Canyon Ranch: Nourish [Hardcover]

I have purchased 2 other Canyon Ranch cookbooks which I have rarely used, since the recipes and ingredients didn't seem to suit my everyday meals. Neither were they exciting enough for entertaining. They were lacking, too, in not providing caloric information for the recipes.

As I read "Nourish.." tonight, I found myself pleasantly educated as to cooking techniques and equipment. I could immediately see how the expertise of the CIA-trained author could generalize to enhance the taste as well as nutritional quality of food akin to what I prepare every day. For example, he suggests that some cream cheese be used for butter in a biscuit recipe. I can't wait to try this and to experiment as to whether I can thus convert other baking recipes.

Amazingly, "comfort" foods are not excluded from the repertoire. For example, there is a great recipe for macaroni and one for baked ziti! Both are amazingly low in calories.

A few of the ingredients require a trip to a specialty store, but I think that there are work-arounds.

I was especially impressed by the chapters on vegetarian meals and various beverages.

There is even advice on making fruit jams so that it's possible to take advantage of the abundance of summer fruits. I am really looking forward to trying these.

While this is the most pricey of the Canyon Ranch Cookbooks, it is also the weightiest and provides the most extensive illustrations. I think that it is a good investment. The recipes have "staying" power. Also, the cooking wisdom contained represents an important aspect of the spa experience.

I already own Canyon Ranch Cooks: More Than 200 Delicious, Innovative Recipes from America's Leading Health Resort and consider it one of my favorite cookbooks, healthy or otherwise. Because of this I was very excited for this cookbook's release. Lucky for me it lives up to my expectations based on the earlier book.

What is so appealing about Canyon Ranch: Nourish: Indulgently Healthy Cuisine is that it is full of recipes for food that are low fat and nutrient rich, but that don't taste like bland diet food. Whenever I make a Canyon Ranch recipe it's easy to forget I am cooking healthy food because the food is so boldly flavored and indulgent.

This book is no exception. It is full of restaurant quality food that is craveable whether you are trying to eat a healthy diet or not. It also includes a lot of foods that one might think would be forbidden in a healthy lifestyle like Cauliflower Fritters, Crab Souffles with Caramelized Carrot Sauce, Salmon en Croute, and Cream of Mushroom Soup. Overall there are SO many recipes I have bookmarked that I want to make that I have a post-it on every page. Best of all, the recipes turn out as amazing as they sound. I made the Salmon en Croute with the Parsnip and Carrot Puree last night. It was amazing and my boyfriend commented on how rich and flavorful it tasted. We both tend to find salmon a bit bland at times but in this recipe it really brought out its natural flavor. I've also made the flatbreads and am looking forward to trying them with the toppings mentioned in the book as well as my own.

Beginners will also appreciate that the book starts with a section on basics that includes everything from nutritional principles to what properly grilled salmon looks like to how to scrape a vanilla bean. Those who are experienced in the kitchen will find much of this to be a review, but it is still helpful to have it to reference. I also appreciate that there is a separate section of vegetarian recipes that feel substantial and creative. I personally cannot wait to make the Butternut Squash Tart with Arugula Salad. There is also a helpful section in the back that notes which recipes are gluten-free and dairy free.

The only caveat worth making about this book is that many of the recipes do require some preparation so they are not ideal if you would like to prepare a meal in under 15 minutes. However, with the guidance of the basics section the techniques are all pretty approachable and could be handled by novice home cooks.

The bottom line is that this is an amazing cookbook for anyone who wants to balance their desire to be healthy with a longing to eat great, soul satisfying food. For me it is right up there with my favorites like The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life, Conscious Cuisine: A New Style of Cooking from the Kitchens of Chef Cary Neff, The Professional Chef's Techniques of Healthy Cooking, Second Edition, and Cooking Light Complete Cookbook: A Fresh New Way to Cook (Book & CD-ROM). I have a feeling I will be using it as much as my previous Canyon Ranch cookbook.

There are lots of "healthy eating" cookbooks out there, but most are written by food scientists, academics, and people whose culinary training, while perhaps competent, has been outside of the mainstream of the restaurant/hotel industry. That means that while they please the statistics and requirements of their healthy mission, they have little-to-no experience at actually pleasing the palates of real customers used to "real" food, healthy or otherwise. Happily, Chef Scott Uehlein comes from a lifelong background in restaurants and hotels where the culinary rubber-chicken hits the delight-of-customers road--and this book shows it in every delicious page. Scott is no culinary elitist. He knows about FLAVOR and TEXTURE and how they combine with desire to create snacks, dishes, and whole meals that satisfy the body's healthy nourishment needs AND the soul's sustaining, pleasing ones, too. And a lifetime of actually talking to his customers and actually interacting with diners and experts alike means he can communicate to the home chef the how's and the why's of this truly "indulgently healthy" treasure-trove of recipes that you can make even tastier in your home than they look and sound in the book's beautiful pages. Scott Uehlein's people-pleasing passion fused with Canyon Ranch's time-tested nourishing mission of health and excitement makes this book a keeper. So get it. Keep it. USE it and cook from it. Your body AND your soul will be both nourished and enriched!

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