I was amazed at the variety of vegan dishes! There were recipes for vegan tostadas with tofu sausage and vegetables, a hash made with root vegetables and tempeh, and hearty pancakes made with buckwheat flour and blueberries.
There are 18 salad recipes that rely heavily on protein, complex carbs, and healthful fat. They not only use vegetables, but also healthy fruits, legumes and nuts. You will find quite a few salads to put in your recipe file!
The soups range from lemony lentil to chili made with squash!
There are a lot of recipes for serving-sized bowls of food, such as tempeh, root vegetables and greens with a homemade dressing, to sushi bowls brown rice, tofu and siracha mayonnaise.
There are entrees such as golden beet risotto, roasted zucchini tacos, and pasta and broccoli rabe with creamy roasted red pepper sauce.
There are exact directions, beautiful photos of the meals and enough variety for any palate! Enjoy!

This book is a helpful cookbook for anyone interested in learning how to balance macronutrients in their vegan meals. Things I liked: the author doesn't shy away from flavor and uses a variety of herbs and spices to enhance each dish, each recipe had a picture of the finished dish, the meal planning ideas at the end of the book, and I love that dishes revolve around micronutrient-rich vegetables. The recipes I'm adding to my repertoire include the Cauliflower Scramble, Chai-spiced Millet Porridge, Guacamole Quinoa Salad, Butternut Squash Salad, Smoky Red Lentil Stew, Macro Bowls, and Herbed Cauliflower Steaks.
Things I didn't like: This is not an allergy-friendly cookbook and no suggestions for substitutions were given, the liberal use of soy products, and the limited healthy fats in many dishes which would have further balanced the macronutrient ratio.

I recommend this book to anyone new to the vegetarian lifestyle because understanding how to balance macronutrients can initially be challenging.

I received an e-copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Another cookbook with beautiful pictures of food. There is not much in the way of story if you are someone that like to "read" cookbooks; however, everything looks fantastic and healthy with some intriguing new twists on favorites like "Kimchi fried rice". Basically, if you love a healthy bowl of veggies, grains, and vegan proteins, you will love this cookbook. If you are married to a meat and potatoes man like I am, he will turn up his nose at the list of ingredients or consider everything a side dish.

This book it filled with delicious, different recipes. I love the colorful photos and they will make you crave what you could be cooking. Healthy but not too obscure, this could be a great cookbook if you have kids and are looking to change your menu.

The depth of recipes with accompanying photographs is wonderful, however, many of them have overly complicated ingredient lists which may deter the average cook looking for vegan recipes.

Given the latest trend in healthy eating, I can say as a vegetarian I've always eaten plant based meals but they have never been mindful of the nutritional value nor very innovative. Getting bored of my meals and turning to spending hundreds of dollars per month for lunch variety, I finally decided to try some of the recipes in this book. They were fairly easy to follow and I would strongly recommend reading the first chapter of prepping different ingredients and the detailed recipes. I would have liked it if the author added the calorie count for the recipes just to get an idea especially when you're cooking some of the ingredients in sauces.

Power Plates
by Gena Hamshaw

Perhaps this is not completely fair. I read this book in the hope it would inspire me to try this much healthier style of eating. I did not come away eager to try most of these recipes. There were a few, however, that were interesting and did peak my interest.
I think that for vegan folks or vegetarian folks this is an excellent book of relatively simple recipes. If you enjoy these ingredients, you will enjoy this book. The author clearly has a handle on creating healthy recipes that will appeal to healthy eaters.
Omnivore cooks who are ready to stretch their culinary muscles and travel into the vegan arena may just find some excellent ideas in Power Plates.
This review will be added to online sites Jan. 2018.

I’ve only started looking for the perfect (for me) cookbook. As someone who only just gave up meat, but who is also not much of a cook, I am finding this quite the challenge. The biggest problem I am encountering is that the "so simple anyone can make it" types of recipes are dumbed down to the point of being nearly insulting while the recipes that you really want to try are too complicated for someone like me. There’s little for those of us in between those two levels of skill. This book is a prime example of that problem.

One of the sweet potato recipes is basically bake the sweet potato. Seriously, why didn’t I think of that?

 On the other hand the more complicated recipes go straight into pages and pages of ingredients, multi-layered cooking processes, etc. 


As I said, it seems like those of us in the middle get left out. If you like to cook and prefer more advanced meals? Great book full of yummy recipes. Not really a cook? Find someone to make them for you. Don’t get me wrong, they’re fine recipes. They’re just a bit more time and labor intensive than I was looking for.

The meals in here look so healthy, but I am not sure how many of them I would be able to eat on a regular basis. There need to be meals for people that have very little time to shop and cook.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in return for my honest review.

Nutritionist Gena Hamshaw has crafted a delightful cookbook full of one-dish Vegan options that are usual and satisfying. This is not a diet book and it is not a full of boring basic vegan recipes. I am not a vegan but I do try to do meatless meals weekly and this has been a very helpful cookbook. Recipes are broken out into six categories: Breakfast, Salads, Soups, Bowls, Skillets and Stovetop, and Bakes offering a nice range of options. The meals incorporate a balance between protein, fat and carbohydrates. The recipes are easy to follow and incorporate both metric and imperial measurements. This book is a great addition for the full vegan or the curious omnivore.

Beautiful cookbook with inspirations for all cooking levels and Vegan food eaters.

No matter if you are full on Vegan or if you eat what ever mood you are in this book will give you recipes ideas.

What i personally love about it -beside the MAGNIFICENTLY EXQUISITE pictures- are how you can decide what kind of cooking you want to do.
Are you are preparer? Like to cook a few things ahead of time, prepare them, freeze them and have them ready to heat up? Fantastic. You will find an entire book full of recipes with helpful tips and tricks and ideas how to do exactly that.
If you are a make and eat cook? Wonderful. This book will work perfectly for you as well!

In this book you have really all the choices without loosing anything!

On top of that there is a great mixture of different types of recipes, from "easy and fast" over "ready in minutes" to the "takes a while but so worth it" types of recipes. So what ever mood you are in? You will find that what you are looking for here!

I also love how the book is made up, how the sections are.
It has basically both kind of options of having the sections of soups and salads... but there is also the sections of "out of the oven" or "stovetop" which i LOVE if cookbooks do that.

I am one of those people that sometimes has no idea what to cook BUT i know i want to do it in the oven (or not the stove) and so having those sections in a cookbook? Thats wonderful. And sadly done rarely and i think its done BEAUTIFULLY in this book.

All in all?

HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Its not only a beautifully designed and artfully done book but it also has wonderful recipes and a great mixture of everything that makes me want to become a full time vegan simply to have the reason to cook EVERYTHING in this book!

Power plates brings nutrient dense grains and fresh produce to the forefront of dishes that provide abundant flavor, textures, appeal and will leave you feeling satiated and bursting with health!

I usually appreciate the Food 52 cookbooks mission, website, podcasts and store, and most especially the visual delights found therein. This iteration was the one exception, because it feels like it has nothing unique or classic to offer. I think Food 52 is much in need of a rebranding or
a new way forward as the passion for the concept seems to have devolved....too many cookbooks produced to fast and it shows this time at
least.

What a beautiful book! The recipes are simple enough to make and yet exciting enough to entice. I will definitely refer to this book over and over again