It’s microbiome-friendly meals with a Southern spin in this follow-up cookbook to the life-enhancing My Kitchen Cure so you can heal your gut and fight inflammation while enjoying 100+ delicious whole foods recipes with a farm house spin.
In the follow-up to her successful My Kitchen Cure cookbook, real food cooking expert Mee McCormick brings a Southern twist to comfort food classics with more than 100 recipes that heal your gut, reduce inflammation, and reverse chronic autoimmune diseases. Best of all? Mee offers a completely customizable approach with inclusive options to mix and match every recipe for different dietary needs, whether you’re gluten-free, Paleo, keto, or vegan.
From quick and hearty breakfast bowls and immune-boosting smoothies to gut-friendly soups, salads, dinners and desserts, this four-color cookbook will become your go-to kitchen resource, freeing you from the boredom of bland-tasting health food and the nightly conundrum of: “What’s for dinner?” Just some of the recipes include: apple oatmeal breakfast cakes, breakfast tacos, farmhouse huevos rancheros, creamy cauliflower soup, carrot ginger turmeric soup, chicken piccata, farmhouse beef stroganoff, slow-cooker pork chops with baked apples, turkey burgers with blueberry ketchup, BBQ beef-stuffed sweet potato with crispy kale, candy roaster pumpkin pie, mixed berry cobbler, skillet apple pie, and chocolate coconut milk ice cream.
Mee first started cooking as a last resort when hereditary Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and Hashimoto's delivered debilitating daily pain that knocked her down. When it seemed like she only had two options—a slow and painful death or a sudden and quick death—Mee looked at her husband and two small children and decided to find a third option. She found it in a surprising place: her kitchen. Through relentless recipe testing, she put her condition into remission and completely restored her health with whole foods, most of which she grew and harvested from her family’s farm outside of Nashville, Tennessee.
Once Mee was well, she opened a farm-to-table restaurant on her working farm and cattle ranch, inspiring her rural community to participate in their own wellness by choosing to eat local and seasonally grown foods. Her southern community told her what they wanted and she found a way to give it to them with healthier ingredients that supported their wellness.
Pinewood Kitchen is unique in that every meal is created with the intention to serve everyone with the same deliciousness regardless of dietary restrictions. Mee creates the menu every week with something for everyone and always with the goal of supporting optimal health.
Whether you want to eat healthier or you have diabetes, lupus, celiac, Crohn’s, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, or another autoimmune issue, you’ll find a wealth of delicious, nutritious recipes perfect for every meal, from speedy weeknight dinners and relaxing weekend breakfasts to special occasions. You’ll also discover:
· The importance of intestinal health and how to improve your own gut microbiome
· Which foods are nutritional powerhouses and which you must avoid
· How to eat real food every day without breaking the bank
Mee is living proof that you can change your fate by what’s on your plate—her recipes will help you prepare delicious food that brings you and your family together around the table—and brings you optimal health at the same time.
My Pinewood Kitchen, A Southern Culinary Cure is an anti-inflammatory gluten-free diet guide with recipes developed by Mee McCormick. Released 14th April 2020 by HCI, it's 304 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.
This book is a wonderful resource, especially for family dinners where one (or more) members are trying to adhere to a special diet, in this case inflammatory conditions or IBS or similar digestive issues. The emphasis is gluten free and southern style with -normal- tasting family friendly meal options.
The book has a nice, easy to follow layout. The introductory chapter and how-to's cover the basic hows and whys of ingredient choices, as well as a really accessible and sensible explanation of the biology behind gut health and its relationship to allergies, depression, anxiety, what probiotics are, improving gut bacteria diversity and more. The following chapters cover the southern standards: salads, soups, main dishes, veggies to support gut health, dips & spreads, breakfast, gluten-free baking & desserts.
Each of the recipes includes an introductory description, ingredients listed in a bullet point sidebar (US measurements only), step by step instructions, along with some serving suggestions and alternative presentations. There is no nutritional information included. I would estimate roughly 20% of the recipes are accompanied by photographs. The photos provided are high quality and clear and serving suggestions are attractive and appropriate.
The recipe ingredients themselves are easily sourced and will be available at most well stocked grocery stores. There are a very few ingredients which might be a little more difficult to source or require an international foods grocery (dehydrated hijiki seaweed for example), but definitely nothing that is 'way out there'.
All in all, -very- well written, beautifully presented food, made from (mostly) unprocessed real ingredients which are easily sourced and taste good. Is it, strictly speaking, the fried okra, fried chicken, devilled eggs, sweet potato pie, pulled pork barbecue and other southern staples of my childhood? - well.. the bones are definitely there, and the taste, and the visual appeal, but these are much (much) better for readers than breaded deep fried funnel cakes or breaded deep fried chicken.
Five stars, I'll be revisiting this cookbook often.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
