But is it more than a pretty, re-launched face? Does it deliver on the promise of offering keto recipes that heal and help you heal and lose weight? Read on for the answers and to learn whether this keto cookbook deserves a spot on your bookshelf!

About the Author

The author of the blog thenourishedcaveman.com, Vivica Menegaz started her career as a photographer, and, after growing up in the restaurant industry, has had a lifelong passion for food and cooking. As a certified technician in whole food nutrition, the Californian has figured out how to infuse all her recipes with flavor and nutrition. 

What’s Inside

One might suppose that a book focused on healing and weight loss would spend a lot of time getting into the finer points of how and why the type of cooking in question gets the job done. Not this book. It has a brief introduction about the author’s history and how she landed in her current culinary philosophy, a handful of pages covering “Keto and Why to Do It” (the failure of the Standard American Diet), and a handful more pages focused on a therapeutic ketogenic diet (what keto is, how it works, what it does). The reason for this could be that this 2021 release is, as we mentioned, an update of the author’s 2017 book, The Keto Paleo Kitchen, including many of the same recipes and images. In any case, if you already have that book, skip this one. But if you don’t, read on.

So what makes this 175-page book different from other ketogenic cookbooks? We’ll start with drool-inducing, first-class photography. Almost every recipe has a corresponding photo, and each of them are downright mouthwatering with great lighting and styling, so you feel like you’re simply browsing a fantastic cookbook, not a “diet” cookbook. More fundamentally, this book has a focus on whole ingredients and is totally dairy-free. You won’t find a lot of bacon or cream cheese here. Organics are recommended, as the author designed each recipe for optimal macronutrients and micronutrients, ideally void of pesticides. (It’s worth noting that if you don’t have access to organic ingredients, the recipes still work!) These are recipes that don’t make you feel like you’re cheating the system, the way the keto chaffle burger does, if you know what we mean (though you can find BLT meatballs here!). Plenty of good fats, plenty of vegetables, plenty of flavor. It’s a win-win-win! 

The nutrient-dense, healing recipes include breakdowns of total calories, total carbs, fat, protein, fiber, net carbs, and prep time, and are divided into the following subsections: 

Main Meals

There’s a hearty selection of keto dinner recipes here (23), and they travel the globe in cuisine. Think Butter Poached Scallops with Meyer Lemon Gremolata, Chicken Cabbage Pot Pie, Keto Lamb Koftas, and Thai Green Chicken Curry. 

Breakfast

Don’t expect anything revolutionary here. Instead, look forward to some solid options. Think cereal, Benedict, and egg dishes.

Quick and Easy Lunches

Thank goodness for this section, because you know what the difference between lunch and dinner cooking is? Available prep and cooking time! Expect superfast, super simple recipes for the likes of curried egg salad rolls, seared carpaccio salad, chicken shawarma, and more. 

Side Dishes, Soups and Snacks

A generous selection of mostly vegetable-forward dishes, it includes delicious (and so simple) Creamy Roasted Asparagus Soup (see recipe link below), Stir-Fried Chinese Long Beans, Crab Cakes, and even a spiced but mix. 

Breads and Noodles

There are just a few selections in this section, but if you want Cinnamon Swirl Muffins, Herbed Croutons, Keto Lard Biscuits, or Keto Seed Bagels, you’ll find ‘em here. 

Dressings and More

This self-explanatory chapter has some recipes you’ll use regularly, like Creamy Avocado Dressing, Butter Lemon Sauce, and Keto Goddess Dressing. 

Sweets

Not surprisingly for a healing cookbook, sweets are kept to a minimum. Just four recipes, in fact: Brown-Butter Cookies, Chocolate Halvah, Coconut Chocolate Bars, and Healing Hot Chocolate.

Try the following recipes from Keto Cooking for Healing and Weight Loss now:

Creamy Roasted Asparagus Soup

Cashew Crusted Salmon with “Ponzu” Sauce 

Seared Skirt Steak with Brazilian Vinaigrette

What You’ll Learn 

If you’re not familiar with how to eat “clean keto” or cook keto without tons of red meat, dairy, or both, this book will give you many wonderful examples. 

What We Like

What do we like? Oh, the photos! They put most keto recipe books to shame. And the recipes themselves because they are surprisingly easy and also quite delicious without the heaviness of many keto dishes!

Room for Improvement

There’s not a lot we wish for with this book, except, perhaps more desserts. 

The Final Word

This reissuing and repositioning of the 2017 cookbook The Keto Paleo Kitchen features dairy-free, clean keto cooking, gorgeous photos, and lots of flavor. If you want to keep keto but feel like you’re eating super healthy and light (meaning lots of keto-friendly veggies and good fats from meat and fish and no heavy dairy products), you’ll be happy with this 80-recipe cookbook. 

Shop for Keto Cooking for Healing and Weight Loss.

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Does the keto cookbook deliver on its promise? And what can you possibly make with five ingredients? Read on and all your questions will be answered, and you’ll get a few sample recipes to try, too!

About the Authors

Authors Stephanie and William Laska are the duo behind the ever-popular “Dirty, Lazy Keto” cookbook series. Stephanie’s story is hardly a secret; with appearances on “The Today Show” and beyond, she’s told the world how she lost 140 pounds with her “dirty” version of the ketogenic diet, which promotes a relaxed attitude and eating a low-carb diet that allows for some “dirty” keto foods and is only strict in regards to sticking with proper macros. The team continues to create reliable books that help you follow Stephanie’s laid-back, successful perspective on the dirty, lazy keto lifestyle.  

What’s Inside

If you’ve seen any of the “Dirty, Lazy, Keto” cookbooks, this one will look familiar; it’s a softcover and about 226 pages. It features 100 recipes, many with cutesy names. It has images for some, but not nearly all of the recipes, and it’s easy to read with a voice that seems to be speaking to the keto newbie. 

The preface and introduction share Stephanie’s (and her husband William’s) before-and-after photo and an honest pep talk about what it takes to stay in ketosis on a low-carb keto diet and how you can do it without getting too uptight about it. While there’s a lot of mention and anecdotes for losing weight, the book remains focused on easy keto cooking and recipes loaded with healthy fats. 

Chapter 1: An Easier Way to Keto

Before getting to recipes, chapter 1 talks about “An easier way to keto,” which is essentially Stephanie’s beliefs on how to follow the keto diet, including how imperfect is perfect and you don’t need to buy all organic ingredients to be successful. It’s real talk for real people, and it’s refreshing. It also includes basic primers, like how to calculate net carbs and how to factor in sugar alcohols when calculating your macros. 

Chapter 2: Get Your Kitchen Keto-Ready

This includes lists of useful tools and gadgets, pantry staples (specifically salt, pepper, almond flour, baking powder, garlic powder, olive oil, vanilla, 0g net carb sweetener, vegetable broth, and sugar-free chocolate chips), and ingredients to buy when you head to the grocery store. 

Chapter 3: Carefree Cookin’ 

Stephanie discusses how she’s formatted the recipes and how to approach them. It’s pretty standard stuff, much of which is most useful to kitchen newbies (“turn pot handles in,”  “let cooked meat stew in its juices for a few minutes,” etcetera). But in between are a few gems everyday cooks may appreciate, such as tips for how to dial back the dilemma when you’ve overspiced or oversalted. 

Chapter 4: Breakfast Recipes

Right out of the gate, there’s an eyebrow-raiser; the first recipe, “Chocolate Chip Muffins in a Jiffy,” requires seven ingredients. But, as the author explains in Chapter 2, she doesn’t count the pantry staples she instructs you to buy (the aforementioned salt, vanilla, olive oil, etc.). So, by her standards, since this seven-ingredient recipe contains two pantry staples, it is, in fact, a five-ingredient endeavor. 

In any case, the 13 breakfast recipes are compelling and familiar: scrambles, waffles, chaffles (“Punk Peanut Butter Chaffles” to be precise), avocado toast…you get the idea. One zinger you’ll appreciate is the Runner-up Strawberry Syrup (included in the Stuffed Birthday Cake Surprise recipe, featured below). 

Chapter 5: Soups & Salads

Here there are 16 recipes for soups and salads, some of which are sides and others easily main courses. Expect tomato bisque, “Scrimpin’ Shrimp Salad,” and “Naked Tuna Salad” (tuna, celery, red onion, avocado, mayo, garlic powder, salt, pepper).

Chapter 6: Keto Snacks

The 10 options include wings, radish chips, kale chips, and “Movie Poppin’ Corn” (a clever air-fryer treatment of cauliflower florets). 

Chapter 7: Keto Bread & Pizza

Seven recipes used for a variety of other recipes. Interesting explorations include a pizza crust made from ground chicken and mozzarella cheese and “Minute Bread,” which is made in the microwave in 60 seconds. 

Chapter 8: Veggies & Sides

Dishes like  “Bamboozling Bacon Brussels Sprouts” and “Freedom Asparagus Fries” are bolstered by “Gold Star ‘Sushi’” (it’s turkey-bacon wrapped!) “Unwed Onion Rings” (onion strips cooked in bacon fat and served with ranch dressing), and more. The mostly keto vegetable-forward dishes in this section are creative, interesting, non-cauliflower ways to enjoy keto-friendly vegetables like green beans, mushrooms, cabbage, and asparagus.  

Chapter 9: Keto Mains

The most robust recipe section is dedicated to main dishes. There’s a lot to like here, starting with the fact that the recipes stray from the same-old, same-old, and are appetizing. Take “One Minute Man Enchiladas.” They call for cabbage, chicken breast, enchilada sauce, jack cheese, and olives. Totally doable and yummy! “Orange Crush Chicken” is another five-ingredient wonder of chicken, onion, sugar-free catsup, diet orange crush soda, keto sweetener, and bell pepper. When have you seen that on the blogs?! Ditto Simple Salami Skewers (see below) and her fresh take on cheeseburgers (also below). There’s no question the well-rounded selection of 22 recipes will give you plenty of new keto dinner ideas. 

Chapter 10: Keto Drinks & Desserts

The last chapter finishes strong with 20 recipes for drinks and desserts. Donuts, pumpkin pie, cheesecake bars (made using cream cheese), Stuffed Birthday Cake Surprise (see below), and even “Skinny Gummy Bears” make an appearance here.  

Try these recipes from Dirty, Lazy, Keto 5-Ingredient Cookbook right now:

Slip ’n’ Slide Queso Burgers

Simple Salami Skewers 

Stuffed Birthday Cake Surprise
  

What You’ll Learn

While cooking with five ingredients (plus pantry staples) doesn’t conjure visions of creative or particularly exciting cooking, there are some great recipes and ideas here that you can use on their own or with other recipes. You’ll also get a lot of weight-loss and stick-to-it inspiration as well as a primer on tools and ingredients frequently used in keto cooking. 

What We Like

Stephanie talks a lot about her experience and adds a hefty side of humanity to the book. For example, she shares that she loves adding butter to her veggies to improve their taste, when needed, and also acknowledges that ongoing veggie consumption is one of the reasons she’s been able to lose weight. 

She also provides a lot of good information, including macros for every dish (calories, fat, protein, sodium, fiber, carbohydrates, net carbs, sugar, and sugar alcohol), prep times and cooking times, and many tips along the way. Plus, there are icons associated with the recipes that indicate whether a recipe is no-cook, less mess, super filling (“I’m Hangry!”), crowd-pleasers, fancy enough for guests, and vegetarian-ish. 

Room For Improvement

Aside from the misleading title (again, many recipes do call for more than five ingredients total), there’s an occasional requirement for special equipment like an Instant Pot or an air-fryer. If you’re deep into keto, you may already have the extras required. But newbies may want to sidestep those until they determine whether they want to invest; this is fine, since so many of the included keto recipes do not require special equipment. 

More noteworthy is sometimes the instructions aren’t detailed enough to provide complete confidence that you know what you’re doing while you’re doing it. On such occasions, a little improvisation may be required. But we found these occurrences to be less impacting on the final result than they are in creating moments of uncertainty as you’re cooking. 

We wish all the recipes had photos! Just less than half of them have corresponding images of the finished dish. 

Final Word

With an enthusiastic, friendly, encouraging, reassuring tone and lots of simple facts about how to navigate cooking keto, this paperback keto cookbook with 100 recipes seems geared toward people new to keto cooking. Additionally, the author’s discussions about her significant weight loss through low-carb recipes and supportive dirty keto diet tips makes the book a good primer for people who want to lose weight and eat yummy food along the way (but not necessarily spend big money on grass-fed and other “clean keto” ingredients). 

But if you’re not a newbie and don’t care about weight loss, yet want to cook keto comfort-food meals, you’ll find a number of solid recipes and tips in this book. 

Technically, many of the recipes require more than the five ingredients promised in the title, but the additional ingredients are excluded due to their “pantry staple” status. Sometimes the instructions are not detailed enough and you may need to make your best guess along the way. But still,  these “dirty, lazy, keto” recipes are accessible to pretty much anyone with basic cooking skills and a kitchen, and their included macronutrients breakdowns make it easier than ever to follow a keto diet plan. 

MORE: What’s the difference between dirty and clean keto?

The post The DIRTY, LAZY, KETO 5-Ingredient Cookbook appeared first on KETO-MOJO.

About the Authors

Also known as “The Keto Queens” authors Faith Gorsky and Lara Clevenger, MSH, RDN, CPT have been teaming up on keto endeavors for years. They’re a symbiotic pair. Faith is a lawyer turned food stylist and photographer; she’s behind the blogs AnEdibleMosaic.com and HealthySweetEats.com. Lara is a dietitian, nutritionist, personal trainer, and author of food blog LaraClevenger.com. Together they run TheKetoQueens.com website to simplify the art of eating keto. 

What’s Inside

Formatted like most keto cookbooks, this one starts with a primer about the keto diet and all its main buzzwords: ketosis, macronutrients, signs of ketosis, tips, etcetera (it even gives the Keto-Mojo glucose and blood ketone testing meter a shout out!). It also includes a very approachable list of key keto-barbecue sauce ingredient staples (think gluten-free, sugar-free, keto-friendly sweeteners like allulose, tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, liquid smoke, black pepper, onion powder, etc.). But five pages later, it dives straight into the meat of the matter, so to speak, with chapters arranged as follows:

• • Keto Dry Rubs: Expect seven recipes for dry rubs, including those that contain coffee, “brown sugar” (keto style), Memphis style, and southwest.

• • Keto Brines and Marinades: Brines and marinades usually include salt (to lend juicy moisture to meat) and often include sugar. The eight options in this chapter make flavoring your food fun, with options like Basic Brine, Coke Zero Marinade, Lemon-Thyme Marinade, and Balsamic Marinade.

• • Keto Barbecue Sauces and Glazes: You can put delicious, flavorful sauces back on the menu with these 11 options, including a tangy keto bbq sauce recipe. Expect Smoky bourbon Barbecue Sauce and Classic Barbecue Sauce to Kansas City Barbecue Sauce and Hawaiian Barbecue Sauce.

• • Keto Condiments: Whether you want to slather your bbq recipes with usual keto no-nos like ketchup or honey mustard or just need recipes for green goddess or ranch dressing, this section has you covered.

• • Keto Barbecue Chicken and Turkey: With a whopping 16 recipes for chicken or turkey, this section gives you plenty to squawk about. Expect grilled chicken leg, thigh, and breast recipes that allow you to mix and match using the book’s rubs, marinades, and condiments, plus more complete dishes that leverage them such as Barbecue-Ranch Chicken Salad, Southwestern Turkey Burgers, and more.

• • Keto Barbecue Pork: Glazed pork, grilled pork, pork ribs, pork butt, pork chops…all the cuts are represented here. Like the chicken chapter, they too, guide you through how to leverage marinades and rubs for flavorful results.

• • Keto Barbecue Beef: Of the 20 recipes here, 10 are dedicated to burgers featuring various flavorings, such as Greek Burgers with Tzatziki (a yogurt sauce), Blue Cheese Burgers, and Stuffed Cheddar Cheese Burgers. The other half of the chapter pays homage to steaks, Smoked Brisket, ribs, and more.

• • Keto Sausages and Dogs: Not to be forgotten, sausages and dogs get their moment in the limelight with this chapter featuring 10 recipes for how to doctor up your dogs. Think sausage sandwiches, French Onion Hot Dogs, and more. (Bun recipes can be found in a later chapter.)

• • Keto Barbecue Seafood: Scallops, salmon, cod, shrimp, snapper, and other seafood favorites are on the menu in this chapter.

• • Keto Salads and Sides: It’s not a barbecue without sides! Thus, there are sections dedicated to each. Among the Cauliflower “Potato” Salad and Greek Salad recipes, you’ll find a wide variety of slaws, while side dishes celebrate low-carb vegetables like grilled peppers and eggplant, Bacon-Sauteed Green Beans, buns, cornbread, and more.
  • Keto Drinks: You won’t find the most original collection of recipes here, but if you need a primer on how to make Sweet Tea, Strawberry Lemonade, or Blue Raspberry “Kool-Aid,” it’s at your fingertips. 

Want a taste of what’s in store? Try these recipes from Keto BBQ:

Grilled Citrus-Marinated Keto Pork Chops

Indian Chicken Burgers and Creamy Cucumber Salad

What You’ll Learn

The greatest value for the keto home cook is that the recipes will teach you how to replace usually sugar-laden ingredients with keto-friendly ones, especially for marinades and dry rubs. Once you’re familiar with the acceptable ingredients and methods, you can apply them to transform non-keto recipes. 

What We Like

The mix-and-match style of this cookbook allows for endless recipes of your own creation. For example, the Southwest Dry Rub can be used on beef, pork, or chicken. You can then barbecue the meat, bake, or roast it. And perhaps you even marinated the meat first. See? All kinds of room for creativity with your bbq chicken, chicken wings, or pulled pork, but also clear instructions for those who just want to follow directions and be done with it. 

Additionally, these keto bbq recipes require minimal prep time and no added sugar, perfect for the grilling master or novice who wants easy keto recipes. 

They also include macros, including total carb count and net carbs, so it’s easy to make sure you don’t go overboard on carbohydrates. Plus fat and protein macros ensure you don’t go too high on protein. 

Room for Improvement

We feel inclined to point out that there aren’t that many images in this cookbook. So, there’s definitely room for improvement from a visual-seduction perspective. However, many of the recipes are not really photo friendly; we don’t really need to see a bunch of different dry rubs, do we? 

The Final Word

The recipes are fine, but the guidance on turning everyday barbecue foods into keto-friendly feasts is the real value of Keto BBQ. 

Shop for Keto BBQ here.

The post Keto BBQ (100+ Delicious, Low-Carb Recipes for A Keto-Friendly Barbecue) appeared first on KETO-MOJO.

About the Authors

Unlike many cookbooks, which have one or two authors who are focused on cooking or keto or both, this book has four authors, and each brings his or her expertise to the pages.

Martina Slajerova is a prolific cookbook author, health and food blogger, and keto app creator (she’s behind the KetoDiet app). A self-professed science geek, she also has Hashimoto’s, which inspired her to pursue and master a low-carb keto lifestyle and share it with millions of followers. 

Dr. Nicholas Norwitz specializes in nutritional science, specifically ketosis and brain aging. After garnering a Ph.D. from Oxford in two short years, he’s pursuing his M.D. at Harvard Medical School. Like Martina, his own personal circumstance inspired his work; he developed severe osteoporosis and ulcerative colitis as a young man, and cured himself through a ketogenic diet. 

Thomas DeLauer is a known health, fitness, and keto expert with a focus on combining optimized nutrition and exercise to enhance personal and professional performance. You can find him on YouTube, where his channel attracts more than 5 million viewers monthly. His inspiration came from his journey of transforming himself from a 280-pound corporate executive to becoming a cover model for health and fitness magazines. 

Rohan Kashid is a professional chef with Indian heritage and global culinary pedigree. After decades working in the restaurant industry, he found himself pre-diabetic and obese. But a chance meeting with Dr. Norwitz inspired him to reverse his health status, dropped more than 40 pounds, and began developing ketogenic recipes. 

What’s Inside

Yes, this is a cookbook. But it’s also much more. Along with recipes is important, easy-to-digest scientific and nutritional information that helps you better understand what nutrients your body needs and how to optimize them through ingredients and recipes. And of course, there are recipes. Loads of them. And they’re easy to prepare and delicious. 

Better still, many of them are 3:1 recipes or 4:1 recipes. What are those? They’re recipes that have extremely high ratios of fat to protein plus carbs. In the case of a 3:1 recipe, there’s three times as much fat as protein plus carbs. 4:1 recipes contain four times as much fat as protein plus carbs. These extra-fatty ketogenic diet ratio recipes are very important for people using keto for therapeutic purposes because they help to ensure high levels of ketosis through diet. They’re also great for the rest of us!

Chapters are traditional and intuitive cookbook-style: 

• Mediterranean Meets Keto: This section explains the philosophy behind the recipes. The concept is simple: increase the health and longevity benefits that come with the Mediterranean diet by layering it with a low-carb, high-fat keto diet. There’s some light science talk, mostly explaining scientific/medical terms like antioxidants, inflammation, and oxidative stress, so you can easily understand topics and effects discussed in the book. This section also includes a primer on “New Mediterranean Staple Foods,” or the seven high-fat superfoods that are cornerstones to the diet and 11 “foundational veggies.”
  
• Breakfasts: Far from the expected yet still familiar and approachable, this section celebrates energy-packing day-starters like low-carb avocado toast (you make a 2-minute keto bread in the microwave), a veggie-heavy Golden
  Egg Skillet, Crunchy Vanilla Protein Bars, and Creamy Cinnamon Porridge.

• Snacks: This concise collection of recipes for items you can make and keep around for quick energy boost, includes crackers, dips (including an awesome hummus; see the recipe link below), chicken liver pate, and “upgraded” baba ghanoush.
  

• Salads & Soups: Greens combined with healthy fats are one of the focuses of this section. Expect gorgeous, vibrant dishes, including simple, delicious Taverna-Style Greek Salad (see the link to the recipe below); Upgraded Shrimp Cocktail Salad; Steak Salad Bowl with Asparagus, Avocado, and Gremolata. The rest of the chapter is dedicated to soups, which range from Chilled Avocado Pesto Soup to Creamy Wild Mushroom Soup.
• Lunches: What’s the difference between lunch and dinner? The answer is here, where nutritious quick-to-prepare dishes include Salmon Poke Bowls, Chard Wraps, Turkey Meatballs with Salsa Verde, and more.
• Dinners: With a landslide of options here (more than any other chapter), you’ll never have to rely on the same-old, same-old dinner. And why should you when you can choose from the likes of eggplant manicotti, salmon ratatouille skillet, chile-lime mackerel with cilantro slaw, and wild mushroom chicken risotto?
• Sides: Yes this section includes the keto staple cauliflower rice (with three ways to make it), but it also celebrates “superflax” tortillas, focaccia (!), roasted eggplant with tahini dressing, and braised fennel. 
  

• Desserts: You can count the number of recipes here with two hands. But the Chocolate Hazelnut “Powerhouse” Truffles alone are worth the price of the book (see a recipe link below). Still, there’s seductive blueberry panna cotta, lemon coconut cake, almond-pistachio biscotti, and more.
  

• Basics: The six recipes here are for foods you’ll likely use again and again: harissa spice mix, blender marinara, pesto, blender Mayo, tahini dressing, and sauerkraut.
  

• Further Reading: So modern! Come to this section and you’ll see a QR code, because, according to the authors, “there was too much we wanted to fit into this book to include it all in the printed version.”
  

Sound good? 

Try Some Recipes From the Book

4:1 Hummus

3:1 Taverna-Style Greek Salad

4:1 Chocolate Hazelnut “Powerhouse” Truffles

3:1 On-the-Go Savory Granola Bars

What We Like

There’s a lot to like about this book. We’ll start where it’s most important: flavor! The recipes are very tasty and diverse. They showcase wonderful ways to integrate healthful greens into your diet. They also skip the usual keto suspects and offer a variety of unexpected, doable alternatives, especially for breakfast.  

We’re also fans of their frequent “practical tip” and “key point” boxes, which offer important facts and valuable insight into how to get the most out of the foods you put in your body (e.g. adding turmeric and black pepper to eggs boosts your omega-3 absorption; who knew?!).

Essential for anyone following a strict keto diet, recipes include extensive macros for every recipe, including total carbs, fiber, net carbs, protein, fat, calories, macronutrient ratios (percentage of carbs, protein, and fat per dish), percentage of SAT/MUFA/PUFA (saturated fat, monounsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fat), and the Omega-6/3 ratio.

Another perk: icons that indicate whether a recipe is dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, nightshade-free, and vegetarian. 

What You’ll Learn

Of course you’ll get great new recipes you’ll want to make on repeat. But there is also insight into why the Mediterranean diet is widely regarded for its health- and anti-aging properties, how layering the ketogenic diet on top of it provides you maximum health benefit, and how focusing on a wide but specific list of ingredients can help you bio-hack your way to optimal nutrition and health. 

Room for Improvement 

The images are mouthwatering. We wish every recipe included one (most, but not all, do). 

The Final Word

Even if it weren’t loaded with useful, easy-to-digest scientific information and guidance on the ingredients to eat for optimal health, we would recommend The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook. As with all the best cookbooks, the photos entice us to get into the kitchen to try new things and the recipes are creative, approachable, and delicious. 

The post The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook appeared first on KETO-MOJO.

If you want to whip up exciting meals every day with the simplest meal prep and clean up, this book can help you do it with ease. What comes with near perfection in a keto cookbook? Read on to find out. 

About the Author

Author Charlotte Smythe is behind the food blog Clean Foodie Cravings. Though not specifically a keto blog, it does showcase why Charlotte was qualified to craft a keto cookbook; she knows how to write a great recipe, use “clean” ingredients, and work within specific dietary guidelines. She also has a world of experience; after spending the first 10 years of her life in Liberia (and cooking with her sister frequently), she moved to the U.S. and grew to establish herself as a respected food blogger in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After starting with Whole30 and Paleo, she transitioned to a ketogenic diet, and this book is part of the result. Her vivacious personality and passion for health and tastiness come through in her writing and keto recipes. 

What’s Inside

This is a straight-up cookbook. No long stories about a keto journey, weight loss, or other (though Charlotte does have a history of weight struggles, which she discusses on her blog), this book jumps right into keto recipes, which are divided into the following sections:

• 30-Minute Skillet Meals
• No Mess Sheet-Pan Dinners
• Oven to Table
• Comforting Soups and Stews
• Sunny-Side Up (i.e. breakfast)
• Back to Basics (keto staples like cauliflower rice, zoodles from zucchini, and other keto standbys)

Like the title promises, all recipes are easily made using one pot (or one skillet or one sheet tray). They include macros, including total grams of fat, carbs, net carbs, protein, and fiber. But they don’t include any mention of calories, which means you’ll need to calculate them yourself if you’re calorie counting. 

Ingredients are familiar and readily available. Think ghee or keto-friendly oil for cooking, some sort of protein, some veggies here and there, and spices. Most recipes call for less than 12 ingredients (many of which are common spices), and there are several that have closer to six ingredients yet still yield exciting, wildly flavorful results. 

Additionally, each recipe is accompanied by a beautiful full-page photo, shot by the author herself. 

Don’t hope for dessert recipes here. You won’t find them. This book is all about comfort-food keto dinner recipes and breakfast recipes that are as easy to make and as approachable for weeknight dinner and weekend entertaining. 

Yet they offer great diversity for your keto diet (and consequently a gluten-free diet as well). Expect yummy recipes for everything from stir-fry to sheet pan meals to keto one-pot meals that are to die for. Think creamy sauces, spicy chicken, juicy pork chops with garlic butter, Parmesan-kissed egg cups (see below), ground-beef meatballs, Mexican enchilada skillet recipes, and so much more. 

Try These Recipes from One-Pot Keto Cooking now:

Low-carb Breakfast Egg Cups

Braised Mushroom Short Ribs

Cajun Chicken and Green Beans

What You’ll Learn 

At a minimum, you’ll get many new recipes you’ll want to make again and again. But pay attention and you’ll also learn some great skills you can apply to your own recipes, like how to make chicken thigh skin perfectly crispy (see the Cajun chicken recipe above) or how to cook sides alongside anything you’re roasting (also in the Cajun chicken recipe).

What We Like

The recipes are wonderful yet simple. The photos give you a clear idea of what you’re aiming for and are gorgeous and very appetizing. 

Room for Improvement

We wish there were calories included in the macros so we could easily know how many calories there are per serving. 

We also wish there were weight measurements included in the ingredient list for vegetables. Since a “medium spaghetti squash” or “medium onion” isn’t specific (and both must be eaten in moderation to keep carb macros in check), it leaves the opportunity to miscalculate carbohydrates macros if you don’t recalculate yourself using the actual weight of your ingredient. However, risky-vague vegetable measurements are a rare occurrence within the book, and they’re easily navigated if you know how to calculate macros or aren’t extra strict. 

The Final Word

There is every reason to grab this keto cookbook. It’s gorgeous, its recipes are delicious, and it’s so approachable, it’s guaranteed to bring flavorful diversity to your keto meal planning. We are huge fans. 

Shop for One-Pot Keto Cooking here.

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It’s appeal? Super-duper easy, totally delicious recipes made with common ingredients accompanied by close-up food photos to whet your appetite. 

If you’re new to keto cooking or need creative ideas for everyday meals, this book will be a great addition to your cookbook collection. There is one keto caveat. Read on to find out more!

About the Author

Author Emily Pierce had a lifelong struggle with weight when she began the keto diet. Since then, she dropped 120 pounds and began creating keto recipes that focus on whole foods and whole satisfaction. Today, she shares her creations on the blog Keto Copy and in this cookbook. She also hosts a podcast called “The Keto Happy Hour.”

What’s Inside

According to author Emily Pierce, the frugality referenced in her book title lies in buying and cooking with whole foods. Indeed, buying ingredients costs significantly less than purchasing processed or readymade foods. But most cookbooks cook with whole ingredients, so the cost-saving aspect isn’t as much of a standout as you might expect from this book; instead, it’s more about a celebration of everyday-delicious doable, recipes made from scratch using common ingredients. And that’s just fine by us because the recipes within the glossy 168 pages are super simple, totally yum, and yes, a heck of a lot cheaper than buying readymade food! 

The book plays up the money-saving aspect through its chapter titles, which are as follows:

• • Money-Saving Mains
  • Small Plates, Sides and Starters
  • Super Frugal Soups and Salads
  • Beats the Bake Shop Breads and Rolls
  • Budget-Friendly Breakfast and Brunch
  • Dollar-Saving Dips, Chips and Sauces
  • “Use It or Lose It” Leftover Land
  • Dough-Stretching Desserts

It also features some less expensive ingredients and tips to go with them, such as how to cook cheaper cuts of meat with great results, how using a whole chicken rather than specific cuts is a huge money-saver, or how to save money by buying and freezing ground chicken or chicken breasts when they go on sale. The tips are simple, but good reminders of how to keep costs down while eating well. 

There are more expensive ingredients called for, too, like pancetta and Boursin cheese spread for the Pancetta-Wrapped Chicken Breasts. However, the results are so totally worth the expense; they look and taste like a fancy night out at a fraction of the price. 

The recipes themselves are practical, approachable, and mostly keto renditions of foods you probably already know and love: Firehouse Chili, Cauliflower Gratin, Lasagna, The Best Cobb Salad, keto burger buns, chocolate donuts, maple pecan shortbread bars, and more are on the menu. But again, Emily’s versions are super simple and fast to make, with surprisingly good results considering the minimal effort. 

One thing that will be an issue if you’re on a keto diet and are carefully tracking macros is there are no macros included in any of the recipes. No grams of carbs, net carbs, fats, or anything else. There’s a recipe intro, the number of servings it makes, the ingredients, and the instructions. That’s it. So, if you want to know macros for any dishes in this book, you’ll have to calculate them yourself. 

Want to try a few recipes? Check these out (we even calculated the macros for you):

Pancetta-Wrapped Chicken Breasts

Pizza Shop Garlic Knots

Simple Chocolate Pots de Creme

What You’ll Learn 

We’re pretty certain, you’ll find some recipes here that will become part of your ongoing meal planning. There are lots of good, super easy ones that are prime for busy weeknight cooking. 

What We Like

The recipes are so yummy and easy (as if we haven’t said that enough)! The full-page photos give you a clear idea of what you’re aiming for. 

Room for Improvement

We wish the chapter called “Use It or Lose It” Leftover Land was more robust; it features just three recipes that use leftovers. 

The Final Word

The Frugal Keto Cookbook: 75 Flavor-Packed Recipes That Are Easy on Your Budget is loaded with easy, super delicious recipes that will make keto meal planning or last-minute cooking, fun and satisfying. Recipes don’t include macros, so expect having to calculate them yourself if you’re tracking macros. But don’t let this deter you from getting the book. It’s a good one for anyone who needs simple kitchen inspiration. 

Shop for The Frugal Keto Cookbook: 75 Flavor-Packed Recipes That Are Easy on Your Budget here.

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Meanwhile, her definition of “lazy keto” means only tracking net carbs.

Still, The Dirty, Lazy, Keto No Time to Cook Cookbook: 100 Easy Recipes to Save Money & Time by Stephanie Laska, MEd, and William Laska (Adams Media, 2021) includes info on all macros, from calories to protein to sugar and more. What else can you expect from this paperback featuring 100 recipes that can be made in 30 minutes or less? Read on to find out!

About the Authors

If you’ve been keto cooking for a while, you may have come across authors Stephanie and William Laska’s work. After all, this is the fifth book in their “The Dirty, Lazy Keto” series. Their inspiration was life experience; Stephanie lost 140 pounds with her version of keto, which allowed for “dirty” foods but strict adherence to net carb macros. She’s also kept it off and kept going, sharing her relaxed, can-do perspective on working her dirty, lazy keto lifestyle, especially in the kitchen. 

What’s Inside

A large, hefty paperback, this cookbook feels functional and approachable. Its promise? Fast, easy keto recipes that are:

• ready in less than 30 minutes
• contain less than 10 net carbs per serving
• taste great

Of course there’s much more. 

Along with an introduction to Stephanie and her way of thinking, there are sections that explain what dirty, lazy keto is, how it works, and what kinds of foods to eat and to avoid. 

There are assurances that this is a book even for people who don’t consider themselves cooks and guidelines on how to set up and operate in your kitchen for fast cooking and what shortcuts you can take to further speed the process (think buying cooked chicken versus raw). 

Then come the recipes. There are a whopping 100 of them, which are divided into chapters, as follows:

• Breakfast
• Soups and Salads
• Snacks
• Breads and Pizza
• Sides
• Main Dishes
• Drinks and Desserts

As promised, recipes are indeed extremely easy and fast to make. They’re also familiar. You’ll find keto recipes for the likes of turkey meatballs, quesadillas, onion rings, chop suey, lasagna, chocolate chip cookies, bacon-maple cupcakes, and pina coladas. Only they have cutesy names that hint at their speedy prep (think “Pace Yourself Pina Colada” and “Clock’s Tickin’ Vodka Chicken”). Alas, only about half of them have accompanying photos, so you’ll have to use your imagination to envision those that aren’t shown in photos. 

Regardless, the recipes totally work and are totally delicious. In fact, those we tested we found good enough to make again, and that’s saying a lot. 

Want a taste of what’s in store? Try these Recipes from The Dirty, Lazy, Keto No Time to Cook Cookbook now:

Thai Time Crunch Salad

Snappy Stuffed Salmon

Two-Step Satay with Peanut Sauce

What You’ll Learn 

If you’re new to keto cooking or cooking in general, you’ll appreciate the up-front insight about how to get your kitchen ready. You’ll also find some permission to enjoy some of your “dirty” keto habits, if you have any (ahem, occasional diet soft drinks). 

But most importantly, you’ll learn a lot of simple recipes for a variety of dishes, which is really helpful if you want variety on your keto diet. 

What We Like

There’s an upbeat, cheerful attitude throughout the book. Also, there are a lot of recipes that require only a handful of ingredients plus lots of tips included with each recipe. Finally, the recipes really are quite easy, making it possible to hustle through meals made from scratch with solid results. 

Room for Improvement

The photos are great. We just wish there was an image for every dish. 

The Final Word

The Dirty, Lazy, Keto No Time to Cook Cookbook is a great addition to your recipe collection if you’re excited for keto renditions of familiar comfort foods or just fast recipes to bring variety to your keto lifestyle. It’s no-fuss cooking with reliable, tasty, and sometimes even fancy results.

Shop for The Dirty, Lazy Keto No Time to Cook Cookbook here.

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About the Author

Author Mandy Davis co-founded the Carb Manager keto-diet tracking app with her husband Kevin in 2010 while they were living healthily in Hawaii and wanting a way to track their healthy eating. Since its founding, they have evolved the app to help with everything from tracking your macros to tracking intermittent fasting, exercise, and more. If you’re familiar with the app, you also know they started adding recipes in 2017 and never looked back. 

What’s Inside

Carb Manager’s Keto Diet Cookbook instantly exudes more substance than most keto cookbooks. Pages are dense, writing is small, and the introduction goes straight into what you need to know about the keto diet. 

It also notes that occasionally recipes include a touch of an ingredient that isn’t allowed on a super-strict keto diet, such as honey, onion or carrots. While such ingredients are limited, it’s part of Carb Manager’s neutral philosophy on whether you eat strict keto, dirty keto, or clean keto. That said, the recipes do rely heavily on whole, wholesome ingredients to make yummy, keto-compatible results. 

Also in the intro are tips on ingredients (high-quality, nutrient-dense) and definitions for the icons included in each recipe; they indicate whether recipes are 30 minutes or less to prepare, dairy-free, paleo, vegetarian, or “6+” grams of net carbs. 

Next up is a brief primer on meal planning and food logging, complete with sample 3-day meal plans and answers to commonly asked questions. 

Then, it jumps straight into recipes. 

Most, but not all, include a pretty, full-page photo of the dish in question. But all include the following extra elements that really help for keto cooking and tracking:

• • Amount of net carbs big and bold, right under the recipe title 
  • Any of the aforementioned icons that apply to the dish in question 
  • Prep time
  • Cook time
  • Amount the recipe makes or serves or both
  • The weight of a serving
  • Macros per serving including: calories, total carbs, net carbs, fiber, protein, fat 
  • A QR code you can scan, which will take you to the recipe on their app; it includes reviews and questions, more photos, and more nutrients info 
  • A tip or bit of helpful information about the recipe or a recipe ingredient

The info is neatly tucked primarily into a strip down the side of each page, making it easy to focus on the cooking, if you wish, or the data, if desired. 

Recipes are grouped in unique ways, not always following convention. Chapters include:

• • Morning Food (think pancakes, quiche, smoothies, muffins)
  • Quick & Easy (kind of random since it features everything from a Thai omelette to walnut and blue cheese spaghetti)
  • Splendid Suppers (chicken-fried steak, crispy tofu bowl, Philly cheesesteak skillet)
  • Batch Cooking & Make Aheads (coriander-lime chicken kebabs, pepperoni pizza, tuna steaks with sour soy mushrooms) 
  • Hearty Salads & Soups (deluxe taco salad, shrimp noodles with coconut broth, mixed berry poppyseed vinaigrette)
  • Satisfying Sides (toasted sesame shirataki noodles, orange-ginger edamame, radish au gratin)
  • Savory Snacks (cheesy breadsticks, BLT chicken snack cups, cucumber, egg and lox bites)
  • Sweets & Fat Bombs (coconut, lime, and raspberry fat bombs; pine nut biscotti, almond panna cotta)

After the recipes, you’ll find a concise pantry list of keto essentials. But for the time- or talent-crunched home cook, perhaps the best part about this book is that the recipes are very easy to prepare, made from common ingredients, and are tasty, and easy to modify to your liking, if desired. In fact, as foundation recipes, they may even give you a starting place for venturing further in your own creative cooking. 

Want to try a few recipes? Check these out:

Raspberry Cheesecake Breakfast Pots

Mini Chai-Spiced Cheesecakes

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

What You’ll Learn

Along with several new dishes you’ll want to put into rotation, you’ll get lots of tips for keto cooking. 

What We Like

The ease and accessibility of the recipes are awesome. They take little time and use readily available ingredients. We also like that the recipes focus on wholesome, good-quality foods that are tasty enough that you don’t need to go “dirty” to find satisfaction. Clear, bright photos give you a good idea of what you’re aiming for. 

Room for Improvement

Occasionally, a recipe could benefit from more seasoning. But on the bright side, that’s easily remedied; just season to your liking! 

Also, every now and then we stumbled upon a recipe that didn’t offer a serving size (compound butters or blueberry-lemon pancakes, for example); but you can figure it out if you read the weight. 

The Final Word

Carb Manager’s Keto Diet Cookbook has tons of simple, totally doable, and tasty keto recipes, all of which include data to help you best track your macros and keto diet. The wide variety of dishes gives you more than enough ideas on what to cook next to stay satisfied and on keto. 

Shop for Carb Manager’s Keto Diet Cookbook: The Easiest Way to Lose Weight Fast with 101 Recipes That You Can Track with QR Codes here.

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In Lies My Doctor Told Me, Dr. Ken D. Berry highlights the biggest misconception in the healthcare industry: that doctors know everything. He explains that while some physicians advocate outdated practices because they’re too busy to keep up with new research, others blindly accept results from Big Pharma-sponsored studies. But most importantly, in this book, Dr. Berry busts more than 25 commonly-believed medical and diet-related myths and teaches you evidence-based approaches to take control of your health.

About the Author

Dr. Ken D. Berry is a board-certified family physician. He was recently accepted as a fellow in the American Academy of Family Medicine. Dr. Berry’s practice focuses on preventing and treating chronic diseases caused by the Standard American Diet, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. He empowers patients with information to help them navigate this “upside-down circus that is modern medicine.”

What’s Inside

There are 30 chapters in Lies My Doctor Told Me, and each chapter covers one common misconception in medicine. Dr. Berry breaks down each myth with sections that describe the lie, why you should care (or how the lie affects your health), and where support for the lie comes from (such as Big Pharma or the American Heart Association, for example). Dr. Berry provides common-sense reasoning about why the lie is absurd, then backs it up with the research to debunk each myth.

Closing out each chapter/lie, you’ll find a take-home message to sum up the key truths to remember when speaking with your doctor or loved ones about the issue in question. You’ll also learn Dr. Berry’s personal opinions and practices on the matter in a “Do as I do” section. Finally, Dr. Berry includes homework in the form of recommended reading about each lie, if you’re curious for more.

After each lie gets a thorough debunking, Dr. Berry turns his attention to those in medicine in a chapter titled, “Dear Colleagues.” Here he chastises bad doctors and advises medical students, new doctors, and veterans to see the light and right their wrongs (or not start bad habits at all!).

What You’ll Learn

Dr. Berry tackles the most prevalent medical and health myths of the last 50 years, including why low-salt diets do little (if anything) for high blood pressure, strokes, and heart disease. And why you have no reason to fear saturated fat, dietary cholesterol, red meat, processed meat, or grilling meat. And did you know beefing up your workouts may sabotage your weight loss goals? Or that sun exposure doesn’t correlate with skin cancer risks, and diet may be more effective than sunscreen? You’ll learn the science behind these exposed “lies” and a lot more.

Then Dr. Berry tackles over 25 mini-medical myths in a quick lightning round called, “Little White Lies.” It contains truths for lies, like we only use 10 percent of our brain, we should drink eight glasses of water per day (or more), spicy foods cause reflux, stretching before exercise matters, etcetera.

What We Like

We like how Dr. Berry examines the origins, fallacies, and truths behind each medical lie in an unbiased, organized, easy-to-digest, information-packed format. Readers can start and stop anywhere they like, and the extra reading recommendations provide a roadmap to follow if you’re interested in a specific subject.

We also enjoy how Dr. Berry provides patients with the tools to start a discussion with their doctors about their diet and alternatives to prescriptions. This allows both parties to work on natural health solutions as a team.

Room for Improvement

Dr. Berry admits that he left out citations for his research to keep his book short and costs down. However, we wish readers could find a list of references on his website to read the studies mentioned. Dr. Berry strongly advocates for both doctors and patients to check medical research, see who paid for the studies, and not blindly trust health advice given by doctors. We wish he made it easier for readers to do so.

The Final Word

In “Lies My Doctor Told Me,” author Dr. Berry’s goal wasn’t to bash doctors and point fingers in Lies My Doctor Told Me. But learning the truth about these medical myths that harm your health will encourage you to become the best advocate for your own well-being. You may be surprised to learn how many of your good intentions are actually sabotaging your health goals.

Shop for Lies My Doctor Told Me here.

Click here to learn more about Dr. Berry and to watch his LowCarbUSA videos.

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About the Author

Pop by Brittany Angell’s website, brittanyangell.com, and you’ll see the only declaration on the homepage is “food should be good!” While this edict sounds simple enough, anyone following a special diet and trying to figure out what to cook next knows this is not always the case. This is where Brittany Angell comes in. Angell has Hashimoto’s disease and suffered from job-related lead poisoning. This led to a complete change in her lifestyle and eating habits, and today she specializes in allergen-free and special-diet recipes, including vegetarian and vegan. Her recipes on her website and in this cookbook allow for variation to make room for all kinds of ketonians, including those that are dairy-free. Angell’s other cookbooks are The Essential Gluten Free Baking Guides Part 1 & 2, and the bestseller Every Last Crumb.

What’s Inside

What’s in this cookbook? A better question is what isn’t! Within the 512 pages (!) you’ll find recipe sections for Breakfast; Main Dishes; Sides, Salads, and Soups; Bread and Pasta; Snacks and Appetizers; Bars, Brownies, and Cookies; Cakes, Pies, and Ice Cream; Homemade Liqueurs and Cocktails; and Keto Basics. 

Recipes tend to be simple. For example, the nine “homemade yogurt” recipes are actually store-bought plain yogurts gussied up by you to create flavored keto versions); however, the various granolas and smoothie bowls require more DIY efforts. 

Angell also clearly likes to offer various riffs on one concept. You’ll find this with breakfast sausage (three ways), muffins, donuts (so many flavors!), coffee drinks, chili, sheet-pan meals, and much more. 

But there are plenty of stand-alone sensations. Keto breakfast grits, Chicken Paprikash with Spätzle, and Steak Fingers with Caramelized Onion Gravy are a few examples. 

Along with an overabundance of recipes, this book offers a bounty of vibrant, appealing food photography with far better styling and appeal than most keto cookbooks can claim. This is helpful in inciting excitement around making a recipe as well as giving you an idea of what will actually end up on your plate. 

See what we mean by clicking any of the links below to try the following recipes from The Ultimate Keto Cookbook:

• • Chorizo and Beef Chili
    
  • Green Curry Drumsticks
    
  • Perfect Easy Flatbread

What You’ll Learn 

Along with a plethora of potential new favorite recipes, you’ll find many recipes for dairy-free versions of everyday foods, such as yogurt (made with cashews), feta cheese (made with tofu), sour cream (made with almond four) and more. You’ll also find a good list of suggested brands for common keto ingredients. 

What We Like

Unlike most keto cookbooks, and cookbooks in general, each recipe here identifies whether it’s dairy-free, nut-free, paleo, vegetarian, and egg-free options through the use of nifty icons. It also offers variations so that you can avoid common food allergens if you still want to make the recipe. 

Room for Improvement

Alas, you won’t find macros listed here, and some of the recipes can be a wee bit high on the net carb count, so you’ll need to do your own calculations if you’re following a strict keto diet and want to make sure you’re not overdoing it on carbs or protein. 

The Final Word

If you’re keto or paleo and like to cook, this is a book that should be on your shelf. The sheer volume of recipes (270-plus within 512 pages) is enough inspiration to revolutionize your menu planning. Better still, the Ultimate Keto Cookbook makes room for additional dietary restrictions, especially dairy and egg, which means the recipes are accessible to pretty much everyone. You’ll need to calculate the macros since they’re not included within the pages, but it’s worth the effort because the dishes work and are extremely tasty. 

Shop for The Ultimate Keto Cookbook: 270+ Recipes for Incredible Low-Carb Meals here. 

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