As a user-friendly book, The Green Kitchen really ticks the boxes, breaking the book down into techniques (healthy start, basic methods), mornings, lighter meals, good to go, family dinners, small bites, drinks and sweets & treats. Something to cover every aspect of your day, from rising to sleeping.
From just having a basic flick through the book, I want to make everything. All the recipes sound so, so delicious - which I know a lot of people don't consider vegetarian food or healthy food to be. I think I might have to let you in on the dishes which excite me the most, just to give you a taste of what this book can give you...
Mornings (breakfasts and brunches)
Flour-free banana and coconut pancakes - my absolute favourite flavours topped with blueberries and maple syrup. Delicious.
Lighter Meals (lunches or light dinners)
Indian Chickpea Crepes with Raita & Leafy Greens - crispy crepes filled with a vibrantly herb-infused and refreshing raita (one of my most revered Indian dippy sides) and filled with crisp leafy greens? Sounds like the most heavenly light lunch.
Good to Go (can travel on a picnic)
Apple & Mushroom-stuffed Picnic Bread Roll - As an avid baker, any opportunity to get my hands around some dough and I am happy. I have never made a stuffed picnic roll, and the flavours sound so scumptious. This is infinitely better than a boring old sandwich that's for sure. Plus - there's the option for using this recipe and technique and subbing in a variety of fillings - including sweet ones too.
Family Dinners
Moroccan Vegetable Tagine - Moroccan flavours are just heavenly. Spicy warmth but fragrant sweet and sticky spicing, served with a light and fluffy cous cous? There is nothing not to like. This recipe was so enticing that on the day I received this book, I in fact made it for my dinner. And it was a super easy recipe to follow. What's even better as you can use the recipe as a framework and mix it up - I subbed butternut squash for parsnip, because that was what I had in the fridge. It was hearty and warming and just made me feel like I was on holiday.
Small Bites
Red Pepper & Rosemary Spread - This has got to easily be one of the most straightforward recipes in the book but hands down, the most vibrant. The thought of dipping some kind of breadstick, pitta, cracker... carbohydrate of any kind in fact into this dip has actually got me salivating.
Drinks
Chocolate and Blackberry Milkshake - Chocolate?! Healthy?! COME AT ME. With a base of coconut milk, cacao and bananas I cannot think of anything better on a summer afternoon.
Sweets and Treats
Simple Chocolate Mousse - I repeat chocolate?! HEALTHY!? I could get used to this...
However. I fear that perhaps 'getting used to this' might be a bit out of my price range. As delicious and inspiring as these recipes are, I have to say, they contain some quite expensive ingredients which for me, personally, might make it a challenge to use every day. The list of what is contained in the 'ideal store cupboard' at the front of the book nearly had me faint in a cartoon manner with pound signs flashing before my eyes. But I guess that's part and parcel of this lifestyle: I wouldn't adopt it every day, but the recipes are easily adaptable (in general) to make them suitable to my budget.
The only thing I think that this book lacks are snacks. I know that the Green Kitchen Stories blog have quite a few snack bars and muffin type things in their recipe archive (I regularly make the sticky nut bars myself as a weekday nibble), and I would have loved to have seen more of these in the book. Overall though, it is brilliantly refreshing to have a book championing the humble vegetable and showing you that healthy food and a healthy lifestyle is exciting, easy and most importantly, very delicious.
(Hardie Grant books, £25.00)