Bravo!: Health Promoting Meals from the TrueNorth Health Kitchen

Oh man, I REALLY wanted to give this book five stars. I'm a former foodie and an avid home cook who's been plant based for about nine months, and the gourmet nature of the book was what I needed to keep things interesting.I've made about half a dozen recipes so far and only had one dish that I loved. But I'm going to keep cooking from this book and see what happens. I'll update this review if my opinion changes, but since it's a new book without many reviews I thought this might help others.Issues:- Measurements - My main problem with the book is that the measurements are too vague, for instance "medium eggplant" can mean a lot of things. Not only is medium a relative measurement, there are many different types of eggplant. This is just one example but one that really screwed me over when I was making dinner for guests. A lot of the recipes have at least one instance of this. I didn't expect this lack of detail from an executive chef.- Number of servings - Most recipes serve 6 large servings. This is good and bad. Good because eating plant based means you eat a lot of food and I like having leftovers. Bad because when you don't like something, or the recipe fails (because of vague measurements), you end up wasting a lot. I've learned to cut the recipe in half the first time I make it, especially if it's an expensive recipe, which many are (not all, but some).Keep in mind that these recipes are mostly in line with how I normally eat, meaning I'm used to low fat and low salt, so when I evaluate the flavor of a recipe I'm not coming from the standard American diet. If I were, I probably would need to add some salt and fat to these dishes.Here's what I made and what I thought:Herbed Hummus - It was just ok, not great, will make again but add a little tahini. This is probably just my personal preference.Corn Chowder - Fantastic! can't say enough good things about it! BUT I had to use store bought stock so the sodium from that might have impacted the flavor.Roasted Tomatoes and Eggplant - Total FAIL! The lack of proper measurement for the eggplant was a real problem. It was completely raw. I ended up having to throw everything in a Dutch oven and essentially braising it.Coconut Vanilla Granola - Disappointing. Cook times seemed off and there were no instructions about how to cook it using two half sheet pans (which is what most home cooks have). Also, the FIVE dollar vanilla bean I used was barely detectable, use extract and save the money.Chayote Apple Salad - Fail. Not enough flavor and made A LOT of salad, most of it was thrown away (and that rarely happens in my house).Citrus Tahini Dressing - Pretty good, would make again.Creamy Cauliflower Soup - Nothing special, again I think the measurement issue was a problem. My cauliflower may have been too big and diluted the flavor of the aromatics?I would also say that this is not a cookbook for someone who doesn't already know how to cook pretty well. The recipes lack a lot of details, but I'm mostly able to figure it out. It's probably hard for a professional chef to "dumb down" instructions for home chefs. But I will say, the beginning of the book gives a lot of good tips about how to do some basics. I especially like the info about making vegetable stock. This book relies heavily on using homemade vegetable stock for flavor. If that's not something you're willing to do then accept that you will be getting excess salt from store bought stock.Bottom line, even though my rating isn't high I would buy this book again simply because the market for gourmet, no oil, no salt, no sugar recipes is so small and I'll take whatever I can get. I plan to use these recipes like I do all others, as a starting point to make my own. The reason for the low rating is because of the lack of detailed measurement and consideration for the home cook environment. It caused some problems for me (and worst of all caused some food waste) but I'm learning to work around it. Just cut the recipes in half the first time you make them and you should be ok.

The book is nice quality and full of amazing recipes that taste good and are relatively simple to create. But while the recipes are great there are a few items that really bother me about the layout.First, the list of ingredients is on the left side of the recipe as per usual. However, if there are a lot of ingredients then there is a strange break and the ingredient list continues on the next page even if there is plenty of room on the first page to fit it all in easily. I actually went in with a pen and wrote (More ingredients on the next page) on the bottoms of some of these because it is confusing and weird. It seems that there is some need to make the book look balances instead of, the more important aspect, to keep it tidy, functional, and easy to follow.Second, there are certain recipes that have beautiful pictures, however, the picture is across from a completely different recipe 25-30 pages away. It may be me and my old-school beliefs but if a recipe has a picture, that picture should be on the same page as the recipe, not half the book away with a reference to the page where the recipe is found. This really bothers me. I'm not sure what this is for. I already purchased the book. I don't need picture-advertisements for different recipes while I'm cooking. It would be ions more helpful to see what I'm trying to make instead of a picture of a cake while I'm trying to make spaghetti. Just saying.So there it is. The editor needs to be sat down and talked to about their weird antics. Otherwise, the recipes are beautiful, healthy and the authors are genius!!!

I really appreciate the book arriving in excellent condition. It was rated as "very good" but looked "like new" to me. Love it. Thank you. A+++++

I have been waiting for this book to come out for so long and my copy finally arrived today. It was definitely worth the wait. While there are many talented plant based chefs who write beautiful cookbooks, their food is not very healthy, replete with tons of oil, sugar and salt. It's pretty easy to make anything taste delicious if you are using those three addictive ingredients!!! Try and make food taste good WITHOUT them. To do that, you need a true culinary genius which you have in Chef Bravo. With all the vegan crap like agave and olive oil that is being touted to as as healthy, it's refreshing that there are a few talented chefs out these who can make truly health promoting food delicious AND beautiful.Sure, if you are still eating sugar, oil or salt these recipes may taste a bit bland to you, at first. But as Dr. Alan Goldhamer always says "if this food doesn't taste good, then you really need to fast". No one needs to eat sugar, oil or salt. All three of those ingredients are disease promoting. Chef Bravo shows you how to avoid all of these toxins and makes it easy and delicious. This book is a masterpiece! Try his recipes and finally lose the excess weight and clean up your palate while enjoying the healthiest food on the planet. Or better yet, visit True North and experience Chef Bravo's incredible cuisine in person.Love & Kale,Chef AJ[...]

Great vegan book, interesting information. I think this would be a good basic starting book for someone new to a vegan diet. I have bought it as I wanted to include some vegan meals into my vegetarian diet. I have tried a few recipes with good results, and I am now prepared with lots of ideas when vegan friends come for dinner.

An excellent book full of tasty recipes which are free of sugar and salt.

For such a colourful cover, there’s not one picture inside! Also the book is very small. It’s about the size of my hand

I really like when I can see a photo in a book, so I can image the end result - unfortunately this book does not provide photographs of all dishes.Cooking for one person is a difficult task to complete, because majority of recipes require plenty of ingredients that makes storing the fresh ones impossible.THIS BOOK IS BASED ON BASIC INGREDIENTS AND THE LACK OF PHOTOS IS BEING MADE UP WITH THE SugarOilSalt-FREE MEALS.

This book is a great tool when trying to eliminate SALT OIL & SUGAR. These recipes make the transition to a healthier diet easier.