This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our library collection and will recommend it to students.

75 natural colourful and innovative plant based recipes. The pictures are so eye catchy and droolworthy........

If I had known that Unicorn Food was a "trend" I wouldn't have requested this book. Just another chintzy way to write a book about vegan eating. Disappointing.

This is an adorable book! The recipes aren't necessarily unique, but the arrangement and descriptions are very well done! A must for any unicorn fanatic to add to their magical kitchen!

Lovely colours throughout, but not really my type of food, unfortunately. Definitely a great book for the healthy target audience though.

A colorful cookbook that would be great for displays in library and be picked up by any patron looking for something new to cook.

If you are on the lookout for food to feed a magical being, then I’m afraid this is not the book for you. Unicorn Food refers to beautiful, delicious, nutritious, fun, food and drinks created with healthy, (naturally) vividly colored, ingredients.

The use of natural coloring within these recipes makes them very striking to look at, and perhaps more appetizing at the same time. Most of the recipes within the book are vegetarian, and as the author says “nearly vegan”.

After a brief introduction introducing Unicorn Food and how it came to be, is Chapter 1, Unicorn Pantry. Here you are introduced to the various staple ingredients you will need to stock your pantry. Unicorn Pantry helps to explain each of the raw ingredients you will need, their benefits, and ideas for usage.

The pantry list is then followed by ideas on how to “Unicorn” your food. These are simple tricks and tips about which foods to use to add the required color to your menu and even offers a recipe for making your own Natural Rainbow Sprinkles.

Recipes

The next chapters are devoted to recipes:

Unicorn Milks + Other Drinks
Brunch Every Day
Snacks + Sweets
Slathers, Spreads + Sidekicks

Each of the recipes includes a brief description, and yield. I felt it surprising to find that none of the recipes included any nutritional information given the nature of the food.

The recipe directions are clear and easy to follow, many of the ingredients, however, may be difficult to source if you don’t have access to a health food store or similar. If you don’t have a local source, you can find the ingredients online.

Notes throughout the recipes offer information on storage, ie: the longevity if stored, or tips about the recipe. Few of the recipes have a photo but those that do you are mainly full-page and beautifully presented.

An Excellent Variety And Visually Stunning

The recipes in this book are not simply a whole bunch of colorful salads. The inventive use of colorful fresh ingredients makes them as appetizing to the eyes as they will be to the tongue.

The uniqueness of the recipes in this book is terrific. Where else will you find Beet Hummus or Green Cookies that don’t have any mint in them?

I recommend this book highly to anyone who wants to add a little visual stimulation to their food. It is also excellent for anyone who wants to eat with fresher ingredients and a little more variety.

See the full review and the recipe for Creamy Batik Soup at The RecipesNow! Reviews And Recipes Magazine. This review is written in response to a complimentary hard copy of the book provided by the publisher in hopes of an honest review.

I recently had the pleasure to read an advance copy of Unicorn Food by Kat Odell for review via NetGalley. As I scrolled through the book, I found myself taking copious notes because much is notable about this remarkable cookbook. Let's start with the most obvious point: Unicorn Food is visually stunning. The photography and illustrations are gorgeous and playful and make me want to forget my chores and get cooking right away! Nearly every recipe comes with a photo, which I am sure many readers will find helpful. Other great features include a note at the end of every recipe about storing leftovers, as well as the inclusion of Make it Magical boxes with ideas on how to give a nutritional boost to the food. As someone who lives the vegan lifestyle in northern Indiana, I can attest to the fact that even seemingly exotic ingredients should be easily sourced in the US, no matter where you are; should you run into problems, Kat Odell does list sources throughout the text. One note for concerned cooks: the recipes in this book are not oil-free, but they are free from processed sweeteners.

The book is divided up into six sections, beginning with a pantry section. I find it refreshing that Odell refrains from using the label 'superfoods' for nutritionally dense or special ingredients, and she tells you why. Unfortunately, she does make claims about 'detoxing' (which your body does on its own, whether you eat healthfully or not) and waxes rhapsodic about the use of Himalayan rock salt which is not a renewable resource and lacks iodine, which is a real concern to people who do not consume a lot of seafood and/or sea vegetables. A very personal niggle that may not bother the average cook as much as it bothers me is the fact that the author, who is an omnivore despite eating primarily "vegan-ish" at home, finds it necessary to point out that she does not purchase food items marketed towards vegans because they tend to be over-processed, unlike ready-to-use food items marketed towards omnivores (that is sarcasm, in case the point is lost). That said, please note that honey and bee pollen make an appearance in the recipes, but could be omitted (bee pollen) or substituted with a vegan honey.

I love the fact that the first thing you get to make is rainbow sprinkles! I'd like to add two more remarks about this section: not every reader may be familiar with the term 'umami', and thus it would be helpful to explain it here. Also, as wonderful as turmeric is, it also tends to stain - a lot! Exercise caution when using it, even the powdered version.

Next, we get to Milks & Drinks. Specifically for this section, I would only like to remark that the ratio of 5:1 (water to nuts) seems rather high. Most publications use a 4:1 ratio for an all-purpose milk drink and even less water for a cream-type liquid. Since the nuts are soaked before blending and nut milk bags are used for filtering, I cannot quite understand why it should be a problem if the blended nut bits are the size of a "grain of sand", which is very small. At least I have not had problems making flavorful plant-based milks that way.

Brunch Every Day is subdivided into AM and PM recipes, which makes it easy to choose between more breakfast-type and lunch-type meals. Some of my personal favorites are the avocado-grapefruit 'hollandaise", a citrusy variation of the old breakfast favorite, beet pastrami, and pineapple kimchi summer sunrise rolls. Please note that some types of commercially available kimchi contains fish sauce; if you are trying to avoid animal products, please ask your grocer or read the ingredient list first.

Let's Get Wasted presents many ideas on how to minimize food waste in the kitchen, from those pesky kale stems to using leftover nut pulp.

Snacks and Sweets contains some great and unusual variations of dishes that seem to appear in every cookbook, like broccomole, which I personally find a brilliant way to combine some of my favorite veggies!

Finally, there is Slathers, Spreads and Sidekicks, which has, as one of only two cookbooks I have seen myself, a recipe for condensed coconut milk, alongside spice mixes and condiments.

Unicorn Food is chock-full of creative and interesting recipes, each with a reasonable ingredient list and easy-to-follow preparation. If you would like to add more color to your life, this is the book for you.

Unicorn Food by Kat Odell is a recipe book full of healthy vegan food. The title is quite fitting since all the recipes are plant based, and are bright and colourful. As magical as unicorns! The title and bright colours reminded me a lot of the Lisa Frank stickers of my childhood. I checked this book out since I've had to radically adjust my diet thanks to a liver condition. While I don't have to be strictly vegan/vegetarian, the bulk of my foods are supposed to be. Why not find a way to make it fun? I'm not likely to try all of the recipes, but I did find several to add to my repertoire. And my cubs & niece loved the bright colours, and the idea of making 'unicorn food’. Certainly makes healthy foods more attractive for them!

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Workman Publishing for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

What a beautiful book! Although some of the food did not appeal to me as much as I thought it would, there is a wide variety of recipes--all of which are visually stunning.

While there were some recipes in this cookbook that didn't honestly appeal to me much, I kind of love this cookbook nonetheless. It is so vibrant and fun, and uses healthy, real food to make colorful, magical looking dishes.

As an example, Calico Beet Waffles with Coconut Whip and Tutti Frutti Dust contain brown rice flour, chia seed "eggs," hazelnut milk (recipe in the book, or use non-dairy milk of your choice), beet puree, coconut oil, coconut sugar, vanilla, baking powder, pink Himalayan salt, whipped coconut cream and "tutti frutti dust" (pounded freeze dried strawberries and bananas) for garnish. Not only do these contain many ingredients known for their health benefits like chia seeds and beets, but they use healthier oils and sugars and are a fun hot pink color without artificial colors.

Or the Pineapple Kimchi Summer Sunset Rolls, which are filled with healthy and tasty ingredients like mushrooms, daikon, pea shoots, cilantro and carrots with a kimchi made of ingredients like pineapple, ginger, garlic and rice wine vinegar (plus more) and then the spring roll wrappers are dipped in water and one end is painted with beet juice that bleeds into the other end, creating a sort of vibrant pink sunset effect.

The beverages, entrees, snacks and desserts in this book are incredibly colorful. There are non-dairy milks of every color of the rainbow and happy pops of color like garbanzo beans that are pickled in a solution with beet juice so they're hot pink polka dots in your salad. I love that the recipes are not just super healthy, but fun.

Here's a list of the beverages, which are insanely pretty and healthy, to boot. They include just about any color you can imagine.

Vanilla Bean Almond Milk (white)
Black Sesame Horchata (gray)
Cardamom-Rose Milk (pink)
Hazelnut Milk (not shown)
Goji Coconut Cashew Milk (peach)
Malted Majik Milk (blue)
Pineapple, Ginger and Basil Matcha Juice (green)
Cold Brewed Hibiscus Cinnamon Iced Tea (pink-red)
This Is Not Blue Gatorade (dark red)
Frozen Turmeric Lassi (golden yellow)
The Hot Green Smoothie (green)
Babi's Cold Kicker (not shown)
Toasted Coconut Cold Brew (not shown)

The recipes here are all gluten free, though some use oats (even GF oats are not safe for many people with Celiac Disease or gluten sensitivity, including my son). They are colorful, packed with nutrients and downright whimsical. They are also nearly vegan. The author uses honey and bee pollen often, though you could easily swap those out with other ingredients. Many of the recipes would also work well for a paleo diet.

The start of the book lists a crazy long list of colorful, healthy ingredients to add pops of color to your dishes and gives a lot of information about each. It also has a great section on "how to unicorn your food" in every color of the rainbow.

I also love the "Let's Get Wasted" section that gives recipes to use parts of foods that would otherwise be tossed, like the Salt and Pepper Almond Pulp Cracker Bread to use the almond pulp left over from making almond milk.

There are lots of color photos of the recipes. I'd estimate that there are photos for more than half of them, but not all. There are also colorful illustrations and tons of color on the pages.

In addition, there are some creative vegan alt recipes like beet pastrami, carrot lox and condensed coconut milk.

I have not had a chance to make any of the recipes yet, and will update my review once I have. They appear to be well written and look as if they'll work fairly well, though.

I received a temporary digital ARC of the book for the purpose of review.

The format and styling of this book was so much fun and the recipes were clear and concise. I am going to enjoy making more of these items.

If I am being honest, I requested to review this book because of the title. "Unicorn Foods"? Uhm, yes. Please. If am going to still be honest, I was expecting something along the lines of "cotton candy everywhere!" but I think what the recopies actually draws from is even better. I appreciate the whole host of colorful and nutrient filled foods that Odell brings to the table with each page. I also appreciated the slight narratives that she included with each addition, sharing the heart behind the creation of each food and talking story with us about where she was when each food jumped on her radar of things to try.

I was surprised by how many ingredients that I had not heard of, but I'm excited to try to find them and recreate some of the options!

The title is way misleading, there is nothing “unicorn” — rare or even vaguely cool — about this work. The recipes are mostly gross, all unappetizing, and all extremely limiting in variety of ingredients used. Not recommended unless this food niche is your cup of tea.

So I was pulled to this book because it is called Unicorn Food. Anything with unicorns and food has to be good right? If I was into this type of foods like chia seeds, beets, turumic, algae and other supervisors this book would be my bible. Not my thing but interesting read non the less. The pictures were cool too.

I honestly don’t know what star rating to give this book. I’ve settled on 3.

As a digital advance copy, you never know how it compares to the final unless you decide to order it. There were parts of this book that were rough to impossible for me to even read (the Breakfast Tabbouleh bowl was neon green with white and yellow text. I got a headache just glancing at it. Perhaps judging a book on layout is unfair, but c’mon if I struggle to read it, the content doesn’t matter. Luckily, most pages weren’t so offensive to my eyeballs, but I still find that important to know.

Where there is a good use of color is in the food. The book tells you how to best color your food using natural options that you won’t be afraid to eat. Then it goes into such unique recipes as Beet Pastrami, Broccomole, and Probiotic coconut matcha morning custard.

The book is “almost vegan” with all of the recipes being plant based (I did tell you the “Pastrami” is beets) though a few do include bee pollen or honey. I suspect most vegans already have preferred alternatives.

Will non-vegans like this book? I’d assume so. The tips for coloring food can be used by anyone. Most of the foods will appeal to even meat eaters. The directions are clear and as a non-cook, most of them don’t make me anxious that I’ll screw them up. To me that is the most important thing in a cookbook as I have seen some (especially in the plant based world) that think you want to make a 50 ingredient recipe with 5o0 steps. Nope. Don’t want that, thanks.

So for content, creativity, and accessability? I’d give this book probably a 4
But for some reason they thought that a book about pretty colorfiul food was a good time to break out less that ideal color combinations on pages you need to read. The lack of thought when it comes to readability makes the layout a 2 for me. All boils down to what is more important to you — the content or the readability. I’d recommend the content.

Very fun and cute recipes, but they tasted good too! Most of the recipes in this book we're easy to make as well. I'm not a bad cook, but I'm no professional so I like recipes that are easy to follow.

Such a cute book!
I loved the beauty of the recipes and the great ideas for pretty, colourful, healthy food.
I love that they are vegan and use natural, food-based colours.

I received a digital copy of this book free from #NetGalley for an honest review.

I was SOO excited to receive this book. However, it did not live up to my expectations unfortunately.

The graphics on this book are so cute! I really think that the layout is really well done and beautiful. The recipes may well be great too, but they do not really look appetizing to me. Recipes like Kelp Noodle Japchae just don't do it for me. The hard to find ingredients and long and complicated recipes are a turn off when you have a family to cook for.

Another big con for me was that there are NO nutritional facts.

However, the pictures and backgrounds were just so beautiful and appealing that I feel like I have to reiterate that. If you have time to really jump into some more time consuming recipes and make some beautiful dishes with exotic and unexpected ingredients, you will love this! Just don't expect a quick go to for a busy Momma.

I misinterpreted the cover to mean this book is about a magical presentation of food similar to the other unicorn food book I read. While there are vibrant colors in many of the recipes they aren't delightful enough to match my purposes (to use my daughter's love of princessy stuff to get her to eat reasonably well). To that effect, even if it was more delightful most of the recipes involved sugar (since many recipes are based on colored unicorn non-milks and hence their name) and aren't anything I would eat outside of a desert.

All that being said this is a good cookbook for preparing drinks, bowls and other things that might be made from nut milks. It is a little short on pictures, but the ones that are included are artistic and the instructions seem relatively easy to follow.