Veggies for Carnivores, a new cookbook by chef and lifestyle coach Lora Krulak is waiting to grace your kitchen.
Chef Krulak has known food intolerances herself. Wheat, dairy and refined sugars are not common practice in her cooking but you won’t even know they are missing. I personally appreciate her creations because they are vegetarian, naturally gluten free and have a low glycemic index.
These ethnic dishes with fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices meld together quickly and tastefully. Base ingredients include: natural sweeteners, veggies, herbs, healthy oils, salt and acid. Chef Krulak explains how these ingredients accent one another beautifully.
The cook book has “Fascinating Fact/Tip” sections scattered throughout. These sections are full of tricks to make preparation easy and also provide health facts about the ingredients.
The heart and origin of this book surfaces from the deep connections this author made with local foods and spices on her extensive world travels. Her stories create a lovely thread throughout her book engaging the reader from recipe to recipe. Most recipes have a minimal ingredient list, highlighting the whole foods that are in that unique creation. Reading Lora’s stories and recipes inspired me to explore using spices, herbs and other ingredients in unfamiliar ways.
I love the simplicity of this book.
From her Sweet Avocado Dressing to Edamame dip and Roasted Carrot Ginger Soup Chef Krulak’s vision of “moving vegetables to the center of the plate” becomes reality. I read Veggies for Carnivores front to back, which may sound unusual for a cookbook. I stopped bookmarking recipes to make when I realized I wanted to make most everything in it.
See She Sugar’s post on Chef Krulak’s “Roasted Carrot Ginger Soup Recipe”. Yes, it was delicious!
My only constructive criticism is that of the book cover. The content of this book deserves a hard cover with a tight picture. Marketed to a different crowd this book would be savored by whole food loving vegetarians and those on a gluten free diet. My instinct is this was a toss up. This cover speaks to meat eaters. With the cover as the weakest link, it gives a blurry vision of the fabulous offerings that are inside. This is a vegetarian and gluten free eaters dream. Don’t let the cover fool you and pass it by.
Disclosure: I did receive this cookbook for free and was requested to do a book review.