Cook. Nourish. Glow. by Amelia Freer
| Cook. Nourish. Glow. by Amelia Freer | |
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| Category: Cookery | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: The sequel (although it works as a standalone) to Eat. Nourish. Glow. which was short on recipes. Healthy food - and I am proof that it works. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 336 | Date: December 2015 |
| Publisher: Michael Joseph | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1405924184 | |
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It's just about a year since I read Amelia Freer's Eat. Nourish. Glow., a book which quietly impressed me and which I hung on to (not something I do regularly) and have referred back to many times for inspiration and a quick boost to the spirit. Most of the principles behind the book seemed sound, although I wasn't prepared to go down the wheat-free road as I've no reason to think that I'm sensitive to gluten - and I do wonder how most of the world would be fed if we all gave up eating wheat - but if I felt the book had a shortcoming, it was the lack of recipes. Well, that's now been remedied.
Cook. Nourish. Glow. provides 120 recipes aimed at helping you to lose weight, look younger and feel healthier. It's essentially the diet which I've been following for the last two years - except that I don't call it a diet (that word makes me think of deprivation) but rather just the way that I eat - and it's seen me lose three stones, slip easily and painlessly from a size 16 to a size 10 and improve my health considerably. I've never for a moment felt deprived of anything I really wanted to eat - and I actually consume a great deal more than I used to. I have the energy levels which I had in my youth - and I'm going back quite a long way. So, it works. Now - how do the recipes stack up?
I liked them, because there's not the slightest touch of 'fine dining' about them. This is the way normal people eat on a regular basis. Many of the meals are very simple to prepare and whilst you don't get the lengthy lists of ingredients which you get with Yotam Ottolenghi I did get a sense of that sort of flavour. I enjoyed the broccoli and cashew steam-fry with its touch of tamari and the steam-fried cabbage with poached salmon is gloriously tasty and incredibly quick to prepare. It's Amelia Freer's go-to meal after a busy day - it could well become mine too.
Apart from wheat and sugar there are very few foods which are not allowed. Don't worry about the sugar: just make the effort to say that you're not going to have processed sugars: after a couple of weeks it's easy and you'll reach a point where you really wouldn't thank someone if they gave you something sweet. Trust me - it really does work that way. Freer's emphasis is on the quality of the food you eat (and to some extent its provenance) and there are recipes which use red meats and bacon and she sees no problems with a good cup of coffee or a glass of wine. You're not expected to be perfect (so few of us are...) and there are warnings if a recipe includes an ingredient which you shouldn't indulge in too often, such as sweet potatoes.
Some recipes are more indulgent than others - such as the vanilla-honey ice cream and vanilla milkshake or the mini carrot cakes. There are even some chocolate cupcakes and a peanut butter and jam smoothie. What's my favourite recipe? Well it has to be the vegetarian chilli ( or 'chilli sans carne' as we call it here) with cauliflower rice. It is delicious.
You could read and use this book without having read Eat. Nourish. Glow. but you would get more out of it. For more recipes with a similar theme you could try Deliciously Ella: Awesome Ingredients, Incredible Food That You and Your Body Will Love by Ella Woodward but I think Cook. Nourish. Glow. has the edge.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Cook. Nourish. Glow. by Amelia Freer at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Cook. Nourish. Glow. by Amelia Freer at Amazon.com.
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