The Blender Girl: Super-Easy, Super-Healthy Meals, Snacks, Desserts, and Drinks--100 Gluten-Free, Vegan Recipes!

4 stars for helpful info and some very good recipes, and 1 star for having to navigate through irritating spin about me, Blender Girl - as in see me, BG, licking my fingers, wiggling my toes in the garden dirt, or see my strong hands working my produce (19 color pictures). We now know what BG adores and what she will never eat. And then there is the bouncy prose such as "cucumber - my go-to food - incredibly versatile - most hydrating food on the planet" and now I must light a candle and do what I do at the cucumber altar! Sorry to be so disagreeable to BG!My List of Pros:1. Traditional food prep like proper soaking of beans, grains and nuts is emphasized. I appreciate this info in the book.2. Use more veggies and less fruit to control sugar in your smoothies.3. Whey Protein powder makes you bloat and feel tired. Hemp protein is so much better. Thanks BG. You are right!4. Layer ingredients in blender for best mixing. I was doing it all backwards!5. Pay attention to food combos. BG tells you why and I am a believer now. You will feel better after a meal of protein and veggie (like steak and salad or veggie) or a meal of baked potato and salad or veggie.6. Alternate the leafy greens to control oxalic acid. She mentions Sally Fallon and Nourishing Traditions, a marvelous book that shows the superior benefits of traditional food preparation. Oxalic acid attacks calcium, iron, zinc and other minerals and is loaded up in raw greens. Fallon recommends eating raw greens like spinach, kale, collards and such only once a month. So, a better way than alternating greens is lightly steam the leafies. Just chop, wash, and steam 3-5 minutes, drain in colander and freeze in silicon large cube ice trays.7. Strawberries and avacados and leafies go with everything and are easy to digest.8. The best thing about this book is the motivation and inspiration it stirs up to make more healthy smoothies. I also got an itch for a Vitamix. Pictures and info on blenders are pretty good.Cons1. Pictures of super foods and various beans are very pretty, but nothing is identified as to what is what.2. Soak nuts before blending. Almonds 8 hours and cashews 4 hours, then use immediately. Oh help me here. I blend my smoothie for breakfast so I have to get up at 4 am to soak my cashews!.3. My cheap blender turned snow pea sprouts into scary long blobs. A cow would bring that up and chew it again. The sprouts did ok with mincing like BG says, but the taste was so pastureland. No amount of lemon zest or vanilla will make me eat them again.4. I just think that more than one blender drink a day is sick. And I don't want to wash the thing 3X in one day.5. I tried the avocado/chocolate pudding. Interesting, but maybe I'll never try it again.6. Cucumbers take over everything else. They are stronger than kale. So I learned something. Salads yes, smoothies no.

This book, and truthfully Tess Masters, the beautiful chef and author, have honestly changed my life. I had the luxury of discovering Tess and her fabulous website [...] two years ago this month. I fell immediately in love, went out and bought a Vitamix based on her inspiring recipes and personal encouragement, and off I went into the kitchen. I eat better, I sleep better, my kids are healthier, my family and I ALL have more energy. We get sick less often. We are more FULL OF LIFE from following the recipes on her website and in this fantastic book!Have you seen the movie "Julie and Julia" about a young writer attempting to test each and every one of Julia Child's recipes in her first cookbook? Well, that's me and this book (and website, truth be known, but that's a lot of material!) I absolutely love every single Tess Masters recipe I have ever tried, and interestingly, I don't even tweak them. I tweak EVERY recipe, honestly, but not these - they're PERFECT the way they are.My kids are now slurping all things raw and full of nutrients: hemp seeds, chia seeds, almond milk and kale, gazpacho and cauliflower soup, among other things. They eat flax seeds, coconut and more - sometimes knowingly, sometimes - HA - not! That's the beauty of some of these recipes! You can honestly sneak in the healthy stuff and since the recipes are THAT GOOD the kids don't ask too many questions! We served the "Spicy Gazpacho Grab" and the ridiculously perfect "Pineapple Vanilla Sangria" at a fairly large party one evening and EVERYONE (not the kids) asked for the recipes. I told them all to go buy the book!There are smoothies, dips, spreads, pancakes, soups, desserts, salads and so much more - but it's not just the recipes that make this book seriously amazing. The educational, loving, teaching aspect makes me want to read and reread this book many times over. “The Blender Girl” cookbook has claimed a permanent spot on my kitchen counter. It's absolutely gorgeous, with stunning photography and outstanding information on how to do things I thought were "too difficult" before reading this. Make my own almond milk? What?! It’s Easy! Tonics? What are those? Fixer-uppers, that's what. Try them, you'll like them. Seriously. Yup, it's really that easy.Tess Masters breaks down healthy eating and blending to a simple step by step "how to" - it's really rather easy when you have a good teacher. Spend some time in this book and on her website and you'll find yourself hooked too.

Rather than a vegan recipe book focusing on smoothies and other quick-to-make-in-a-blender goodies, as I was expecting, I found this to be more of a guide to following food fads: there's food combining, alkaline diet, raw food diet, as well as probiotics and gluten-free. For me it was too faddy, with lots of on-trend ingredients, like chia seeds, stevia sweetener (although to be fair in one or two places she does mention alternatives), various powders and 'superfood' berries - you get the idea. In the 40-page introductory section, before getting to the recipes, there's some rather dubious and confused science to support the health claims behind food combining and acid/alkaline balance.There were a few recipes that appealed - a couple of tasty dips for example, and 2 vegan cheeses that use a dessicator (low oven for me) to create texture, but some of the best are available on the Blender Girl website anyway. There was also a quite useful 4 pages on creating your own smoothie blends, although I was disappointed that so many of the 12 smoothie recipes contained sweetener. I found most of the recipes for soups & salads quite generic - nothing leapt out at me as 'wow - original!'.If this is a way of eating that works for you, then fair enough, but for me it's definitely not a keeper - In a year or two it will probably seem quite dated as new food trends emerge. I think Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Happy Herbivore & Oh She Glows do quicker, easier, more healthy vegan food that will stand the test of time far better.

I am a nutritional therapist and stumbled across Tess' Blender Girl website, lots of delicious gluten free, vegan, packed with veggies recipes. I am a lazy cook - I like my food to arrive fast, healthy and tasty and to be easy-peasy to make. Why not just use the website? Well, I like a book to leaf through and share with others and I like time away from the electromagnetic drain of my laptop. It's a useful book for any lazy cook, for anyone looking to add some healthy foods easily into their diets, easily.

If you think vegan food tastes bland, think again. This book is wonderful. I am not a vegan but I have a strong dairy intolerance and this book has delicious, dairy free foods. I use this book almost daily. You've got to try the Cashew Cream, it is delicious!!

Some nice recipes

Ridiculously faffy recipies with impossible to obtain ingredients, sorry I was after something simpler