«  
  »

Substituting Ingredients (book review + giveaway)

How was everybody’s Monday? Mine was actually quite good. I wonder if it had anything to do with me starting the day bright and early with a pilates reformer class? I hate getting up but I really love the fresh air early in the morning and the feeling of doing something good for my body before I even have a proper breakfast. Plus, knowing that I have an early class actually forces me to go to bed at a decent hour – something I often struggle with (just 5 more minutes of blogs!…).

So I’m sure you are dying to know about the giveaway I am referring to in the title of this post. Let me tell you all about it. :mrgreen: A few weeks ago I received a copy of Substituting Ingredients by Becky Sue Epstein.

I was really excited to get this book because I swear – I realize I’m out of something mid-cooking nearly every week!! Well I guess sometimes I realize I have something slightly different from what the recipe calls for and I’m not sure if I can just substitute it one-to-one.

This actually happened the day after I got the book. I realized the brownie recipe I was testing called for dutch processed cocoa… and that I only had the standard kind. Oops. :oops: I grabbed the book – it had subs for cocoa powder in it but only for the regular kind and said 1/2 cocoa powder for baking could be substituted with 1/2 semi-sweet chocolate chips. Good to know but not exactly what I needed. So I got dressed (I was still in my pajamas) and went to the grocery store to look for dutch processed cocoa… and they didn’t have any. I even tried 2 different stores. Nope. A little googling solved that problem and the brownies turned out great. :)

So this book did not save me the first time around but I did browse through it and see how it will surely be useful (despite noting a few other misses – for example a sub for white wine for cooking was not there). There are lots of standard ingredients substitutions for things like light corn syrup, honey (for baking), and fish sauce (<- these are things I’ve looked up in the past). There are also some interesting subs for random ingredients – for example Becky suggests subbing green peppers, green beans and eggplant for okra (although notes the texture will be different with eggplant). My favorite tips are the ones for measurement conversions of dry to cooked ingredients. How many times do you see recipes that say 2 cups of cooked rice or pasta? Unless I already have that on hand, the more likely case is that I have to make some. How much dry rice/beans/pasta should I cook? This book provides equations for all these and more. Very cool.

So here is another cool part. The company sent me 2 copies by mistake. I received this one a few weeks ago and then got another package (with the same book) a few days back. This means one of you lucky Healthy and Sane readers can receive a copy of this book too! :D

Here is how:

1) Leave a comment on this post – anything goes. :)

2) If you have a blog, let others know about the giveaway and link back to this post.  If you don’t have a blog, tell someone about this giveaway and let me know that you’ve done so (after they enter the giveaway by commenting). You can also tweet about this giveaway (my twitter name must be included to qualify – that’s @healthyandsane fyi ;) ) *Either one earns you a bonus point*

3) If you have a blog, add Healthy and Sane to your blogroll or follow me on Twitter (if I’m already on your blogroll, let me know – it counts!).  If you don’t, shoot me an email and give me some feedback on my blog. *This also earns you a bonus point*

*Please note this giveaway is open for US readers only.*

I will randomly choose and announce the winner on June 18th. Good luck! :D

Now let’s quickly cover today’s eats. SO good!

BALANCED BREAKFAST

Last banana zucchini spelt muffin (I had some frozen)

Fresh local strawberries

Oikos. It was extra good today for some reason.

BALANCED LUNCH

I’m still sore today so I decided to come home for lunch instead of going to Rope’n class. But not before I stopped by Whole Foods. I was dying for some sushi so I got some veggie maki since it’s Meatless Monday. :D

Brown rice carrot, avocado and cucumber maki

+ kale massaged with lemon and 1t basil EVOO + S&P - I was craving that too.

This was exactly what I wanted. I love when healthy meals really hit the spot like that. :grin:

Snacks at work included 1/2 apple pie larabar (mid-morning) and 1/2 giant banana with 1T Barney Butter (mid-afternoon). I was definitely hungry for dinner by the time I got home.

BALANCED DINNER

You may not recall when I raved about a tilapia dish with lemon caper sauce and roasted asparagus and grape tomatoes but this meal hasn’t left my mind ever since. Cara was responsible for this genius recipe (which can be found here) and suggested that I have to try it with haloumi as she originally posted it. So I finally did today.

Have you ever had haloumi cheese? It basically tastes like a slightly milder feta that you grill. Absolutely delicious. This dish was fantastic again. Can I put it on the favorite recipes list again? I think I can… and I am! ;)

TREAT

One joe-joe (aka a chocolate oreo cookie minus the junk ingredients)

It may have something to do with what just came out of my oven ;)

You’re going to have to wait for the next post for more details on that! Any guesses what it might be?

Related Posts with Thumbnails
June 15th, 2010 | Category: breakfast, favorite recipes, giveaways, Meatless Mondays, sushi, Uncategorized, vegetarian meal

77 comments to Substituting Ingredients (book review + giveaway)

Leave a Reply

  

  

  

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

«  
  »

Follow Me



Check out my other blog:

Categories