This is a good cookbook, but there are two major drawbacks for ...
935539
This is a good cookbook, but there are two major drawbacks for me-- I.) prep times and cook times are not listed and 2.) no nutrition facts are listed.  having made several of the recipes so far, I can't help but think that that is by design.  Everything I have made from this book is labor intensive and contains a high amount of fat and sodium. Vegetarians, particularly new ones, have a hard time getting enough protein and without the breakdown of nutrition information in these recipes, it's hard to know how "well" and balanced your meal is with regard to carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Having said that, most of the things I have made from this book were quite good-- particularly the tomato tart that is featured on the cover. The tips on how to keep the  tart from being soggy were fantastic and something I can use in other recipes that I make.
1929733
While the recipes are probably tasty, they contain a lot of ingredients - many I don't have in my kitchen -  and take too much time to assemble and make, especially for everyday use. For example, the Hemp Heart and Sorghum Tabbouleh....I don't have either in my kitchen AND it takes an hour to make. The Big Tabbouleh Bowl requires you to make 3 recipes + the spiced chickpeas + grill zucchini + other stuff, again, taking at least an hour to prepare. And that's if you're already a good cook, I'll bet.

Also uses more oil than I would like. I don't see myself getting a lot of use from this cookbook, unfortunately.
3966142
Weve had this cookbook for about 3 years now, and its stature and use in our kitchen has only grown over time.  I felt disappointed with this cookbook when I first got it.  The subtitled reads 200 Sultry and Savory Global Recipes, so when I looked through it and found that a substantial number of those 200 were sauces, marinades, or other condiments, I felt like Id been a little cheated or something.

I was also initially bothered to see that most of the recipes are comprised of short ingredient lists and only 2-3 steps.  I thought this meant that the recipes would be boring or unimpressive.  On this account, though, my worries were misplaced.  Almost without exception, the recipes in this book are great.  The actual level of fire varies wildly, so if you're like me and really like the spice, you may have to turn up the heat on some.  But everything is tasty, and theres a great variety of recipes of all types here, organized by geographical region.  And that simplicity that bothered me at first?  Thats actually what has made this book such a staple in our kitchen, especially on busy weeknights when a complicated or time-consuming dinner is just not going to do it.  It also makes this a great cookbook for beginning vegetarians, who are still trying to feel their way around what they can do without meat.

My biggest complaints have to do with nutrition and serving size.  The book, like many others, provides no nutritional information on recipes, which is frustrating for those who are calorie-, carb-, or protein-conscious.  That said, the recipes actually tend to be pretty healthful.  More frustrating is the vagueness on serving size.  Sometimes a recipe only says "serves 4 to 6," which is unclear and hard to work with when cooking for company. Other times, it's specific and reads "serves 4" - but then you make it and its actually 8 huge, filling servings worth of food.  This is annoying, especially in our house where we are always either cooking only for 2 - and want to be able to adjust recipes accordingly - or else are cooking for large dinner parties, and want to be sure to have the right amount of food for everyone.

My complaints are small, though, in comparison with the use this book gets in our household.  Great food, usually easy to make, and generally pretty healthy with minimal-to-no alteration.  VFS is now a favorite in our kitchen.
3586201
I wrote a good review of this book last year, and I still like it, but have found various problems that make me wonder how accurate the nutritional information is. For example, the Steak & Sweet Potato Salad, which makes 1 serving, calls for an 8 oz filet mignon steak, and the total calorie count for the recipe is given as 252. This is entirely impossible, because 8 oz of filet mignon ranges from around 322 calories (for a lean cut) to (560 for a lean & fat cut from Omaha Steaks) according to several websites, including Calorie King. Even if you take the lean cut, it is not possible for the recipe to end up at 252 calories. The meat alone is at least 322. Add to that "1 large sweet potato", as the recipe calls for, and the dressing, and you have a recipe of at least 425 calories. That is a very far cry from 252. If such mistakes occur elsewhere too, then the calorie count could be way off and could seriously mess up your daily totals.

In addition, some recipes seem like they were not tested. The Maple Protein Muffin does not turn out in the slightest if you follow the recipe. I am an experienced baker and I thought it looked odd on the page (the baking time is quite long, for one thing), and sure enough it ended up inedible  rock hard  when I followed the instructions to the letter. The Harvest Chicken Stew is not at all a stew; the recipe calls for far too much water, given that the vegetables give off a lot of water on their own while they are cooking. The corn starch does nothing whatsoever to thicken it since you do not boil this dish but bake it. You end up with a starchy broth and chicken & veggies swimming inside. I drained it, made a separate sauce on the stove using a little corn starch and bouillon, and that helped a lot and kept it low-cal, but the recipe just doesn't work out if you follow the directions.

There are also various typos and other errors, including some confusion about whether he is referring to raw or cooked products, etc..

Other things are great, including the Quick & Easy Peanut Butter Oatmeal breakfast, which has become my staple and is popular with my friends who aren't even dieting. The sweet potato muffins, berry muffins, and banana muffins, are all good, as long as you adjust your exceptions regarding how low-cal food tastes. You get used to it, and it tastes great to me. The breakfasts are the best part of the book.
2842634
Looking through this book, there are a lot of recipe ideas that use a slow cooker in various versatile ways. Many of them look quite interesting and tasty. However, my personal experience with a few of these recipes shows that they need some refinement.

The first thing I tried to make out of here was a cake. I checked on it before the early edge of the suggested cooking time range and the edges were already burned at that time. The given range should have been higher in order to accommodate different heat levels across different slow cooker brands.

I also made the "orzotto" (a barley stew). It looked good, and some additional seasonings made it taste good, but the recipe as written was extremely bland.

All in all, I give this book three stars. Lots of promising recipes, but be ready to make some adjustments to make them fit your slow cooker and your palate.
153524
I have enjoyed Denise Austin products in the past, so expected to have a similar experience this time.

I'm just finishing up week 2, with 6 lbs of weight loss.  For the most part, I have found the meals to be very tasty and surprisingly filling, even on the low calorie count days.  My husband has been surprised at that as well, and has been particularly shocked when he was satisfied with vegetarian meals.  However, there are problems.

*The 12 exercises do NOT take just 12 minutes to do because you have to spend nearly that much time trying to figure out what it is that you need to be doing, especially when you are instructed to do two contradictory things with the same leg or arm (the problem is that one direction should have applied the left leg, and the other to the right, but both said the same leg).  It would have been helpful for the book to come with a DVD demo-ing the exercises rather than just having the pictures and written instructions.
*Several of the recipes call for products that do not appear to be available in my area--ground chicken, Irish oatmeal, Amy's Vegetarian Bean Soup to name a couple.
*Some of the recipes obviously have missing ingredients--for example a "Turkey Pecan Salad" that has no pecans in the ingredients list.
*Sometimes different products are used when there doesn't seem to be a good reason.  For example, why "whole grain" bread one day and "sprouted grain bread" the next?
*Several times "tortillas" are used, but no further information is given about them.  My preferred brand of tortilla comes in an 8" and a 10" version.  The 8" tortilla is 100 calories and the 10" tortilla is 200 calories, so there is a significant difference between the two.

I would also mention that as a person with Celiac disease, I would love to see Denise offer an on-line supplement with suggestions for substitutes when gluten containing products are used.
1864535
I like the book, but overall I'm pretty dissatisfied with many of the recipes (especially the cookies). The cook times given and the reality of how long they actually take is about 5-8 minutes different, and the carry over with the cookies is huge. Many of the recipes are just not practical for execution in a home kitchen (like the fact that you are asked to portion the cookies on to sheet pans with about 4 cookies per pan and store them in your refrigerator for an hour before baking them) something you would be able to do if you had an industrial walk in cooler in your home. Another thing that I dislike is the ingredients called for, they are either impossible to find in a regular grocery store and/or expensive. The techniques that many of the recipes call for are not those of your typical home cooks, I have a BA in culinary arts and found many of them a bit challenging when trying to make them at home. The recipes are creative and inventive, but best left to the professionals.
2194690
The book is beautiful and very interesting.  But, I live in a small town in the Midwest and many of the ingredients are not available within a 100 mile radius of me.  Driving that far for ingredients for one week is not practical.  The staples I can handle, but fresh foods not easy for our family.  I can still make some of the recipes and we like them.

I really wish all recipe book authors would realize that everything edible is not available all over the country and give suggestions for alternative food ingredients.  I know that not everything has an alternative food, but I am sure that many do.
2548567
I had to change my review. This is a good cookbook and an easy to understand diet, but please be aware.
I was 3 weeks into this diet when are started feeling ill. The book does say this may happen. I started getting sicker and my gallbladder started to become painful. Though this diet has healthy elements it is high in fat and can cause problems. The
most important though is it caused me to have a potassium deficiency, causing me to get very ill. My advice if you do this diet is take potassium supplements and cut the butter, the fat bombs, the cream. Other than that it is a good cookbook.
4517826
The food tastes good! A lot of it has similar seasoning so meals do start to taste the same, quickly. A person does have to buy a few specialty ingredients. My complaint is that this is not a cookbook in the purest sense. There are no easy to turn flaps (I used tape to quickly turn to different sections) and also no time chart for making a meal. Often I would settle upon a dish only to find that marinating took 8-24 hours when a person reads the fine print. The expletives are hilarious.
1568168
It's not easy finding easy to cook recipes for families who don't eat wheat and dairy, but are not giving up grains (Paleo) and vegies (lo-carb). The recipes are good, well-tested as far as I can tell and geared towards the moderately skilled home chef. My issue is the book itself which is the size and shape of a coffee table book featuring dozens and dozens of photos of GP being fabulous. I find her outsize ego mind blowing: However, it's a good solid cookbook for people who want to stay away from processed foods and serve healthy foods to their families. I give her a big thumbs up for trying to keep the ingredients easy to find - I only had to buy 3 extra pantry items to make most of the recipes.
2355006
First of all, I don't want to trash this book. It has some good main course, one-pot recipes and it provides some helpful instructions for use of Dutch ovens. Also, there are a variety of recipes for such items as breads, cakes, biscuits, desserts and more. However, there are some problems with this book.

1. Log Cabin Dutch Ovens is in dire need of a copyeditor. There are numerous errors in the book. Some of the errors are grammatical, spelling, and punctuation. For instance, "your" is used in lieu of you're, spaces are used in lieu of apostrophes, and the list goes on... Many of the errors appear to be in the formatting and typesetting of the work. All these could be solved with a copyeditor such as All My Best which provides solutions for all these types of errors.

2. There is a great deal of repetition in many of the savory recipes in Log Cabin Dutch Oven. My Minnesota friend would call them "Hot Dish", and my Montana in-laws would call them "Shepard's Pie". In any event, most of these recipes are some version of the following: hamburger, onion, salt & pepper (cook & drain), add sour cream, cream of mushroom soup, green beans, and top with leftover potatoes (mashed, tater-tots, or hash-browned) and cheese. It's a great meal for the entire family, but how many variations are there to this dish? You'll find out if you read this recipe book.

There are some important considerations for the care and treatment of a Dutch oven though. And on a camping trip, no food tastes better or is more comforting than that from a Dutch oven.
3494242
I like the format of this book, makes it interesting. The pictures and writing great.
  I have had success with the salads, Faro with Feta, Lemon & Pine Nuts & prosciutto, fig and grilled peach, very good flavours and textures. Lamb Shank pie good, but the roast pork with cider and maple syrup sauce very disappointing because although the pork and stuffing very good the sauce liquid all burnt quickly in the oven,  smoked out the kitchen and ruined my roasting pan plus there was no sauce!!  I am sure that should have been tested and a different plan written up.  If I made this recipe again I would sit the pork in the liquid I think and maybe even cover the pork?  There are many more recipes I still feel encouraged to try.
1211124
Good book but has some fatal flaws. Let's start with what is good. Recipes are simple and I like that every recipe has a picture of what it should look like. A few basic staples and you can make almost all recipes in the book and this also eliminates buying bizarre random things that you most likely will never use again. In the past, I would go to 3-4 specialty food stores for something like unprocessed whole grain sprouted aged wheat germ (a bit dramatic but you get the point). Almost all ingredients can be found at a grocery store, Trader Joe's, etc. So far, the recipes I have attempted have been good and I will continue to use this book. I did like that she included instructions on how to freeze and defrost, which has always been my main hesitation in freezing food. (How long, what will it taste like reheated, etc.) Here's what went wrong. Several recipes I found to have typos, missing info, and incorrect nutritional info. I included pictures below. An example would be the Vegetable Macaroni Casserole. The photo shows a beautiful casserole with juicy bright red tomato sauce......yet in the actual recipe/instructions there is no mention of tomato sauce whatsoever? This recipe also calls for 2 cups of pasta. After I boiled water, dumped pasta into the casserole dish it was BARELY enough for 1/4 of the dish. I then had to reheat water, cook more pasta.......annoying. Not only does this change the nutritional info, it was time consuming. Finally, in a recipe for the Mexican Fiesta Breakfast Muffins, you are using over 1 lb. of turkey and this recipe yields 10 servings (muffins). Yet........according to the nutritional info EACH one is 7 CALORIES and 7 GRAMS OF FAT?! I am no nutritionist, but I am also not an idiot. I am quite certain that you cannot eat over a pound of meat (not to mention the added ingredients) for about 70 calories?? I don't think so.
4587412
This cookbook has much more than good recipes---lots on rice history and culture. However, the print is small and is either light brown or orange---VERY hard to read. Every time I pick up the book, I end up putting it down in frustration because I have so much trouble reading it. I don't know how much use it will actually get because of this.

Also, it's not very useful for my particupar rice cooker, which is a George Foreman Multicooker, because the cycles don't match the ones referenced in the cookbook. I will probably use the cookbook mostly for ideas for quantities and seasonings.
3436749
This is a nice little cookbook.  It does have some flaws in it however. First of all she suggests using round steak and flank steak, both of which need long slow cooking not stir frying.  Stir frying will yield very tough strips of these meats. You are better off to use sirloin for these beef recipes.

Another problem she suggests using corn starch mixed with large volumes of liquid which usually results in lumpy sauce.  You need to mix your cornstarch with a small amount of liquid first to make a slurry and then add the rest of your liquid.

One of the things that is my pet peeves is people publishing very small cookbooks and then not having pics of their recipes, she does have pics of every recipe and the photography is good, not great but good.

So  it is for these reasons that I gave her a 4 star instead of a 5 star rating
810254
There are some good useful recipes, and some good detox recipes.  I will state I'm not a good cook, and there are some ingredients that I was not familiar with.  Many of the recipes also require prolonged prep time and/or use of a dehydrator.  While it does have some good recipes, if you are looking for healthy meals requiring shorter prep time and more simple ingredients, you would benefit from looking elsewhere. I received this item for free in exchange for a review.