  • Soy Sauce
  • Tomatoes
  • Mushrooms
  • Caramelized Onions
  • Miso
  • Smoke
  • Nutritional Yeast
  • Fish

What sets this book slightly apart from other umami focused cookbooks is that this one is (lacto-ovo and pescatarian) vegetarian.  For better user experience (ok, that’s the nerdiest thing I’ve said on this blog), recipes are marked if they are vegan, vegan-optional, and with a rating system based on the number of umami ingredients.  What makes this book possibly better than the other umami book I’ve reviewed in the past (based on appearance only) is how approachable these recipes are. Pelzel’s book isn’t asking for any specialty ingredients if you’re living in an urban area.  It’s not asking you to build a pantry of DIY pastes, seasoning, or sauces.  

And… there’s a wealth of recipes I want to try.  I just didn’t have time to make more than one in time for this review.

  • Killer Chocolate Cake (just because I want to put soy sauce in frosting)
  • Grilled Pan Con Tomate with Miso Butter
  • Tomato ‘Nduja
  • Sick Day Tomato Soup
  • Savory Mushroom Breakfast Porridge
  • Veg and Cornbread Bake
  • Falafel-Spiced Grilled Mushrooms with Miso-Tahini Dressing
  • Mushroom Gravy
  • Caramelized Onion Korean Pancake 
  • Miso Peanut Butter Cookies
  • Polenta with Smoked Cheddar and Kale
  • Eggplant “Meatballs”

In the end, I decided to make Toasted Sesame Granola with Coconut, Orange, and Warm Spices.  I’ve never tried using sesame oil in my granola before or fresh ginger. Or soy sauce for that matter.  I try not to meddle with recipes for review, but I had to leave out the orange for this. I forgot to pick it up at the store.  Another note, cinnamon is one of the ingredients, but Pelzel suggests smoked cinnamon if you can get your hands on it. And now that I’ve made this granola, I’m seriously considering sourcing some smoked cinnamon.  The flavors in this recipe are really bold, some of the other ingredients are sesame seeds, shredded unsweetened coconut, ground ginger and ground coriander. My taste buds couldn’t really taste the sesame flavors but the amount of saltiness from the soy was perfect.  For me, the main flavors were ginger and coriander so smoked cinnamon would have matched really nicely.

View this post on Instagram

Mmmmm granola

A post shared by @ awesomesauceeats on

Unadorned, the granola is almost overwhelming but I couldn’t stop eating it anyway.  (Isn’t that kind of the point of umami anyway?) But when I topped my plain yogurt with it, it was perfect in every way. Pelzel also suggests pairing it with chocolate ice cream so obviously I need to go pick up some chocolate ice cream, sooner rather than later.

Overall, I really appreciate how unique the granola recipe is.  It makes me excited to experiment with the other recipes.

The book doesn’t have photos for everything, but that’s ok.  The photos that are there are bright and appetizing.  I think the array of recipes nicely covers a little of everything from breakfast to dessert.  I also appreciate how approachable and functional the book appears to be.  It’s all very appealing.  I definitely recommend giving this book a try if you can.

Disclaimer – I kindly received this book from Workman Publishing for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.  The book is released September 3, 2019.

Reference Links:

http://www.raquelpelzel.com/recipes/

https://www.workman.com/