Customer Reviews

Super Natural Cooking: Five Delicious Ways to Incorporate Whole and Natural Foods into Your Cooking

5 star:		(6)
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I ended up buying this cookbook largely due to the numerous glowing reviews on amazon.com...and was not disappointed! While I am not vegetarian I have been interested in healthy eating/cooking for many years. This book is truly a breath of fresh air in the whole foods/vegetarian/healthy eating section. You will not find the standard (and boring) recipes for humus and vegetarian lasagna that are present in SO many vegetarian cookbooks. Swanson's objective is to educate the reader on natural wholefood ingredients and use these ingredients as your guiding inspiration when cooking. In short, natural cooking can be, well, super.

The book is organized as follows:
1. Build a natural foods pantry
2. Explore a Wide Range of Grains
3. Cook by Colour
4. Know your superfoods
5. Use natural sweeteners
6. Basic recipes and Techniques

Good stuff:
-The recipes are fantastic, and truly out of the ordinary.
-The photos are really beautiful, artfully arranged, and present a fresh, modern take on food photography. (All the photos in the book are by Heidi).
-The ingredients are explained and Heidi provides a list of sources for those who may have trouble finding some of the ingredients.

Some of my favourite recipes:
-Risotto-style barley with winter citrus and arugula
-Roasted tomato and Paprika Soup
-Hijiki and edamame salad with creamy miso dressing
-Chocolate turtle bean tostadas
-Fig spread with black pepper and toasted sesame seeds
-Ginger-amaranth shortbread

Not-so-good stuff:
-The binding is pretty bad. And by "bad" I don't mean that it looks bad but that it will start to fall apart VERY quickly. Too bad it's not available in hardcover :-(
-Some of the ingredients for some of the recipes are hard to find. (Although I believe she is purposely trying to get us out of our comfort zone).

I am practically living off the recipes in this book right now. I went away to school this year and it has been so good for helping me eat cheaply! lots of hearty soups and things you can do with cheap (but tasty) beans. There is also a recipe for espresso banana muffins that warms my heart, and my lactose intolerant boyfriend loves the milk-free chocolate mousse. I 100% recommend this book. fantastic!

It has beautiful pictures, great information and wonderful looking recipes. I've often been leafing through it and then left it on the counter when friends arrive. Everyone who looks at it has added it to their "must get" list.

I enjoy how the book is not laid out in a standard manner: rather the book is laid out by group of ingredients, ie. Ancient grains, cooking with colours etc. I am an average cook who uses average recipes for the most part but I wanted to gain knowledge of whole foods, raw foods and whole grains and this book is perfect for me.

At times some of the products are hard to find, but she readily admits this. I feel I'm up to the challenge.

I can't wait to get her next book!

I already tried about half the recipes from this book and all but one were successes (and to be honest, I hadn't exactly respected the proportions). I expected that since I am a big fan of Heidi Swanson's website. For that price, you get plenty of good ideas to cook unfussy, handsome vegetarian meals.

This book is beautiful and the recipes Delicious!
Everything I cook my family Loves and I get the credit.
Just the way it should be.
This book is on of my top five cookbooks.

Heidi provides a wealth of healthy ideas in a beautifully organized cookbook. So far I have made the banana espresso muffins and steel cut oats and am looking forward to trying the savory souffle in the near future. Another great cooking resource!