After gaining the coronavirus 19 (pounds) from our quarantine comfort food meals, my boyfriend and I have decided to make a commitment to eating healthier. We’re eating a lot more salads, and already getting tired of our boring salad repertoire. I’m looking forward to checking out Mandy’s Gourmet Salads: Recipes for Lettuce and Life (via Amazon) which comes out in early July.
(Disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.)
Sisters Mandy Wolfe and Rebecca Wolfe operate “Mandy’s Gourmet Salads” restaurants in Montreal, Canada. (I hadn’t heard of this eight location chain before!) Take a peek at their Instagram for a look at some of their creations.
Let’s take a look at the chapters inside:
- Chapter 1 – Smoothies
- Chapter 2 – Salads
- Chapter 3 – Dressings
- Chapter 4 – Grain Bowls
- Chapter 5 – Sweets
I’m surprised to see a Smoothies chapter and one for Sweets. I’m not much of a smoothie person – sometimes I feel like it’s cheating and I should just chew up the fruits myself. But I’ll take a look at this chapter and see if I can find a benefit to that much work and cleanup in the mornings!
Right away the book starts explaining Mandy’s theory of making great salads – avoiding sogginess, too much acid and bitterness; incorporating the right textures, including creaminess and crunchiness; and making sure the salad dressing includes tangyness and some kind of fat or oil. Their salads are globally inspired and informed by the current season. In winter, there are less fresh fruits and veggies available, so they lean more towards grain bowls (aha, that explains why Chapter 4 covers grain bowls!)
Each recipe in the book is meant for one person to enjoy, but the authors promise that it will be easy to scale up the recipe to feed more than one person. Their salad dressing recipes make either one or two cups of dressing, can be refrigerated for just a few days, and are meant to dress up to seven salads.
The Smoothies chapter begins with a recipe for the Amazon Smoothie, which consists of nut butter, Nutella, a banana, and plant-based milk. It makes one big 16 ounce smoothie. I probably wouldn’t choose to start my day with that much sugar. I’d rather try the Tropical smoothie on the next page (which uses fresh fruits and coconut water). I’m tempted by the Rise and Shine smoothie, but I don’t keep things like almond butter and flax seeds around the house. The Shakti smoothie asks for maple syrup (well, this IS a Canadian cookbook after all) but I’d probably omit that because the pineapple called for in the recipe would provide more than enough sweetness. You might enjoy looking over the Mango Magic smoothie recipe, which includes ginger, turmeric and a bit of apple cider. Overall, I don’t think I’d make any of the smoothies here – I don’t keep many of the ingredients in the house, many of these use too many sugary ingredients, and don’t care for plant based milks.
I’m excited to finally get to the Salads chapter – the “meat” of the book, if you will! Oh yes, the salad photos within are as gorgeous, bright and colorful as I’d hoped. The Shanghai Salad, featured first, doesn’t seem too hard to make. The Mexi salad is similar to salads I make every week, but I’m looking forward to learning how to make the Cilantro Cumin Dressing.
The Salads chapter continues with the Tokyo salad, which calls for roasted marinated tofu – something I wouldn’t have thought to make at home and add to a salad. I’ve got to try this! Looking at the recipe for The Fave, I see it only calls for half an avocado. It doesn’t make sense to cut open an entire avocado just to put the other half of it away, so I’d likely use the whole avocado for this one-person salad.
I’m vegetarian, but I’d make the hearty Lumberjack Salad for my boyfriend any day. He’d love the bacon, turkey and chicken and this would likely fill him up for several hours. He would also enjoy the Mediterranean Salmon salad.
Most of the salad recipes here seem to require mesclun greens, which I feel might be difficult for some people (depending on your location) to acquire during this pandemic and time of stressful grocery store shopping trips. They’re definitely my favorite type of lettuce for salads. But plenty of the other salad recipes ask for romaine lettuce or arugula.
I love Mediterranean food and the Habibi Salad looks delicious, except would I really go to all the trouble to roast a sweet potato and then only use 1/4th of it? Same with the marinated tempeh in the next recipe? I think I’d get a lot more use out of this cookbook if the portions were doubled or quadrupled to make it worth the effort to make each.
The chapter continues with an Endless Summer Salad, a Superfood Salad, a Lobster Salad, a Wild Sage Salad, two variations of a Waldorf salad, an updated Fancy Pants Nicoise salad, and a Curry Quinoa Salad I’m tempted to try making. Extra healthy options continue with a Kale Caesar salad, and a Mint Madness Salad. Then it heads international with an Italian style salad, a Hoisin Duck salad, and a Miso Salmon Noodle Salad. There’s a Cajun Shrimp salad, a vegan Caesar, a Peach and Prosciutto Salad, a Ceviche Salad, a Keto Salad, and so many other options. I won’t spoil it for you in case you are planning on buying this cookbook!
The Dressings chapter begins with Mandy’s House dressing, then continues with a Tamari dressing, Italian Summer, Caesar salad dressing, Turmeric Tahini (ooh!), a Green Goddess dressing that fortunately doesn’t call for anchovies, Provencal vinaigrette and Champagne Vinaigrette, a couple of Miso Ginger options, an intriguing sounding Maple Gravy dressing, a red wine vinaigrette, a Berry Good dressing that’s likely too sweet for my personal preferences, a Mint Madness dressing, Creamy Greek, Blue Ranch dressing, and a dressing called Smoke Show. I definitely appreciate all the dressing recipes, since we’re trying to get away from using bottled in our home.
I’m looking at the Grain Bowls chapter now. These aren’t things I’d normally choose to make at home, and I don’t often order them at restaurants unless the restaurant doesn’t have very many vegetarian options to choose from. I’m keeping an open mind though, and poring through the first recipe, which is for a Hippie Bowl. Ingredients include quinoa, as you could have guessed, plus spicy tofu, black beans, and kale. Healthy sounding indeed! The Veggie Power Bowl doesn’t look too different. A Mexi Bowl follows next, and then a Vietnamese style Bim Bowl. The Ramen Chicken Noodle Bowl is a Mandy’s style take on Pad Thai. The globally inspired recipes continue with a Seoul Bowl, a Burrito Bowl and a Caprese Bowl.
Let’s finish up with a look at the Sweets chapter. Earlier, the authors said they began their business with sweets and pastries, and want part of their restaurants to feel like a bake sale. After eating all the smoothies, healthy salads and grain bowls, don’t we deserve a couple of Mandy’s Chocolate Chip Cookies? Or how about Coconut Chocolate Truffles, Salted Pecan Shortbread Squares, or an Apple Crisp? There’s a recipe for Paleo Banana Bread, some Lemon-Orange Buttercream Cookies I’d love to dive into baking right now, and adorable Mini Key Lime Pies.
Overall, I am impressed with the food photography, the cheerful writing, the lovely pics of the sisters and their restaurants that are interspersed. The recipes seem easy to follow, other than needing to double most of the salad ingredients to make them feed more than one person. I love that the book includes options for vegans, vegetarians, gluten-free and keto people as well. I definitely want this on my bookshelf to help get me out of the same-salad doldrums every weeknight!
Mandy’s Gourmet Salads: Recipes for Lettuce and Life (via Amazon) comes out July 7, 2020.
-Carrie
