Review: Salad Love by David Bez

Salad Love: 260 Crunchy, Savoury and Filling Meals You Can Make Every Day by David Bez

Publishing Date: February 24, 2015
Publisher: Appetite by Random House
Pages: 304 pages
Healthy Cooking

The Premise: David Bez is a fellow blogger and he began his project/blog SaladPride where he made himself a personal challenge to create a new salad everyday. From SaladPride, comes Salad Love. Salad Love is not a traditional cookbook and Bez states right in the beginning that he is not a chef, but rather a designer and a food lover. He wanted to create meals that were easy to make at his desk and he happened to take photos of them before digging in. He also makes it clear in the beginning that the "pre-made" salads were just not "healthy" and from there he began reading up a lot on healthy and organic eating. Ultimately Bez started this project to find ways to make salads that were not only healthy, but also filling that gave him energy afterwards. And so, Salad Love is a total of 260 recipes of the salads he has tried and tested.

My overall thoughts and review: I don't cook often but I am starting to cook more lately and I'm finding that my biggest difficulty is finding an easy and accessible cookbook or guide. Something that is not to difficult to understand, ingredients that are easy enough to find in my local grocery store, and ultimately, something that after I've been in the kitchen for a few hours, I can finish and say I'm proud of. That is what Salad Love has brought me. To begin with, Bez begins the book "HOW" to assemble a salad. I know that this may seem easy enough: "toss it all together," but there is an actual process to it all and personally, I think not only does it look better, but the way it is made makes the process of making it so much easier. Bez also includes some pages about making homemade vinaigrettes which is awesome! It is so much healthier that way and much easier than dragging a bottle of salad dressing to work/school. Then Bez gets into "tools" - I am planning on moving next year, so now is a great time to stock up on various tools you would need, but I was really surprised to see that these tools were small and easy to store at work at your desk.

Now onto the actual recipes. The book is divided into four sections: Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring. With each recipe Bez simply states what ingredients are required and how to make the dressing, and he kind of puts the assembling in the reader's hands (but if you read his earlier chapters about how, it makes this easier). I really loved how for each recipe Bez included "alternatives tips" such as, if the recipe was not vegetarian, he included a vegetarian option for the recipe or a vegan alternative. That is incredibly helpful and makes this book even more accessible to a wider range of individuals.

I have only tried a few, but I really want to challenge myself to make at least a salad from the book 1-2 times a week to start off. I usually a really boring person with salad and I just need a bit of arugula and hemp seeds to make me happy. I like that this book is pushing me to simply look in my fridge and pantry for extra ingredients and make a salad the singular meal, as opposed to a side dish.

So what are some of my favorite recipes thus far?

• Mozzarella, Cherry Tomatoes & Spinach (34)
• Prosciutto, Parmesan & Cherry Tomatoes (39)
• Blackberries, Cottage Cheese, Spinach & Croutons (123)

Overall, this is a lovely book for those who already love salads and those who are planning to "spice" up their salads. I really enjoyed it and I definitely think it is a staple in kitchens! 

My rating of the book: ✮✮✮✮✮ (5/5 stars) 

Now available for purchase at:

Chapters/Indigo

You can follow David's blog SaladPride here and on twitter here!

Disclaimer: This book was sent to me by Random House Canada for consideration/review. All opinions are my own.