TOP 8 HOLIDAY COOKBOOK GIFT PICKS

You can never go wrong giving me a cookbook. I love to spend the holiday season curled up on the couch with a great new cookbook. It’s pretty much the perfect gift for anyone, unless of course you know that they hate to cook! Here’s my round-up of the best cookbooks-for-gifts for 201o. Most of them are primarily veggie, because I think it’s so important for us all to discover easy, creative and delicious ways to introduce more veggies into our everyday meals. As far as vegetarian/vegan cooking is concerned, I need to be inspired and I believe any one of the following will do just that:

1.Clean Food – A Seasonal Guide To Eating Close To The Source With More Than 200 Recipes For A Healthy & Sustainable You by Terry Walters. I love this book. More than a cook book, it’s also a guide with loads of great information. I just tried the Lemony Artichoke Dip, which I scarf down with Mary’s Gone Cracker’s Crackers – very addictive!

2. Skinny Bitch – Ultimate Everyday Cookbook by Kim Barbouin. Kim has created a really useful vegan cookbook with gorgeous photographs. I like how she makes vegan cookery fun and so very easy, even for beginners.

3. Candle Cafe Cookbook More Than 150 Enlightened Recipes from New York’s Renowned Vegan Restaurant by Bart Potenza and Barbara Scott Goodman. If you’ve had the good fortune to have eaten in this restaurant, you may well have already ordered this book, because the food is out-of-this-world. Not sure that I would be able to re-create the dishes I’d eaten there, I was absolutely thrilled to find that this book is very easy to follow and that the recipes turn out exactly as described and look just like the photos, which is not the case with all cookery books. A must-have if you’re veggie/vegan.

4. Anna Getty’s Easy Green Organic by Anna Getty. I love Anna’s simple approach to organic food. This is not a veggie/vegan book, but Anna’s approach is similar to mine in that she promotes a “flexitarian”diet with plenty of great recipes for kids and the whole family.

5. reFresh – Contemporary Vegan recipes From The Award Winning Fresh Restaurant by Ruth Tal and Jennifer Houston. Wow – what a fantastically usable vegan cookery book. You really can’t go wrong with any of these simple, yet delicious everyday dishes. Beautiful photographs will have your mouth watering.

6. Lulu Powers Food To Flowers – Simple Stylish Food For Easy Entertaining by Lulu Powers. This is a beautiful coffee table book, that will inspire you to push the boat out when you’re next entertaining. Lulu Powers is caterer to A-list celebrities and brings her unique style to every page of this stunningly photographed book. It’s not vegetarian, but there are plenty of good veggie options. My nine-year old daughter has designed her next birthday party around some fantastic ideas from this book, including the pudding pops, which she thinks we should test out right away!

7. Rebar – Modern Food Cookbook by Audrey Aisterberg and Wanda  Urbanowicz. This book was recommended to me at the beginning of the year and I was eager to get it because I’ve eaten at the Rebar Cafe on Victoria Island, BC. I worked my way through as soon as I got it and loved virtually everything I tried. I love that each simple veggie soup, stew, or stir-fry includes all kinds of herbs and spice combos that I wouldn’t normally think of putting together, and that give the dishes a magical kick. The fruit bars are the best we’ve ever tasted.

8. The Gorgeously Green Diet – How To Live Lean & Green by Sophie Uliano!!!! Last but not least, my book is packed with information on everything you need to know about a maintaining a healthy and delicious diet. I include eating plans that you can customize according to your lifestyle and there are over 100 super-simple, cost-effective and yummy recipes. This is a book for you and your family – assuming that everyone has different dietary wants and needs, I try to walk the middle path, creating family meals that everyone will enjoy.