The Karma Chow Ultimate Cookbook: 125+ Plant-Based Vegan Recipes for a Fit, Happy, Healthy You

I recently became a vegan, and because of that I more or less had to learn how to cook (or else eat gruel or starve!).This book has been absolutely critical for me in terms of giving me a wide variety of healthy and delicious recipes to try. Most of these recipes are not that difficult (I mean, if *I* can figure them out...), and fairly difficult to screw up, but there are also some more complex recipes if you are up for a challenge. I've spent a lot of time in the soups and deserts sections, which are mostly *extremely* easy, delicious, and great for leftovers.That said, here are a few things to be aware of:1.) Although a vegan diet can be ridiculously cheap, these recipes tend to use more exotic ingredients that can be fairly expensive. And I feel like many of them are rare enough that you may not be able find them if you don't have access to a fairly well stocked natural foods store (like Whole Foods, for example).2.) Some of the recipes can be pretty high in fat, and many of them use coconut oil (which there is some controversy about in the plant based world, but most of the vegan doctors seem to really warn you against). I would just suggest that if you're eating one of these higher fat recipes you might want to consider backing off on the fat for your other meals throughout the day to keep you in the average/lower fat range for the day.Hope that helps! I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in a plant based life style, and I hope there is a sequel!

The Karma Chow Ultimate Cookbook is a compact, easy to read and follow cookbook full of extraordinary pictures of yummy, healthy goodness. In a straight forward, no nonsense, no hype back to basics cookbook Melissa's recipes are a delight on the tongue and to the eye. The aroma's are mesmerizing no matter what you are whipping up in the kitchen. It just might make you fall in love with cooking.This cookbook is so much more than a cookbook! Starting with quick excerpts about her journey, philosophy and food in today's society and moving on to pantry ideas, helpful Chef's tips sprinkled through out, and ending with a short but very complete resource list of where you can purchase items and ingredients to add to the flavor and fun (especially helpful if you don't live close to a health food store) this cookbook gives you so much more.Is this cookbook just for Vegan's... NO! Is this cookbook just for adults... NO! Is this cookbook for ANYONE trying to find good basic and healthy recipes that their friends, family and kids will love.. YES! If you are looking for a cookbook to become a staple in your kitchen, buy this book. If you are looking for healthy and tasty recipes, buy this book. If you are looking to change your thoughts around vegetables or just certain ones, buy this book.

If you glance at my list of my reviews, you'll quickly realize that I have a cookbook "problem." I own hundreds of cookbooks and love experimenting with new recipes and, in particular, healthy cuisine. I first learned about the author Melissa Costello from my friend Tony Horton, who also is the creator of the wildly popular P90X. Melissa is Tony's personal chef, and I tried some of the recipes she created for his newest program P90X2 and was really impressed, so when I heard she was going to come out with a cookbook, I pre-ordered it on Amazon so I could check it out. And wow - the cookbook TOTALLY blew away my expectations, which is hard to do when you're someone who thinks you've seen it all when it comes to vegetarian recipes. How truly exciting it is to have in a single book healthy recipes for all of my comfort-food favorites, rather than scattered throughout multiple cookbooks that I have to juggle when making my weekly meal plan. Have a hankering for a plant-based version of, say, shepherd's pie? It's in there. Spaghetti and "meat"balls? It's in there. Pad Thai? It's in there. "Tuna" (a.k.a. chickpea) salad? Yep, there. Mac and "cheese" - in there, too. It is as if Melissa asked me for a list of all of my favorite comfort meals, and then turned them into healthy vegan recipes and put them in one book. And they taste incredible and even pass the test of a skeptical omnivore - my boyfriend actually called me yesterday to tell me that he absolutely loved the lunch I made (and he has not yet crossed over 100% to the vegetarian way of life). So, if you are vegetarian or vegan, you will love this cookbook. If you are not, you will love this cookbook. Run, don't walk to order it. It now sits in my go-to cookbook shelf (when you have as many cookbooks as I do, you need one of these), next to my beloved cookbooks from Tess Challis, and will become an everyday staple in my cooking repetoire. 5 stars!

I bought The Karma Chow Ultimate Cookbook because I wanted to introduce more healthy cooking to my kitchen. I was a bit nervous because it is all vegan, and I am not vegan or vegetarian. At the beginning, I was a bit overwhelmed with all the ingredients that were new to me (my kitchen was not very healthy). I started with one recipe per week, just to try it out. It worked out perfectly because I slowly introduced myself to the new cooking methods and ingredients, and I did not spend too much money changing my kitchen into an organic and much healthier one. After having used the cookbook for a few months, I realized that I do not reach for meat as often as I used to. I have tried probably about half of all the recipes just because I found my favorites very quickly and just keep making those. A few of my favorites are Garnet Hummus, Sweet and Savory Kale "Chips", Kitchen Sink Veggies Soup, Kale Salad with Chipolte Dressing, Baked Ziti with Spinach, Cha-Cha Enchiladore, and Stuffed Peppers! OMG!These are just so good and pretty easy to make.I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for easy delicious healthy recipes!Oh, it was supposed to be a review for the paperback not the electronic one. My bad, but it is still the same! :-)

I love, love this cookbook.Everything is here is healthy and relatively easy to make. The ingredients can be a bit daunting to find and gather as they are not necessarily run of the mill things you would find in your fridge, but once you get these together making the recipes in this book is super easy (and I HATE to cook).Also, the author is very descriptive about the "whys" and there are a variety of great color photos to go along. I have made about 40% of the recipes and apart from a few, the recipes are tasty, tasty.

So far I have tried about six or more recipes from this book. Everything has been delicious and fairly simple to prepare. Most of the recipes have a picture of the finished product which is always nice to see. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to friends and family!

I would highly recommend this book for anyone wishing to switch over to a complete Vegan Plant based lifestyle. The recipes are laid out in such a way , that anyone can understand them. The recipes are amazingly tasty to the palette.

This book is full of delicious recipes. Even my "meat and potatoes" family liked what I cooked. I would recommend this book for anyone wanting to incorporate more plant-based recipes into their life. It is also beautifully illustrated.

This is a great cookbook. The recipes are mostly simple and the ingredients are fairly standard. The meals are delicious, clean and healthy.