Friday, September 18, 2020

Sustainable Eating

 Climate change is on everyone's mind, thanks to the massive hurricanes in the South and the horrible forest fires out west. One of the ways is sustainable cooking. Home chefs can do their part  thanks to a new cookbook that shows them how. Saving the planet can be delicious and relatively easy.

Think Eat Cook Sustainably, 100 Recipes plus Tips and Ideas For A Healthy World  (2019 Rachel Khanna) was written by Rachel Khanna, creator of the organic catering company Tiffin,. She is also author of Live Eat Cook Healthy : Simple Fresh and Delicious Recipes For Balanced Living wrote this informative cookbook to not only open our eyes to sustainable food shopping and cooking but also our impact on the world.  The first chapters explain how we can shop and cook responsibly.It is an eye opener with a push on eating more vegetables and leaner meats. She lays out her sustainable plan with Key Principles. Home chefs should know where their food comes from and who grows it. Ms. Khanna also urges to purchase as many products as possible from local farms or vendors along with cutting down on waste and become conscious of what we eat.Ms. Khanna also lays out the groundwork for a new eating paradigm. It's a healthy way of eating. Consume lots and lots of fruits and vegetables.You can eat meat and their are recipes for it. She recommends healthy sources of protein such as grass fed meats,eggs and dairy products.Also opt for legumes and whole grains  along with buying foods with expiration dates. There are some good nuggets of advice too, like shopping on a grocery's perimeter where the freshest foods are  and minimizing purchasing frozen and packaged foods.She addresses superfoods, meat alternatives and the juice controversy (she is definitely nay)


The recipes are good for you and good tasting. Ms. Khanna divides the book into such simple chapters as breakfast and brunch , soups, salads, entrees, sides and desserts. I like this book and the recipes are what I would create. Breakfasts can be beginner's bread which can be dotted with olives, cranberries or walnuts or a congee , a porridge of brown rice and quince or prunes. I love the different tarts that would be perfect for brunch along with the Gruyere and garlic scones. I love her soup recipes. The butternut squash and ginger soup is a fall must cook. Home chefs will  love making the curried cauliflower and sunchoke or Jerusalem artichokes along with the creamy, garlic infused leek and sunchoke one. Salads are great too, There's the interesting purslane salad with halloumi cheese, a Cypriot goat's milk based cheese. Try the pea shoot, watercress and endive salad with Roquefort The entrees and the sides are just as healthy too. A  nutritious dinner could consist of her roasted halibut with shallot and saffron sauce  and a side of sauteed lima beans , kale, carrots and turnips. Ms. Khanna also celebrates her husband's'  and daughters' Indian heritage too with kicheree, a stew made with mung beans and potatoes along with mattar- gaajar , a pea and carrot mix, spiced with curries. I love her grain bowls how to, with a variety of different ingredients starting with the grain base and ending with the different vinaigrettes. Dessert lovers will appreciate her pound cake recipe with its' many variations and her  mother's Swiss chocolate almond cookies.

Think Eat Cook Sustainably 100 Recipes Plus Tips & Ideas For A Healthy World is the perfect cookbook for those who want to cook and eat sustainably. It's full of delicious recipes that can help with making the world a better place. It's eating better and feeling better about what's in the kitchen and on the table.