It's All Good, And It Actually Is

 

Okay, so we bought Gwyneth Paltrow’s new cookbook It’s All Good, “Delicious, easy recipes that will make you look good and feel great.” How could we not take a look, right? We like food that makes you look good and feel great, so we felt we owed it to ourselves, and to you, to take a look to see if it lived up to its The New York Times Best Sellers list status. And here’s the truth, it did. It really did.

The foreward is written by Dr. Habib Sadeghi, an osteopathic physician who wrote that in our culture we have complicated food, we overthink it, food is a sensorial experience, not a mental exercise. “Food comes from the earth. So do we,” he said. “If we are going to be nurtured by food it needs to taste wonderful, we have taste buds for a reason.”
We too believe that we should enjoy our food, which is why we are dedicated to sharing the easiest ways to make the healthiest choices. It’s not always easy, there are less-than-healthy choices available at every turn – cinnamon rolls we are talking to you – but our goal is to be healthy most of the time, and that seems to work.

It’s All Good provides recipes that are simple to follow with very few ingredients for the most part, even for amateur chefs. The ingredients are based on fresh, local, simple foods like fish, poultry, eggs and a variety of vegetables such as beets, arugula and Brussels sprouts. Paltrow takes something as simple as broccoli rabe and adds garlic, red chili flakes, olive oil and lemon to create a slightly spicy, flavorful side dish of leafy greens that would complement almost any grilled meat, chicken or fish.

Recipes range from “Buttermilk” Waffles for breakfast to a Chopped Vietnamese Salad for lunch to Braised Chicken with Green Olives and Lemon for dinner. There is no sugar in any recipe in the book, very little gluten and no dairy, and there are several creative dessert recipes, including Banana “Ice Cream” with Sweet and Salty Roasted Almonds or Darleen’s Dark Chocolate Pudding. Paltrow uses maple syrup, unsweetened chocolate and honey in her dessert recipes to add natural sweetness. She also includes recipes for kids, including Veggie Dumplings and Italian-Style Fish Fingers.

Paltrow says it best when she writes “this book is full of real, wholesome food – recipes that will make you feel lighter and full of energy, not weighted down. But it’s all insanely delicious – comfort food that happens to follow the same protocols as all healthy eating plans.”

We’ve tested many recipes from It’s All Good, and dare we say, so far so good. From the Grilled Asparagus and Portobellos With Shallot and Soy Dressing to the Crazy Good Fish Tacos, they were all tasty and pretty simple to prepare. We will be making our way through several more recipes, next up is the Super-Crispy Roast Chicken.