Eat Well, Feel Well: More Than 150 Delicious Specific Carbohydrate Diet-Compliant Recipes [Paperback]

While I'm happy to have another SCD cookbook to follow, I was unable to give this one 5 stars for two reasons. First, the SCD can be an expensive diet to follow, and some of the recipes in this book make it even more expensive. It includes ingredients that are not available or are costly in your average grocery store, such as truffle oil, macadamia nuts, and Hachiya persimmons. Several different varieties of fresh herbs are required for some recipes. I found that going to get the ingredients for just one recipe put a dent in my grocery budget. This all leads up to the second reason for the 4 stars - it is a bit gourmet/fancier than your average cookbook. So while I don't think this is the best book for the average American family, I do think it is worth having if you are on the SCD. It does contain many simpler recipes as well that I've made successfully and were delicious. I would probably be more comfortable serving recipes from this book on special occasions as compared to other SCD compliant recipes.

Another comment I feel obliged to make is that I am both the patient requiring SCD and the cook in the house, so for me simpler is always better. The ingredients to some recipes require completing a previous recipe, and that can be overwhelming for me at times. If I were healthy and preparing these recipes for someone else, I would probably be less critical. If you enjoy cooking and have the time and energy to do it, this book may well become your all-time favorite. So far, Grain-Free Gourmet still tops my list, but I highly recommend recommend anyone on the SCD add this to their library. You can never have too many cookbooks when your choice of foods is limited.

This was my 5th SCD cookbook purchase, one I was most excited about at the time, and now my least favorite. The first disappointment was the heavy reliance on garlic as a seasoning, which my body cannot tolerate, and frankly is boring. There's more to flavor than garlic. For example, the Hot and Sour Soup, which she claims her kids love, contains 2 Tbsp minced garlic plus 4 jalepeno chilis. Yowser! The second disappointment was thinking that I should keep it anyway just to learn some different techniques (like the cashew butter tortillas), but Oops - needs special equipment. A third is the large number of recipes relying on legumes, none of which my bowels can tolerate. A fourth is the intimidation factor of some of the recipes and I'm not a shy cook. I've had this book since not long after it came out and I use all my other SCD cookbooks instead. Sigh... I'm still holding out though. As I go through it, the recipes and pictures are still inspiring. There are better books to start with, but this one is still worthy in a limited sense, especially for those with less sensitive guts than mine.

I've only tried fifteen or so recipes in this book (and there are a lot)but what I've made has turned out so well, I'd definitely recommend this cookbook. I know where she's coming from as a mother who's had to keep her daughter inspired on the SCD. My younger daughter (who had Crohn's)liked fairly plain food but my elder daughter is very much a foodie and I feel I have to keep pulling gastronomic rabbits out of hats.This recipe book is top in terms of flavours and textures, which are fantastic. She also has a lot of condiments such as a wonderful mango chutney and a whole section on mock starches. She puts honey and vanilla with the SCD French cream for desserts. I know it's a simple idea but it didn't occur to me to do that until I got her book (Another SCD recipe book I have says, "Serve with a dollop of (SCD) French cream." No way -- it's much too sour on its own.)

The book is worth the price just for the tortillas. If, like me, you find the biggest challenge of SCD what to do about bread, it's a lot easier if you can master these. My elder daughter doesn't particularly like the pumpernickel bread my younger daughter liked -- she says it's more like cake (Sandra Ramacher's book)-- so lunch boxes are difficult. I totally failed with the soft white bread recipes from this book and also Sandra Ramacher's. This recipe I can do and use the tortillas to make wraps instead of sandwiches. My daughter said the wraps I made with these was the best SCD lunch ever.

I know that there was a problem re. the clarity of the instructions -- What's cashew BUTTER for instance? I was grateful to the person on this site who explained that you just grind up plain old RAW cashews. Also, what's a tortilla IRON? I live in Australia -- no one knew what a tortilla iron was but I managed to get hold of a tortilla press. I put all the ingredients into the blender and ended up with a cross between dough and batter. I put plastic wrap around the plates of the press then a sheet of non stick baking paper on the bottom plate (of the press), a large blob of dough in the centre of the plate then another sheet of baking paper on top, pressed it and ended up with a baking paper sandwich with flat round dough as the filling (If you can't get a tortilla press and you're handy with the rolling pin, you might be able to get the same effect). I trimmed the baking paper so it fitted into a frying pan with no paper sticking up. I then fried the whole thing, turning it over when brown. When it was cooked, the baking paper came away easily. The result looked very much like the real thing. They tasted not far off it too -- nice but unobtrusive. They're much nicer than the wraps in Raman Prasad's book which were pleasant enough, but what we ended up with there was a thick nutty pancake with the meat piled on top. Kendall Condrad's recipe is far better in terms of flavour, texture and mechanics -- they're less flexible than wheat ones but you can actually roll them,just don't overfill. Finish them off in a bit more oil in the pan and serve them in a piece of baking paper folded over (like putting a hot dog in a knapkin) and it will also reduce the risk of crumbling. They also store well in the fridge and can be revived by frying in a little oil. My only criticism is that it makes the meal quite expensive because you need to use a lot of cashews but the recipe scales down well -- it's easy to make just two at a time (90g cashews makes two decent wraps). If you do what she suggests and bake them in the oven or dehydrate to make chips, they'd probably make a good accompaniment to chilli con carne (maybe also nachos?) and good to use as crackers for dips (Actually, I tried dehydrating them recently. They crisped up nicely but seemed a lot sweeter -- better suited for a dessert biscuit IMHO.) If you're non-dairy, the amount of butter isn't a lot and you might be able to substitute with an oil. Also, if you like curries, the SCD is much easier because very few curries need to be adapted or just need a minor substitution (ie. SCD yogurt). I serve curries with one of these tortillas, which can pass as Indian-type bread and fragrant cauliflower 'rice'(Sandra Ramacher's book). Consider using these wraps for breakfast -- maybe a bacon and egg wrap with SCD tomato sauce might impress your child. For lunch, my daughter has these with strips of steak fried with ginger,then lettuce and cheese and I make a salsa with tomato, red onion, de-seeded chilli, lime juice, coriander (cilantro) or mint.

As for the hot and sour soup...it's the best soup I've ever had (I reduced the garlic and ginger). My children have this every day when they come back from school now and it's a good way to get real chicken stock into them. When I first attempted it, I didn't like the idea of putting the raw eggs in but I thought no, I'll trust her on this and the really clever thing is that the egg cooks in strands so it gives the taste, texture and look of noodles --it's plenty filling enough for a lunch. If you can get to an Asian market, the ingredients can be quite cheap, ie. I use a fatty pork.

The orange and almond flour cookies are easy to make and taste like something from a top patisserie. The trick is not to overcook them. The lamb keftas are also a 'throw everything in the blender' recipe. My daughter has them in her lunch box at least twice a week. They're delicious and everyone likes them. I don't do what she recommends with putting them on a stick -- I just make them into patties and fry on low heat. The moroccan chicken stew is also delicious and filling. The list of ingredients is long but most of them you just throw in the pot after the frying. If you're cooking for yourself, you could make a big batch and freeze the rest in portions.My daughter was blown away by the persimmon cream cups -- it's a lovely idea to serve them like that and they're actually really easy: scoop out flesh, mix in stuff, put back in, My husband thought it was worthy of a masterchef recipe but I thought the flavour was just a little too mild and it might be worth adding something like peach flesh. Seasons are different, though, so you'd have to plan ahead.

I think this cookbook, along with Sandra Ramacher's, is most deserving of the gourmet title; however, just because the cookbook is gourmet, doesn't mean that every recipe is fiddly or expensive to make -- there are plenty of that are deceptively simple and this book would be a very useful addition to anyone's library.