Cookbook Review: Love Real Food

Title: Love Real Food
Author: Kathryne Taylor (of the Cookie + Kate blog)
Date: 2017
Publisher: Rodale

Recipes Made:

Carrot Cake Breakfast Cookies
Sun-Dried Tomato Fettuccine Alfredo with Spinach
Chickpea Tikka Masala with Green Rice
Easy Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
German Chocolate Cake

Verdict:

Enjoyable and usable with the high-quality content and recipes I’m used to from her blog. A good cookbook to buy for your bookshelves, especially if you’re looking for plant-based or vegetarian recipes. I’ve recommended several individual recipes already.

My Thoughts

I really like the Cookie + Kate blog, and her cookbook doesn’t disappoint. The book is now dotted with flagged recipes to make in the future, and there are options to carry me through the coming seasons. She has a knack for flavor, and I think the measure of a good cookbook is whether it teaches you to make food pop through sauces, dressings, and flavor combinations. I have to say I wish she relied less heavily on alternative ingredients (or at least provided readers with traditional ingredients, swaps or other options spelled out). For example, every time coconut oil is listed, I’ve made a straight 1:1 swap for melted butter. There’s a lot of using honey and maple syrup in place of sugar, which doesn’t change the nutrition profile, and sometimes I felt it would be simpler to just use granulated sugar.

Recipe-By-Recipe Breakdown

Carrot Cake Breakfast Cookies

These were delicious and will be a recipe I make on repeat. They kept well in an air-tight tupperware container for several days. I made a batch on the weekend (Charlotte gobbled up a few on Sunday morning out on the front porch) and took one or two to work for a mid-morning snack throughout the workweek. A good blend of nuttiness with just enough sweetness. Here, I used 1/2 cup melted butter instead of coconut oil.

Sun-Dried Tomato Fettuccine Alfredo with Spinach

I made this recipe earlier this summer just so I’d trial it in time for writing up a review; it’s a style of recipe I don’t generally gravitate towards because I’m all about not substituting ingredients for creamy sauces. But cashew-based pasta sauces are something I’ve seen on her blog before and wanted to see how well it stood up to the real deal. It was pretty good. I wouldn’t really recommend it over a cream-based pasta if that’s what you’re in the mood for, but I also really wish I had this recipe when I had to go dairy-free and soy-free for Charlotte’s colic and intolerances in her first year. It’s ultimately satisfying and definitely meets a need if you have to avoid dairy. The one catch is that I often intended to presoak the cashews before picking Charlotte up from daycare, but my day would simply get away from me, and I’d have to punt on dinner that night without the cashews prepped in advance. It’s a quick meal if you remember this prep step ahead of time, though.

Chickpea Tikka Masala with Green Rice

An absolute favorite and another recipe I’ll make on repeat (and in fact have already started tweaking based on what’s an easy flow for me — see the recipe adaptation below). A hearty but not heavy, satisfying, flavorful dinner that reheats well for lunch the next day. A winner.

Easy Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Basically delivers as promised: a simpler preparation for a tried-and-true carrot cake (and carrot cake is a family favorite). I did use the half-and-half blend of whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour, two staples I routinely have on hand. Everything else was quick to get and put together. It was also nice to have a 9-inch cake afterwards, a nice amount for my family to nosh on for dessert. The recipe calls for coconut oil or olive oil, and I opted for olive oil.

German Chocolate Cake

I was mostly curious to make this cake to see how the frosting fared (it calls for Medjool dates as a sweetening element). I don’t cook often with dates, but this process went smoothly, and the cake turned out well. I can see myself making it again, though I think I’d still turn to traditional German chocolate cake recipes, too. This one feels like a simplified quick-and-easy version that satisfies a sweet tooth when time or resources are otherwise limited.

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