Best Green Eats Ever by Katrine van Wyk

Best Green Eats Ever is a beautifully presented full color cookbook of over 75 recipes using green vegetables in creative ways. Most recipes have lavish full color photographs and each is easy to follow and modify. It’s clear this is a labor of love for the author and the promise of good tasting but healthy food does hold true.

The book breaks down as follows:  Part One: Green Basics (why eat greens, which greens do what, local, seasonal, and organic, setting up your kitchen for success, forget about a one size fits all diet); Part Two: Green Recipes (soups, salads, sides, snacks/sauces, mains, treats).

As would be expected, there are quite a few smoothie and salad recipes. But there are also quite a few creative recipes, including frozen green juice popsickles, salt and vinegar kale chips, spring comfort pasta, dandelion pesto, sauteed fiddleheads, super simple pea shoot salad with radishes, and creamy spinach soup with egg boats.

Naturally, spinach and kale show up in quite a few of the recipes. But lettuces and other green plant leaves are also used liberally. And although the name of the book is green, that doesn’t mean you’re going to have a sea of green only meals from the recipes. Many are quite colorful and the greens are an accent, not the main flavor.

The recipes are beautifully laid out, nearly each one having its own photograph. I do rate one star less because the recipe directions are in short paragraph form and not numbered, making them a bit difficult to follow when cooking. And because I’d have preferred fewer posed shots of the author holding something and instead more shots of the actual dishes. But those are really minor quibbles for an excellent book.

A nice feature of the book is that the recipes have modification information for specific diets; eg.., vegetarian, paleo, GF. Storage and serving size info are also given.

This is a great book to explore recipes that are surprisingly simple to make but complex in their taste. As well, most of the book is the recipe section and not a lot of extra talk. Author Van Wyk is brief in the beginning with information on where to get the greens, when to get them, and which ones are the best for health benefits so the focus stays on the recipes.

In all, nicely presented recipe book with interesting yet healthy meals. Reviewed from an ARC provided by the publisher.