Today I share with you a little review on Gwyneth Paltrows book “Its all good”, in the Netherlands called [H]eerlijk. As a foodie, I am mostly looking for good food that is made with love. I love it when a cook book has a story and loads of pictures to inspire. Oh and did I mention, I read cook books like they are novels; so you get the picture right? Never in my wildest dreams had I thought about checking out a cookbook like Gwyneths. Why? Because I had the idea that Gwyneth was a health freak and only lived on eating 5 almonds a day. I think thats because of the fact that she talked about her macro biotic diet a lot in the past. Ok, back to this cook book. I was driving in the car with fellow foodie Maura from Yellow Lemon Tree and we were talking about a detox she was planning to do and I was intrigued. I don’t know about a detox myself, but being conscious of what it is you eat and learning a little bit about food can’t hurt you right. She mentioned this book to me and I knew I wanted to review it. So what do I think of the book?

I love how the book (300 pages!) begins with Gwyneth explaining the reason for making this cook book and being so honest and why she eats the way she does. It set high expectation for the rest of the book. I love the photography in the book and can’t wait to start cooking from it. It got me all exited on cooking healthier and now that my holiday is over, I think it would be perfect to try out some of the recipes. Curious if they taste as good as they look, cause yes, this book looks nice and I loved the fact that there are quite a bit of Asian inspired recipes. To give you an idea, the recipes that are on my to cook list are:
– Steamed fish with Soy and a spicy sesame oil
– Watermelon and mint agua fresca
– Banana ice cream with roasted almonds and fleur de sel

The book also indicates whether its vegetarian, contains no sugar or if a dish is gluten free. Very handy if you want to pay some more attention to this kind of detail. Oh and you can even do a detox and she’s helped out writing weekly menus. Score!

One thing I’d like to point out is that when looking at the ingredients she uses, don’t let it scare you but be creative. Don’t go using duck eggs, as they will cost you a fortune. Also that special flour brand, never mind and be clever.

I got permission from publisher Kosmos to share a recipe with you guys. Hope you like it just as much as I did. And no it did not taste like diet food 😉

Recipe for Lee’s Vietnamese Salad

photo taken by Ditte Isager

Ingredients
4 large bok choy leaves, rough bottoms removed and then cut in to 0.5 cm pieces.
4 big leaves of Nappa cabbage, also in 0.5 cm pieces.
A handful of watercress, roughly chopped up
1 big carrot, cleaned and julienned
Roughly chopped up leaves from about 8 sprigs of Basil, mint and coriander
1/2 cucumber cut in to thin strips
1 red chili pepper cut in to smaller pieces
60 gr roasted peanuts or cashew nuts, crushed or chopped
Vietnamese dressing

Method
Combine the bok choy, cabbage, water cress, carrot, herbs, cucumber, chili pepper and half of the nuts. Use enough dressing to coat your “salad”. Serve the nuts next to it and add to your liking. 

Vietnamese dressing ~ 180ml

Ingredients
60 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 TBsp of rice wine vinegar
2 TBsp of soy sauce
60 ml Fish Sauce
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp spicy toasted sesame oil
2 TBsp of wild honey
1 tsp of grated garlic
1 tsp chopped of fresh ginger
2 TBsp of chopped red onion or shallot.

Method
Mix in all ingredients to make a spicy, sour, salt and sweet dressing that is perfectly balanced. You can store the dressing up to one week in the fridge.

[H]eerlijk eten
Kosmos Uitgeverij
€ 24,95 and also available at bol.com

Don’t forget to check out Gwyneths platform where she shares all of lives positives: http://www.goop.com/recipes

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