I love libraries so much. I love testing out books (and dvds) and then buying the ones I love. I have a horrible habit of buying books and reading them once (or only reading half of them), or having buyers remorse when I can’t get into them. It’s taken me almost 2 years of living here before I actually went to the local library (I’ve been getting digital books for a while now), and now I’m there a few times a week.

I was browsing the cookbooks the other day and stumbled upon Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook: Crazy Delicious Recipes that Are Good to the Earth and Great for Your Bod. I’ve heard of the Skinny Bitch franchise, but the profanity kind of turned me off, not because I’m offended by it, but it seemed like it was trying too hard to be “cool”. I know, I’m judging a book by it’s cover.

I paged through the book, and it was between SB or The Sexy Vegan Cookbook: Extraordinary Food from an Ordinary Dude, and this one won me over. What I loved about SB is that the recipes are simple and don’t require crazy expensive ingredients. I skimmed the into part of the book since I didn’t really need any convincing the a whole foods vegan diet is optimal.

So far I’ve made:

Pumpkin Pecan Banana Bread

I doubled the recipe, since I had double the pumpkin and didn’t want to toss the rest.

Bread…and muffins, and mini muffins, and donuts.

I left out the pecans because we didn’t have any.

Did I mention donuts…

Spicy Vegetable Curry

Could have been a tiny bit spicier, but the flavor was great.

Breakfast Bake

Came out good. I used Daiya mozzarella instead of cheddar because it’s what I had. Probably would’ve been good without it too.

Asian Macaroni and Cheese

I love the cauliflower in here and how simple the “cheesy” sauce was.

I didn’t taste the Asian flavors, but it was a great mac ‘n cheese, and I was never a huge mac ‘n cheese fan to begin with.

Coconut Banana French Toast

This was so good! It wasn’t crispy, but the inside was like a banana custard, it didn’t need any syrup (agave in our house).

I over indulged with this one and ate WAY too much.

What I like:

• Simple recipes. The only new thing I purchased was White Miso Paste, and I used it in multiple recipes.
• Food tastes good.
• Hearty recipes.
• Healthy, without seeming like “health food”.

 

Not my favorite:

• Some recipes have a lot of sugar. They recommend using sugars other than regular white processed sugar, but sugar is still sugar and I try to avoid it.
• Also, some recipes are high in fat. I’m not afraid of healthy fats, but I was a little ashamed of the amount of oil in the Pumpkin Bread…especially because it was so good, I ate WAY more than 1 or 2 servings.
• The servings seem a little off, even for me. I don’t eat huge portions, but I doubled most of the things I made, just so I’d be sure I had enough for all of us.

Overall, I think this is a fantastic cookbook. It focuses on whole, healthy recipes that are simple and hearty. It’s a vegan cookbook without making you think you’re missing something or that you have to buy weird fake ingredients.