The No Meat Athlete Cookbook by Matt Frazier and Stepfanie Romine

My running has recently taken a turn for the serious (gulp!) and part of that includes being aware of my diet and not just eating everything that sounds good. This popped up on NetGalley and I thought I'd at least take a look. I have no interest in being vegetarian, but wouldn't mind cutting out about half the meat I currently eat.

Here's the description, from Amazon:

A Sports Illustrated Best Health and Wellness Book of 2017

From the founder of No Meat Athlete: plant-based recipes packed with nutrition to help athletes perform better and recover faster

A fast-growing global movement, No Meat Athlete (NMA) is inspiring everyone from weekend joggers to world-class competitors to be healthier and fitter and perform better on whole plant foods. Written by NMA founder Matt Frazier and longtime health coach, yoga teacher, and nutrition writer Stepfanie Romine, The No Meat Athlete Cookbook features 150 whole food, vegan recipes that are affordable and quick to get on the table, even on busy nights. Here are:
Breakfasts to power you up (Almond Butter–Banana Pancakes), mains that aid recovery (Beet Bourguignon), and natural sports drinks, portables, energy bites, and bars (V9, Umeboshi Electrolyte Drink, Calorie Bomb Cookies) to take you further and help you get the most from every workout
Minimal gluten, soy, and sweeteners, plus oil-free options throughout (ideal for followers of the Forks Over Knives diet)
Meal-planning guidelines, nutritional info, adaptable “blueprint” recipes—and more!

I had to download this one as a .pdf, which was in itself a pain in the rear, but once I had it found it to be great cookbook. I made a few notes in my bullet journal, as well as jotting down a couple recipes to try later. (That darn time limit on NetGalley .pdfs practically guarantees the book will be gone by the time I am ready to try the recipe!) My notes are in bullet form, as they are below.

• The pictures are really pretty, and actually make me want to try the food. It's not just one plate of greens after another!
• All the recipes contain a vegan option, but the book is very clear that the way to get there is slowly. Cut out one product at a time, going cold turkey on all animal products is hard. This is totally a non-preachy style intro to vegetarian meals. I hate the cookbooks that lecture me first.
• Most recipes do have a lot of ingredients, which is a turn off for me. That said, almost all of look like something I'd be willing to eat, and not nearly as "weird" as most vegetarian books are.
• I loved the "Blueprint Meals" which are more of a general guideline than an actual recipe. For example "A grain, a green and a bean" following by examples of potential combinations.
• There is an entire chapter devoted to fuel and recovery from workouts. I loved that.

I wrote down three recipes to try: Caribbean Coconut Collards & Sweet Potatoes (I can't resist coconut or sweet potatoes),  Smoky Potato Salad (no mayo!) and Cucumber- Lime Electrolyte Drink.  I'm hoping that I'll try them out sooner rather than later, and I'll let you know what I think.

The No Meat Athlete comes out on May 16, and while I haven't seen a print copy, I have no problems recommending it.

Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach

I have kept a book list for nearly 20 years now.  I started it in January of 1993 and have kept it up ever since. (In reality, I started it in 1992, but for whatever reason when I decided it was a "real" thing I tossed those random months that didn't go back to January. Argh.) I thought this was impressive, my list of 40, or 60 or 80 books a year. (My annual reading tops out at 116 books in 1999.)  Jenny Rosenstrach has me beat though. She has a list of every dinner she's eaten for the last 14 years. Sure, it's not as many years, but it's every day! Every one of them!  I can only aspire to such things.

Even without my awe at the Dinner Journal, Dinner: A Love Story: It all begins at the family table is a terrific book. It's one of those mixes of memoir, how-to, self-help and cookbooks that come together in a terrific book. (I had a similar reaction to A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table (my review) and The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time (my review)). Rosenstrach's goal is to get the reader to see that making dinner for a family doesn't have to be a painful, heavy obligation. You can learn to love having dinner without being a terrific chef or a stay at home Martha Stewart.  There's no guilt to not eating together every night, if little kids need to eat an early dinner, so be it. Once they learn a few manners, everyone can sit together. Mostly. In either case, dinner should be pleasant, and not a chore. The book is full of pictures from the author's actual life, of both the food and her family. Its a nice book, full of text, but not heavy and preachy about what you should and shouldn't been feeding your kids. I completely enjoyed it.

As I was reading Dinner: A Love Story, I marked a few recipes to try later. Imagine my surprise when I went back to count and discovered that I had marked FOURTEEN of them!  I tried a few of the ideas from the book early on, with some huge substitutions, but last week was finally the week to try actual recipes. I choose four from the book for my weekly menu (links go to the recipes on her blog):

Chicken with Bacon-y Brussels Sprouts on page 156- Mike and I liked it, the kids were unimpressed. As usual with Brussels Sprouts.

Great- Grandma Turano's Meatballs on page 194.  We didn't love the sauce, it was sweeter than we are used to, but the meatballs were terrific and there were no leftovers.

Grandma Jody's Chicken from page 11. I made these with a little oven baked bacon and we had them as sandwiches. These were excellent. Also, we used crushed corn chex cereal for the breading because that's all I had and it seemed close enough to Corn Flakes.

And last, and best, Pork Shoulder Ragu with Pappardelle on page 179. Except we had ours with linguine noodles, cause our grocery stores don't sell pappardelle. This was knock your socks off terrific, and I copied it into my dinner journal (you had to know I'd start one) to make again. This one made the house smell better than I can every remember it smelling. Ever.  She suggests this one for low key adult dinner parties, and I can easily see that.

I have a few more marked in the book to try before I take it back to the library (or maybe I'll just use these handy links):

Chicken Curry with Apples
Pomegranate Pork Loin with Cabbage
Yogurt Marinated Grilled Chicken
Mustardy Pork Chops with Apples and Onions


Huh. Looks like my menu for this week is already planned. Good thing my family like apples!

In short, terrific cookbook, and even if I didn't like the food, worth it to read for the writing between the recipes.

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