A Practical Guide to Cooking for Health - Cookbook

Nicky weighs the pros and cons of different diets, while outlining practical kitchen skills; she simplifies commonly used culinary terms, lists helpful equipment that will make cooking more enjoyable, shares her secret ingredients and cupboard essentials, and discusses how to balance flavours so you can learn to create your own unique dishes.

This book offers sublime dairy alternatives and useful gluten free cooking tips. It is not completely plant-based, but offers ideas on how to cut down on meat consumption.

A Practical Guide to Cooking for Health is intended to be a well-rounded resource for both your health and your enjoyment of food and cooking. Nicky provides tools to reawaken the enjoyment of home cooking, while also helping people to obtain optimal health in the process.

It is a good quality spiral bound book for easy use in the kitchen.

Some of the recipes include:

Lentil Moussaka

Flourless Banana Pancakes

Pineapple Kim Chi

Nutty Vegan Oat Bread

Walnut Pesto

Chinese Kale Chips

Thai Sweet Potato Hash

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

Lemon & Poppy Seed Courgette Muffins

Fionnuala

"A Practical Guide to Cooking for Health"  is much more than a collection of recipes. If you have ever felt overwhelmed by the vast universe of information, online and elsewhere, telling you what you should be eating, then this is the book for you! Nicky navigates the world of nutritional advice in such a balanced and unbiased way that it is really evident that hers is an honest voice in, what can seem like, a sea of vested interests.

 The book covers cooking techniques (very enlightening!) and recipes but also diet direction, supplements and what nutrition is best for your heart health, blood sugar, gut health, immunity, and your brain. Each featured recipe is clearly marked as being suitable for a particular diet such as plant-based, gluten free, dairy free, paleo, GAPS friendly, low carb amongst others. Ingredients used in every recipe are not processed, for example, ingredients such as refined sugar are never used. That is not to say that there are no sweet things in the book. For example, I baked Nicky's banana bread, which is gluten free, dairy free, sugar free (apart from the bananas!) and grain free and it was honestly delicious and I would have had no idea that it was missing those "usual" ingredients! I cannot wait to try out the other guilt-free treats featured.

The book for the most-part is meat-free but, as a meat eater myself, I did not find it lacking. I tried out the Lentil Moussaka (plant-based, gluten free, dairy free) and it was extremely satisfying and delicious. I honestly had no idea you could make a bechamel type sauce without dairy. My partner, a meat eating man, also loved it! 

Of utmost importance is that the recipes are very easy to follow and the directions are clear. I have picked up a few good tips for cooking in general from it. The ingredients are not beyond what you would find in your local health food shop either.

It is evident that Nicky is not trying to push one type of “diet” or lifestyle over another. She explains very well the different approaches to diet and outlines the differing viewpoints, including from a medical perspective, related to each one. On reading the book, you feel like not so much “going on a diet” but adjusting your overall relationship with food, in a positive way. Nicky has incorporated her own experiences into the book in a way that is really insightful and helps humanise the underlying theories. I found her sections on gut health and boosting immunity particularly inspiring.” “Nicky is a very creative chef. All her dishes are designed for good taste and your good health.

See cookbook page for more info