Skinny Bitch in the Kitch: Kick-Ass Recipes for Hungry Girls Who Want to Stop Cooking Crap (and Start Looking Hot!)

If you want to start questioning what the nation's advertisers are trying to feed you, then please check this out. Our TVs are saturated with ads for unhealthy foods - hamburgers, soda, fries, you name it, and there's a billion dollars going into trying to fool you into eating that stuff. The consequences? Record high rates of obesity, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes. The chapters about the vegan lifetsyle are great- and it's exactly what the country needs to hear. All of the current major public health issues, from heart disease to diabetes, find their source in an unhealthy, meat-and-sugar-centered diet. By giving up meat alone, you already cut down your risk of heart disease by 15% - just imagine the number of lives that we could save, of humans and other animals too, by making that simple and easy transition. For vegans, heart disease is virtually nonexistant compared to the nonvegetarian statistics. I knew of this before I read the book and took a look at it after I became vegan, while wandering around in the medical campus bookstore. That in itself should testify to the accuracy of this book's reccomendations, and how badly we need to hear it.

For the sake of your health, check it out :)

After I read the first book, Skinny Bitch, I knew I had to run out and get this one as well. The recipes in this book are delicious (the first thing I made was the carrot cake - omg, yum!). I recommend this book for people that just want to eat healthier, or are new vegetarians or vegans.

. This is a vegetarian cook book plain and simple, so if you are looking for meat go else ware. I am a vegetarian, so I truly enjoy the recipes. Some are a little basic but others are for things I would have never tried on my own. So far I have made 4-5 dishes and I have not been disappointed yet. If you are looking for veg./vegan recipes this is the book for you. Although it is fun, and candid which I love, I do wish that it had the nutritional information to accompany each recipe. I am very satisfied with my purchase.

The first book, "Skinny Bitch," shocked me into a new awareness of what I was eating. I decided to try the vegetarian lifestyle to see if it would work for me. I started by eating a few prepackaged meals (spring rolls with soy and a veggie pot pie) to jump-start my efforts. It took me about a week to gather the necessary ingredients. In the meantime I had veggie burritos at Taco Time and vegetable fajitas at a local Mexican restaurant.

You may find a health food store that stocks nutritional yeast flakes, Ener-G egg replacer and Bragg Liquid Aminos. In general this book uses safflower and olive oil. The truth of the matter is that many of the recipes call for coconut oil (a little expensive $10 for 414 ml), which may or may not work for you. I found it less appetizing in savory dishes and appropriate for sweet foods like cookies. It is easy to substitute olive oil for the coconut oil in some of the recipes like Hummus and Macaroni and Cheese. Why you would want coconut oil in those recipes is beyond my understanding.

The recipes are divided into interesting sections like Bitchin' Breakfast, PMS ( Pissy Mood Snacks), Grown-Up Appetizers, Sassy Soups and Stews, Skinny-Ass Salads, Hearty-Ass Sandwiches, International Bitch, Italian Bitch, Down Home Cookin', Skinny Bitch Staple Meals, Divine Dressings and Happy Endings. This book has a sassy style and is actually quite funny in places. Some of the more gourmet offerings include:

Pecan-crusted French Toast
Crabby Cakes with Remoulade Sauce
Potato and Pumpkin Curry with Brown Basmatic Rice
Penne with Butternut Squash, Sage Pesto, and Almonds
Roasted Sausage, Peppers, Onions, and Garlic over Soft Polenta
Balsamic Portobello Mushrooms over Grilled Vegetable Couscous


Since I was throwing myself into this vegetarian lifestyle with a sense of abandon I decided to try twelve recipes. I managed to make four of the recipes in one night without much trouble. The buttery shortbread cookies looked easy enough until I noticed the quantity of orange juice and knew it wouldn't work. So I decided to substitute 5 tablespoons soymilk for the 1 tablespoon orange juice. To get the crumb mixture to hold together you may need to add additional tablespoons of milk depending on where you live. The dough seemed to work best when the crumbed mixture was pressed together in small batches and then rolled out. Each time you just add some more crumbs to the top and proceed as normal. The recipe made 32 "Buttery Shortbread Cookies."

While the cookies were baking I made the "Marinated Tofu Feta" which was the easiest recipe in the book. I'd recommend only using half the tofu and using half the salt. It would have been helpful if the authors mentioned how long you could store the marinated tofu. Actually it tasted pretty good so you might eat it up fast in a few days.

Next I tackled a "Fruit Smoothie," which was easy enough. You may want to use orange juice with the "Very Berry" Smoothie. If you use soymilk be prepared to sweeten the drink. I blended in two tablespoons of rice syrup but you could also use a packet of stevia.

To end the night's testing spree I then made the "Green Goddess Pasta" for dinner. It was fairly easy to make except I have a few tips that will make it easier. To begin with, make sure the vegan butter you buy will actually melt. I tried using a Spectrum spread and it simply would not melt. So after tossing away the garlic and unmelted spread I ended up just using a stick of butter. You can do that if you are a Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian (you can then still eat eggs and dairy products if you choose - this book frowns on such behaviors and I totally understand why). I really tried to stay true to the recipes but haven't found a good vegan butter substitute. The pasta dish really allows for variation because you could technically use any type of pasta. I used an organic penne rigate and added the broccoli and zucchini a little ahead of the kale. I also didn't use any of the cooking water with the butter. That didn't sound like a good idea and the additional salt seemed too much since I was using salted butter.

The recipes I still want to try include:

French Scramble
Granola
"Chicken" Salad Sandwich (a substitute is easy to find in the frozen section of a health food store)
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Vanilla Cake with Frosting
Caesar Dressing (made with tofu)
Hummus, Tempeh, and Cucumber Wrap
Summer Garden Pasta

Since cooking from a new cookbook is always a little risky I felt that the evening's recipe testing session went quite well. I was happy with all the dishes and was ready to try more. I'm still sipping on my fruit smoothie for dessert and I have three dinners (the pasta dish makes four servings) frozen and ready to go for nights when I don't want to cook.

~The Rebecca Review

P.S. The Recipe Testing continues...

4/29/2008 - The "Quesadillas" are delicious and so easy to make. I think you will love the recipe.

4/30/2008 - The "Bitchtastic Brownies" are more like a dark chocolate pudding cake. Perhaps the recipe would work better if you just added more chocolate in place of the oil.

5/1/2008 - The "Apple Muffins (a variation of fruit and nut muffins)" are good straight out of the oven with some honey. The recipe calls for sucanat which doesn't seem to be as sweet as sugar.

5/2/2008 - Today I tried the Chocolate Pancakes, a variation on Basic Pancakes. They were so good I ate three. They are made with whole wheat flour but you would never know it. I would buy this book just for this one recipe. The "Chicken" Salad Sandwich is easy to make because you are using meatless chicken...therefore, no cooking! The Worthington Meatless Chicken Vegetarian Protein Slices worked well in this recipe.

5/6/2008 - The Quick Tortilla Pizzas are so gourmet with a roasted red pepper sauce and Kalamata olives. The pizza sauce is easy to make in a blender, no food processor needed. If you are in the mood, add three tablespoons of tomato paste to the sauce.

5/8/2008 - Today I made the chocolate chip cookies and couldn't believe how good they were even without eggs and butter. The recipe calls for coconut oil which is perfect with the chocolate chips. My husband even asked for a second cookie.

5/26/2008 - The carrot cake is delicious but I used melted butter in place of the oil. Also, use 1 cup of carrots instead of two - I think there is a mistake in the recipe as two carrots make one cup not two. You can also safely make 1/2 the cream cheese frosting. The problem with the frosting recipe is that it doesn't call for any soy milk and I had to add 1/4 cup soy milk to make the frosting creamy.

This book has great recepies for going vegan in a fun & delicious manner! My Husband's fav dish, Mac & Cheese, passed his high standards as being as good as the original, and, he said if I wasn't there watching him, he would have gone for thirds! Go vegan, it's good for your body, good for the planet, and for the critters too! Laurel