Bowls of Plenty: Recipes for Healthy and Delicious Whole-Grain Meals

"I love to cook without a book." Needlepoint my mom made when I was little now hanging in my kitchen. It's true. I rarely follow a recipe. However; I have a nice collection of cookbooks for inspiration and a few of those I use regularly. I just found one that I can tell will have worn and food smudged pages! Some things I love about it: - The photos! Beautiful images that not only illustrate the ingredients and what the finished product will look like, they make my stomach growl! -The ingredients are pretty much all things that I'm familiar with and that I can find easily in my neighborhood markets. -I've always been a bit intimidated by whole grains and thus, I rarely cook them. Bowls explains each grain and how to easily prepare it. -Sauces and dressings! Like I said, I mostly cook from my head, and there is a limit to the sauce and dressing ideas stored there. Bowls has a plethora of sauces and dressings that are new to me and a few (Thai Peanut Sauce and Caesar Dressing) that I'm so happy to finally know how to properly make. The Sweet and Tangy Vinaigrette is to die for and oh so simple to make. -It's flexible! In my world, you must be flexible. Each recipe could be made with extra or leaving out ingredients. You can easily switch proteins or even the dressings. It's a great book to either follow each recipe to a T, or to peruse for inspiration. There is even a "Build Your Own Bowl" page with choices of protein, grains, veggies and condiments to mix and match. So yes, I recommend "Bowls of Plenty" to cooks of all levels!

This book is going to crush my dinnertime rut. With a picky eight year old and an even pickier four year old, I serve a lot of tacos and composed salads because they allow each family member to take what she likes without complaining about what she doesn't. Bowls of Plenty offers so many new and flexible ideas for putting protein, vegetables, and healthy carbs on the table in combinations that are, amazingly, healthy AND beautiful AND suitable for weeknights; I flagged dozens of recipes on my first flip-through. Components can, in many cases, be prepped ahead of time, enabling you to pull dinner together quickly in the evening (or to pack an amazing work lunch). I have already made Quinoa and Poached Salmon Salad with Confetti Vegetables (so good even my quinoa-rejecting eight year old ate it) and a top-notch kale Caesar, and I know I will be turning to this book for inspiration all the time. Carreno's headnotes and instructions are very informative and friendly without being saccharine--a rarity these days, I'd say. Anyway--two thumbs up, will buy again and again as a gift. P.S. There is also an amazing looking breakfast section that I am just beginning to wrap my head around. Spiced apple breakfast farro, quinoa huevos rancheros--I'll be seeing you soon.

It has great healthy recipes that are tasty - a great way to eat and attractive enough to fix for company, a real hit!

I probably own over 300 cookbooks, and this is one of my favorites. The flavor combinations are incredible, and her falafel recipe is the best I've ever made. It's worth buying!

This is quite possibly my favorite cookbook ever. I thought I had every thing I needed in the kitchen but the suggestions for effiiciency have helped me augment my kitchen supplies. The recipes have incorporated common sense home cooking with suggestions to personalize to your own tastes and diet where necessary, plus some pretty witty humor. You can tell the author understands that most home chefs don't want to go on a scavenger hunt for crazy rare ingredients. The photos are spectacular, and possibly a little daunting, but my dishes look closer to them than I expected (at least I know what I'm shooting for!). The other beauty in these recipes is that they scale easily for entertaining, and preserve well for days ahead of meals. I was so inspired but my first few that I went out and got bigger bowls. I bought several copies of this book for friends and relatives as this is a keeper. Favorites so far: the Umbrian farro and bean said, winter wild rice salad, Baja BBQ shrimp bowl, and the build your own bowls. Since the author encourages farmers market shopping, ingredients will depend on where you live and what season it is so you can make just about any recipe all year. . . And I haven't even tried the breakfast bowls or desserts yet.

This book is so fabulous. Like so many new books now on the surface it looks great, lovely photography and healthy food; but unlike most of those other books once you start to make the recipes you discover the depth of experience that Carolynn brought to creating this one. The knowledge she brings from working with other chefs shines through in every little detail. So often cook books look great, but the recipes are blah; needing major adjustment to even remotely resemble the photographs or taste good. But in this book each recipe is perfect and you can tell well tested: while they take a little more time to make, as there are sometimes several components to each bowl it is worth every second. Everything I have tried in this book (and I have used it more in a month than many books I have had for years) is fresh and stunningly delicious. My copy is already stained and dog-eared and lives in the kitchen.......and without any hesitation I recommend you buy it immediately.

This is one of my very favorite cookbooks, and I have many! There are so many things to like about it. Carolynn's foolproof recipes for the various grains are worth the price of the book alone. The bowl recipes are unique and delicious but not at all hard to prepare; she has a lot of street cred as a recipe developer and chef for a reason. The pictures are beautiful, and the layout is logical and easy to read. But perhaps best of all is Carolynn's "voice"--she is a delightful writer, and by the end of the book, I felt as though I had met a new friend over a tasty lunch of one of her bowls. Brava! This is one I would take to a desert island.

This is my kind of cookbook: grain bowls with lots of vegetables, quality protein (animal and otherwise) and to-die-for sauces. It doesn't get any more yummy or healthy than this. Thankfully, there's nothing vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, paleo, keto or otherwise about this book. (Still, if you follow a restrictive way of eating you will find plenty of options for adapting these fabulous recipes to your needs.) This book is all about flavour and deliciousness, what home cooking is all about. Her back stories and instructions are encouraging and helpful. Everything I've made out of this book so far has been absolutely awesome.