Book Review: Tosca Reno’s Eat Clean Cookbook
You might remember when I reviewed Tosca Reno’s The Eat Clean Diet for Family and Kids and interviewed her last year. She’s back again with a brand new cookbook!*
This book is gorgeous. She includes some recipes from her other cookbook, such as how to make yogurt cheese and her special mixture for Power Flour, but there are plenty of new recipes as well. Each recipe is accompanied by a glossy full-page coloured photograph and includes the nutrition stats per serving. She also includes information about herbs and different kinds of fats and unusual ingredients as two-page spreads throughout the book, so it’s nice to have her tips and snippets of information between the recipes.
There were a couple of things that bothered me about this book. First, the ingredients that Tosca Reno uses are not always easily found. Some of them can only be bought at specialty food stores, and many of them are quite expensive. Second, many of these recipes involve a considerable amount of time and effort to do the prep and then to allow the food to cook, which is rather daunting (and impractical, for many people). Third, there are some editing errors which made me squirm. For one thing, the scone recipe says that it makes six scones; however in the directions, it says to cut the scones into eight triangles. That kind of inconsistency bothers me (as it should, considering one of my jobs is to edit typos in a weekly newspaper). Is the nutritional value for one scone considered an eighth of the recipe or a sixth of the recipe?
Another editing error that frustrated me was that for the baked rice dishes, which I was really keen on making, it doesn’t say whether the amount of rice in the recipe is cooked or uncooked. I have yet to make these dishes because I’m worried that if I precook the rice and I’m not supposed to, it will be soggy; however, if I don’t cook the rice and I am supposed to, it will be hard. Tough call!
Lastly for editing errors, in the vegetable lasagna recipe, the ingredients call for zucchini, yet there is no mention of zucchini within the directions for the recipe. This same problem occurred in the Spicy Bean Spread recipe. It irks me when recipes are not laid out specifically. I think they need some new editors at that publishing company (want to hire me?).
On the plus side, every recipe that I tried from this cookbook is a keeper. Tosca Reno knows how to cook! Her Spicy Fava Bean Spread is my new favourite hummus recipe (though I use mixed beans rather than fava beans because I couldn’t find fava beans anywhere). I drink her Oat Tea every day, as well. It is made with hot water, oats, cinnamon sticks, and vanilla extract: the perfect caffeine-free tea with tons of flavour. The Oat Tea tastes great alongside one of her Delicious Date Scones- these scones baked beautifully and they call for no butter or margarine or oil (she uses applesauce in place of the fats), and only 2 tbsp sugar. I think that it, too, will become my go-to recipe for date scones. It’s one of the easier recipes to throw together, which I liked. The Mediterranean Chickpeas were also very colourful and very tasty.
Tosca Reno is incredibly inventive with her recipes. One recipe she has is a Stacked Vegetable Lasagna: it is made without noodles; instead, layers of tons of different vegetables are placed in the dish and act as noodles. Rather than using shredded mozzarella cheese, the boyfriend indulged in my vegan excitement and we topped it with cheezy sauce, making it a vegan lasagna! It was possibly one of the most unique dishes I have ever come across, and it was fantastic. The only problem was that there was a huge amount of liquid in the bottom of the dish from all of the fresh vegetables. I also had tons of vegetables left over, so I chopped the rest up small (rather than slicing them lengthwise, noodle-style), tossed them with the marinara sauce and cheezy sauce, and topped the “casserole” with leftover crumbled homemade garlic toast. It was delicious! I think that the next time I make this dish- and there will definitely be a next time- I’ll try cooking the vegetables before I layer them, to try to get some of the excess water out. The boyfriend and the roommate, who are both the carnivorous type of guys, really liked this vegan lasagna (you know it’s good when!).
Stacked vegetable lasagna with garlic toast
Vegan lasagna gets a thumbs up!
University papers and exams have been getting in the way of my desire to cook, but there are a number of other recipes in this book which I can’t wait to try out: Banana Date Breakfast Bread, Saffron and Pomegranate Rice Pilaf, Smashed Homestyle Mustard Potatoes, and Super Simple Corn Muffins, to name a few. Is your mouth watering? Because mine sure is.
The overall verdict: this is a gorgeous book to add to your collection! A lot of these recipes- the ones that take considerably more time and effort- would be really nice for special occasions. They are all full of flavour and very nutritious!
*Disclaimer: I received this book from Bordeaux International to review.
Day Nine of the 200 Reps Challenge
20 Triceps Dips (targets the triceps)
20 Reverse Crunches (targets the lower abdominals)
Repeat this set ten times for a total of 200 Triceps Dips and 200 Reverse Crunches!
For the Triceps Dips:
1. Sitting on the edge of a bench (or a chair, or a bed… anything will do), place your hands beside you on the bench so that they grip the edge. Place your feet flat on the floor as far away as you can from the bench.
2. Slowly raise yourself off of the bench and lower yourself towards the floor, bending at the elbows. Keep your back straight so that it is right beside the bench and not leaning forward or back. You can go low enough that your elbows and shoulders are at roughly the same height.
3. Use your arms to push yourself back up so that you could sit back down on the bench if you wanted to (but don’t- you’re not finished yet!). This is one rep.
TIP: Your back should be close enough to the bench throughout this whole movement that you can almost feel the bench grazing your back as you slide down. This will prevent any unnecessary stress on your joints.
For the Reverse Crunches:
1. Lie on your back on a mat on the floor with your head and back resting on the floor; bend your legs at the knees and raise them so that they are in the air (your calves should be parallel to the floor with your butt slightly lifted off the ground). Your arms should be flat on the floor at your sides.
2. Using your abdominals, lift your butt off the ground. Your pelvis should tilt towards your chest and your lower back can also rise slightly. Your legs will probably straighten out a little bit. Return to starting position. This is one rep.
TIP: Don’t let the rocking motion carry you through this exercise via momentum- make sure your abs are doing the work, or you won’t be getting any kind of workout at all!
13 Comments
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I LOVE Tosca’s books!
Thanks for the review, Sagan!
Also, thanks for the reminder on the triceps dip. I have a tendency to go out and away from the bench, rather than simply sinking down to the ground. And then I wonder why my shoulders are hurting, instead of the triceps. 🙂
I like the eat clean series of books. One can do a lot worse than follow this eating style! Great review!!
Sounds like you’d make a great editor! Those kinds of mistakes irritate the heck out of me too. Other than that, the book sounds pretty good. 🙂
VeggieGirl- I do too. She seems like a fascinating person.
Cammy- ouch ouch yes that would hurt the shoulders! I pretty much always exercise in front of a mirror so I can check my form as I go along.
Dr. J- Agreed, “eating clean”, making homemade food, and avoiding the processed junk is a fabulous way to eat.
JavaChick- I cringe when I find mistakes in published pieces of writing. But I love catching them. Call me crazy, but I get super excited every time I correct a mistake in our newspaper and prevent the mistake from going through to the printing stage, hehe.
I’ve read this book! The layout and format reminded me of a really long magazine. And you are so right about the editing. But I do really like her recipes. And I think her approach is really solid. No gimmicks.
The book sounds excellent! Banana date bread yummm! The lasagna looks delicious! That’s too bad about the editing.
oh!! great review 🙂 i totally hope santa drops that little book under my tree. he totally won’t regret it.
i think you should write a letter or email from her website with your concerns! you might get your questions answered and be able to happily go along making those delish sound rice dishes!
Sounds great! you mentioned yogurt cheese and I got interested. 😀
I would overlook the poor editing if the recipe is good!
I love Tosca’s books and am an avid follower of the Eat-Clean Diet. This cookbook is one of my favorite cookbooks out there so thanks for the great review!
I work in publishing and I know how it is to make a mistake like that in any book, no matter how many times you look at something, it’s heart-wrenching when it goes to print and there’s an error. I doubt that there’s a completely error-free book in existence actually! So I can definitely look past an error like that!
I’ve actually bought the book as a Christmas gift for my mom, sister, aunt, and a few friends! This is a great, beautiful book and I also highly recommend it!
Charlotte- Not having gimmicks is SUPER awesome with this book. She really does have an excellent approach to eating well. And it is kind of magazine-style! I didn’t think of that before.
Reeni- I’m very excited to try the banana bread… mmmmm lasagna 😀
Julie- That’s not a bad idea! I think I will do that.
Sophia- The yogurt cheese is a really wonderful idea, though now that I’m dairy-free I’ll have to find some kind of replacement for that, heh.
Alex- Oh I’m sure you’re right- there’s editing mistakes in every book! It’s just that these ones were quite noticeable to me and caused problems with understanding the recipes themselves, which is rather an issue when cooking. But this book is DEFINITELY one of my new favourites.
bummer about the editing! i hate those kinds of things too, especially after paying for it :/ those scones sound amazing…
Shannon- The scones ARE amazing. I strongly encourage you to get a hold of this book and give them a try 🙂