The Five Best Cookbooks for Healthy Family Cooking

I have a confession: I am a cookbook addict. I don’t know what it is, but whenever I see a beautiful cookbook on a store shelf, I just have to have it! Each Christmas I give my husband some not-so-subtle hints about cookbooks I’d love to own, and I usually find one waiting for me under the tree. A cookbook might be a risky gift for some husbands, kind of like buying your wife a personal clothing shopper (yes, we know a guy who did that!). It might not send the right message. But to me, a thick cookbook with a beautiful cover doesn’t tell me I need to cook more or better, it inspires me to try new things in the kitchen and incorporate even healthier foods into our every day diet.

 When friends come over they often see what cookbook I have on display (yes, I have a display) and thumb through it. They are always a talking point in our home. The other day one of these friends asked for a list of my favourite cookbooks for healthy family cooking, leading me to write this post.  Busy moms like us want to cook healthy, affordable meals for our families, but we don’t have the time to pour over new recipes and figure which one will work. Cooking can be a bit of gamble like that. So to take out the guess work, here are the top five cookbooks for families that I rely on most to serve up delicious, healthy and affordable meals each evening. If you’re really out to save money, check out this post on meal planning.

#1 – Looneyspoons by Janet and Greta Podleski. – This is a VERY popular cookbook in Canada, and for good reason (which I’ll explain in second). I’m serious when I write this -- If you don’t have this cookbook, you need to stop reading, go to your local bookstore and pick it up right NOW. Yup, stop reading. Go to the mall.

What I love about this cookbook is its premise. Two sisters decided that they wanted to eat healthier, but still enjoy all their favourite foods. They made minor adjustments to recipes that decreased the fat, sugar and sodium, while retaining (and even amping up!) all the flavour.

I do probably 80% of my cooking out of this cookbook. The recipes are easy to make and don’t use any fancy shmancy ingredients that you can’t pronounce. I love all the photos so you can visualize exactly what you are going to cook--something I look for whenever I purchase a new cookbook. Don’t be turned off by the “loony” play-on-words titles for each recipe. Although they are actually kinda funny, I always have to read the sub-title to know exactly what I’m making! A huge plus to this cookbook is that it includes all the nutritional information such as calories, fat, sodium, etc for each recipe.

There are hundreds of recipes in this cookbook, and I’ve cooked a lot of them. Some favourites are: Maui Wowie Chicken (chicken with pineapples, peppers and carrots), The Nutcrocker (slow-cooked peanut-ginger chicken thighs), The Six-Million-Dollar Manicotti (chicken and vegetable stuffed manicotti), The Yellow Bows of Texas (turkey and bean chilli on top of pasta), FULLafel Patties (their twist on the mid-Eastern falafel), Lasagne with Mex Appeal (Mexican Lasagne), and the list could go on.

Tonight I made Indian Appleous 500 (coconut-curry chicken with apples). It was a hit with the hubs and the toddler. A home run in my books.

I could go on about this cookbook forever, but to keep it short, if you buy one cookbook from this list, Looneyspoons is the one to go with.

 

#2 – Jamie’s Food Revolution by Jamie Oliver – When I was first married, I cooked from this book A LOT. At the time we were really into watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution tv show and I found this cookbook, inspired by the show, at Chapters. Since it was the first time in my life I really had to cook for someone else day in and day out, I pretty much relied on this cookbook for meal ideas each week.

The meals are packed full of flavour and are healthy, although no nutritional information is given (sad face). And you might think that recipes by a celebrity chef would be tough, but these truly are straightforward. He includes pictures of each step, so its pretty hard to mess up! My favourite part of the cookbook is the “Twenty Minute Meals” section. These are perfect when you need to whip up a quick meal after work. Matt’s favourite is the Quick Salmon Tikka with Cucumber Yogurt and my favourite is the Classic Tomato Spaghetti. And if you love curry dishes, there is a “Quick Curries” section that gets a lot of use in our household (Gemma eats it too!).

#3 – Quinoa 365 by Patricia Green & Carolyn Hemming – I picked up this beautiful cookbook after I decided that I wanted to cook more with quinoa (a super-food you should definitely incorporate into your family’s diet) but I was really lost as to how to use it. After thumbing through the book and stumbling on its baby-food section, the new mom in me was sold. In Quinoa 365 are some of the most yummy baby food recipes that Gemma loved, like Chicken Veggie Mélange; Chicken, Quinoa and Apple Puree; and her absolute favourite, Blueberry Banana Mash.

But there’s much more than baby food in this cookbook. There’s a great introduction section that explains all you need to know about quinoa, its different types and a variety of ways to cook it. I have a tab on the cooking instructions page so that its easily accessible, especially when a recipe in a different cookbook calls for cooked quinoa.

Some favourite recipes are the Black Bean Quinoa Quesadillas, Black Bean Soup, and a recipe that I make and freeze for every new mom, Cheese and Spinach Frittata.

There aren’t as many pictures as I’d like in a cookbook, which is why sometimes I veer towards other cookbooks more, but every recipe I try is awesome and a ‘make-again’. There is no nutiritional information but you can tell the recipes are very healthy, and each recipe is labelled whether it is gluten-free, vegetarian or “kid-approved”, which is really handy!

#4 – The Oh She Glows Cookbook by Angela Liddon – When I first saw this cookbook, I wanted it purely for its gorgeous cover and how nice it would look on my counter. But it’s a vegan cookbook and we are a meat & dairy loving family -- I doubted we’d like it. Then through the power of instagram I saw all these people hash-tagging pictures of these awesome looking meals they’d made with #osg. I did a little digging and saw that it was referring to Oh She Glows! Since other meat & dairy loving friends were cooking from it, I thought I’d give it a chance too! Besides its beauty, this cookbook has so many awesome features: easy ingredients you can find at your local grocery store or costco, a list of what each recipe is free from (i.e. gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free, oil-free, etc.), and lots of photos.

At a recent party I made the “glowing strawberry-mango guacamole” which was a huge hit. For breakfast I love to make the cover recipe, “effortless vegan overnight oats” that had me fall in love with this cookbook in the first place.

#5 – The Family Cooks by Laurie David and Kirstin Uhrenholdt – This is my newest cookbook (a recent birthday gift) so I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to cook from it. It totally meets my beautiful cookbook requirements and everything I have made has been awesome! This book is all about healthy eating for the whole family, and teaching your family to stop relying on sugar and other detrimental additives to our food. There’s a great smoothie section that I’ve frequented lately and Gemma and I recently made “seedy crackers”, the author’s alternative to goldfish crackers (aka baby crack cocaine) to take on our family holiday to Kelowna (a 10 hour drive!).

I hope one of these cookbooks finds its way into your kitchen soon and inspires you to keep cooking wholesome meals for your whole family!

To cookbook addictions,

♥ Dion

P.S. - Help further my cookbook addiction by commenting on your favourite healthy cookbook for the fam.