The Colorful Family Table

I loved how this vegan cookbook was family friendly. Not many are. The recipes overall were pretty simple with common ingredients. The photos were bright and were included with each recipe. I also liked how it was sorted by season - it can be hard to come up with plant based ideas in the cold winter. I will be adding several recipes to my meal plans!

Sweet potatoes & brown rice pudding
Sweet potatoes & apple loaf
cauli-broc tots
Pumpkin Mac n Cheese
Baked onion rings
Sweet beet fries
cornbread muffins
Very colorful indeed!!!

The colorful kitchen

The Colorful Family Table is a great collection of plant based recipes by Ilene Godofsky Moreno. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Ilene's journey, from plant deprived childhood eating, to fully plant based eating for herself and her family. The book is filled with great recipes and Ilene has managed to personalise many of our favourite comfort foods. I like her original touches, frozen zucchini in smoothies, and carrot and turnip topping for shepherd's pie. Also great is that she has included a whole chapter to vegan/plant based staples.
Each recipe is followed by a full colour image of the dish. it is always nice to have colourful images to refer to, especially for newer cooks and for the children to see what mom will be making for them to eat.
Although my children left home many years ago, I found the recipes will suit anyone who wants to include more plant based foods in their diet. I gave the book 5 Stars.

Thank you NetGalley and BenBella books for giving me a digital copy to read in exchange for an honest review

I am particularly drawn to this book after my experiences raising poorly fed foster kids who grew up on a diet of beige food (chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, corn dogs) and balked at tasting anything healthy or colorful. Tomatoes, peas and lettuce were a big challenge to get them to even try! I’ve been consciously trying to add colorful foods to my dishes as often as possible. I’m so lucky my boyfriend loves vegetables and wants to eat beets, broccoli, veggies and fruits with me. (We both still struggle to eat and enjoy kale, I must confess).

There are no vegans in my house – my boyfriend will eat anything (except the aforementioned kale!) and I’m a lifelong vegetarian. However, it can’t hurt from a caloric perspective to reduce some of the dairy we use. I throw a lot of parties, and want to be a better hostess to my many vegan friends. And I figure if I like a recipe here, I can always sneak in some butter, sour cream or cheese for meals I’m making for my immediate household.

I love that the chapters are divided into seasons, starting with Fall. I try to live my life as seasonally as possible, living in the moment and not rushing into the next season. I’m celebrating Fall, autumn and Halloween right now, and not rushing towards Thanksgiving or Christmas.

The Fall chapter, as one would expect, includes lots of pumpkin-based comfort foods, squashes and foods made with apples. There are kid-friendly recipes like Cauli-Broc Tots, plus hearty meals such as chili, stew and soup. Dessert recipes include Sweet Potato Pie (which sounds delicious), almond apple cookies, and Butternut Squash “Pop-Tarts” which don’t seem very appealing to me personally.

Winter recipes start bringing in the ginger and cinnamon, with more vegan soup and stew recipes, vegan versions of burgers and “fried chicken,” and a few chocolate-based desserts.

Moving into Spring, the Colorful Family Table cookbook introduces Sweet Beet Fries, Sweet and Sour Beetballs, a veggie quiche recipe I want to try out as soon as tonight, and chickpea artichoke “crab” cakes I’m sure my boyfriend will balk at and insist on real crab instead.

Summer seems the easiest season to find and serve colorful foods. This chapter of the cookbook suggests gazpacho pops, a Summer Market polenta casserole, tempeh tacos with peach salsa, and cookies and “cheesecake” bites for vegan desserts.

A short page on Family Travel Trips seems out of place in a kitchen cookbook, but does provide useful info on what vegan snacks to carry for your family. There’s also a helpful page called The Family Lunchbox, one on Freezer Favorites and one on vegan Party Time. I find those inserted pages a little distracting but it only takes a second to flip the page and keep going.

The final chapter is super helpful: Kitchen Staples. Rather than a list of pantry ingredients you should keep on hand, it’s a quick list of easy to prepare vegan foods you can whip up in a flash: Lentils, brown rice, baked pumpkin, homemade almond milk, coconut whipped cream, and baked tofu.

Interspersed with the gorgeous food photography closeups (colorful and mostly flat-lay) of the dishes are photos of the author and her adorable children. Often the oldest kiddo is seen helping out in the kitchen. You really feel like you’re getting a true glimpse into her colorful kitchen (albeit probably unrealistically cleaned up quickly for the photo shoot!)

If you’re a vegan or vegetarian, you’ll likely really enjoy this book. I also would recommend it for omnivores and people trying to eat less meat and dairy for whatever reason. Due to the many carb-heavy dishes and pasta recipes, I don’t recommend this book for keto people or gluten-free folks (although the latter could sub-in gluten-free pastas).

Wow, I was so impressed with this cook book! I found it really easy to follow and loved the bright, vibrant food photographs. The ingredients used were readily available and easy to get hold of – which is often a problem with some recipe books I find, which include a variety of weird and wonderful ingredients.. I found the recipes were also really family friendly which was great to see. I found quite a few I know the boys will enjoy.

One of the other great features for me was the seasonal element. Due to the recipes relying on a lot of vegetables, the author talked about the importance of seasonal cooking which is something I try and follow. I definitely find when you cook with things that are in season, they often taste so much better!

My biggest takeaway from macrobiotics, Ayurveda, ancient Chinese medicine and other dietary approaches was that nature provides the food that our bodies need to thrive each season, and that’s awesome!

Ilene Godofsky Moreno
Whether you are a vegetarian or vegan, or you are just interested in some plant based recipes and increasing your repertoire, I would definitely recommend this one.

Very pleasantly surprised by this one. I am not vegan but I have friends that re so I am always on the hunt for great recipes to include for those on restrictive diets. I’m happy today I found tons of recipes that I can offer my family with no worries they will be disappointed. Very nicely done great book! I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review.

Since 2013, the veteran blogger has captured her food journey online. The Colorful Family Table is a print and digital copy 6 years in the making. Her photography skills and easy to follow recipes accompany family photos.

I love the photo to text ratio of this cookbook. However, it lacks step-by-step photos. The finsihed product images are mouth watering. Sometimes, it's hard to make vegetables look appetizing for children and teens. The Colorful Family Table helps parents create appetizing dishes.

Plus, the seasonal tips help readers meal plan without busting their grocery budget. The book has non-meat versions of popular dishes. This makes meal time more inclusive for lone vegetarian.

I enjoyed the seasonal aspect of this plant-based cookbook, and loved the fact that a professional photo accompanied every recipe (other than the staples at the end). The author is likeable and chatty, and she gives a little blurb about each recipe.

As a mother of young kids, Moreno focuses on healthy but approachable foods that kids are likely to enjoy. That said, these are definitely better suited to young kids who have grown up eating this way or who are too young to know better. That "grilled cheese" with tofu and colorful sweet potatoes is going to look fantastic to a young vegan child who's never known different but is going to total disappoint some kid who's grown up on grilled cheese and suddenly gets them switched with this. That said, most of the recipes are really attractive and many are likely to be enjoyed by kids of all ages. Most of the recipes are adult-friendly too, and they're relatively simple to make.

The recipes are not designed gluten free and no substitutions are provided, though many are naturally GF. Moreno uses spelt flour (which contains gluten) and occasionally oat flour (which is technically GF if you buy certified GF but still causes harm to a great number of folks with Celiac and gluten intolerance) or chickpea flour for most flours. No nutritional information is provided.

Heads up to pumpkin spice lovers and haters... the whole fall menu is pretty much pumpkin spice and sweet potato (which is pretty similar to pumpkin). I happen to like those but if you don't, you may hate fall with her cookbook. :)

While I cook by the seasons, I cook mostly around what we grow in our garden and forage, meaning that her seasonal foods are different than mine. She's heavy on store-bought (or farmer's market bought) seasonal foods like figs and some of her seasons are off from mine because she relies on stores (for instance, she has pears in her winter menu when pears ripen on our trees in early fall). As an example of eating with the seasons here, spring in our house means we eat tons of wild asparagus, greens (especially nettles, which are utterly delicious and crazy healthy), ramps, morels, etc. I would not expect a mainstream cookbook to feature wild foods, but it's less useful for those of us who work to produce much of our own foods.

All things considered, this is a great cookbook, though. I bookmarked a ton of recipes to try (I'll update this review as I do that) and I was pleased to note that a great many of them feature ingredients I already have in my cupboard. I love that she provides recipes for basic vegan staples at the end too, such as coconut whipped cream, bacon tempeh, pumpkin pie spice and cashew sour cream.

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

The author of this cookbook has a compelling story about how she came to veganism. She shares that she grew up in Florida in a home where meals generally came out of packets of some sort. She had little in the way of fresh ingredients come her way. Now, a mom of two, Moreno has embraced seasonal, plant based food, the subject of this beautifully photographed cookbook.

The book is organized by season with the author enjoying the colors and flavors of locally produced ingredients. Fall recipes include Crispy Pumpkin Spiced Chickpeas, Butternut Squash and Apple Soup, and a Sweet Miso Tahini Macro Bowl...and then, let's not forget the Pumpkin Stuffed Mac and Cheese. There are similarly appealing recipes for the other three seasons.

The directions are clear and precise. This book will especially be welcomed by vegans but everyone can find something healthy and appealing to eat within these pages.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title in exchange for an honest review.

This was a great cookbook. I'm new to trying a plant-based diet and a lot of cookbooks I've found so far all take over a dozen different ingredients, many of which I haven't even heard of. This book had simpler recipes in an attempt to be more family friendly but it also makes it easier for us newbies. The food seems more "normal" and sounds good. I've tried a couple recipes and look forward to trying a few more soon.

The Colorful Family Table is a cookbook and plant-based tutorial with family friendly (and colorful) recipes by Ilene Godofsky Moreno. Due out 3rd Dec 2019 from BenBella books, it's 256 pages and will be available in ebook and paperback formats.

These recipes are arranged around (mostly) locally available seasonal ingredients. As such, with variations in growing and crop maturation differences, some adjustments for locally available produce will probably need to be made.

The recipes are arranged by seasons. Fall is full of pumpkin, winter relies more on stored root vegetables with occasional splashes of color and flavor from fresh oranges and pears, spring is full of exuberant artichoke, beet, spring alliums (garlic and onions), artichokes, and rhubarb, and summer is full of an abundance of everything from blueberries to zucchini.

The author's writing style is chatty and informal and I really enjoyed all the beautiful recipe and lifestyle photographs (many of which were apparently taken by the author herself). Each recipe includes servings, special preparation notes, and prep times. Recipe ingredients are listed bullet point style along with optional ingredients. All measurements are given in American standard measures only. The directions are given step by step, numbered sequentially. The recipes do not include nutritional information.

The recipes' ingredients are easily sourced and the resultant dishes are family friendly and appealing to kids and adults.

Four stars.

This is a beautiful book! I am not vegetarian or vegan, but after going through this cookbook I’ve gotten many ideas on how to introduce more vegetables into my diet. Brussels sprout chips and apple almond cookies were a couple of my favorite recipes. I loved that the cookbook was laid out by season, and I liked the stories and blurb’s of the author’s life that were intertwined with the recipes.

Ilene Godofsky Moreno is also the author of The Colourful Kitchen as well as a health coach. I felt in good hands reviewing her book, as she lives the life of a vegan with her young family.

Her recipes are written for the novice and she gives simple shopping tips to make cooking the dishes easier. There is little sophisticated kitchen equipment to worry about. The pages are bursting with colour, making the dishes look appetising and fun, especially for children and fussy eaters. I also like, that along with the dish, she might suggest other vegan foods that accompany it.

My favourite recipes were things I would never have considered putting on the table, Brussel Sprout Chips, Pumpkin-Stuffed Pumpkin Mac n Cheese, Watermelon and Tofu Feta Salad and Apple Soup. For a vegan chef looking for original ideas, or anyone new to the vegan lifestyle, jump right in, she is full of culinary surprises. I loved her take on chickpeas, which boiled can be quite boring, but with pumpkin spiced chickpeas, my tongue was hanging out to try it.

The recipes are mostly for an American audience, and if you can source or replace ingredients like pumpkin dry spice, maple syrup, and cashew cheese, this book would work for you.

As a writer I did find the introduction about life before her move to plant-based living, along with shopping tips, rather long. It takes up 10% of the book. Personally, I wanted to get straight to the wonderful recipes.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through BenBella Books, via NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I really liked this cookbook! As a mom of a picky toddler, I am always looking for health and easy recipes to make for my daughter. This book was simple and creative and I can't wait to try some of these recipes myself! I also loved the look of the book with easy to follow directions and a picture of every dish.

I am impressed by the sheer variety of recipes this book boasts. I love the concept: seasonal, fresh, healthy ingredients to nourish the family. The pictures are beautiful and feel approachable at the same time. Some recipes seemed out the usual confort zone, but that's kind of the point, and there's enough variety that you will be able to find recipes that also fall within your usual parameters. A well designed and well-thought out book!

This is a beautiful cookbook with plant-based recipes that are all colours of the rainbow. We all need to eat all the colours on the rainbow as they are healthy for us and we can easily add dairy, fish or meat to these recipes to make the fussy eaters eat them.

The photos are gorgeous and I bookmarked so many recipes that I pre-ordered the book so that I can start eating healthily in advance of January 1st' annual "I am going to eat better and get in shape" resolutions.

Great book!!!!

I will also be sharing this review on the Facebook page I share with my sister as referenced below.

I really liked this cookbook. I liked it enough that I ordered her cookbook The Colorful Kitchen.

I tried a variety of her recipes and was pleased.

1. Ingredients: Many of her recipes have a lot of ingredients, but she almost never includes anything that would not be in a well stocked vegan pantry or fridge. Basic grains, beans, nuts, fruits, and veggies are included in the recipes. Most of the time, I have the ingredients.

2. Ease of preparation. Really easy. A few minutes of prep time, and I am ready to go.

3. Ability to downsize for smaller families: Very easy. I am a single senior, and found that I could easily cutback the recipes for a couple of meals.I

4. Family friendly: My grandchildren certainly enjoyed the recipes from this cookbook.

5. Clean up: A pot, pan, cutting board, and a couple of knives. I have made some recipes from other cookbooks, and it was like a tornado hit my kitchen. In this cookbook, the preparation of the recipes didn't make much of a mess. Which I greatly appreciated.

6. How fast could I make a meal: Rice in the the rice cooker, chop the veggies, open a can of beans, and I could start cooking. Most of the time, I was 20-30 minutes from start to finish.

This was very thoughtful cookbook. The author produced a cookbook that is simple, easy to use, and filled with recipes that families would actually cook for dinner.

I loved this & am definitely looking to buy a finished copy in the near future! I am
A vegetarian and also not the main cook in my house since I live with my parents, and my mom is always having a hard time coming up with things for me to eat, and I always have to search through online recipe websites! But I found many interesting dishes in this book that I am dying to try!

After reading this book, I actually tried one of the recipe, which is the cauliflower and potato soup. It was delish! :)
I love how easy the ingredients are, something that is accessible! I will be using more of her recipe for sure!

Happy pub day to this cookbook!

If anyone knows me, they know I hate vegetables. That being said - I know I need to start liking more vegetables. This book is the way to it!!

This book is organized by season and which recipes are great for that season. I love the classic recipes with a new take on them (like cauli-broc tater tots!)

I made the smoky Brussels chips (and I HATE Brussels sprouts) and they were delicious. The author claimed that she had her picky toddler chanting "more Brussels!" & so was I.

I also made the roasted garlic pesto and now I will be putting that on absolutely everything.

Overall, this book has simple to follow instructions, beautiful pictures, and is helping opening my palette (lol good luck). Can't wait to eat my way through this cookbook!

I love cookbooks and this one is really sensational, the photographs are very colorful and fantastic, every recipe is special, and I hope to make them all very soon, the explanation is really good and the ingredients is not difficult to find, because sometimes I happens that there are some books in which their ingredients, are not found in my locality.

In The Colorful Family Table, Ilene Godofsky Moreno continues to entrance and delight cooks and eaters with delicious, real-world dishes. By delicious, I mean enticing with intelligent blends of texture, spice, and visual interest -- good-for-you, nourishing food. By real-world, I mean recipes that the average home cook can purchase ingredients for and make without a culinary degree or extraordinary measures. What I appreciate even more than the recipes is the encouragement to try new, try different, and mix things up a bit. Throughout the book, Moreno is encouraging, motivating, and generous in sharing her experiences and perspective and her own family/home.

I really like how this book is arranged seasonally, making it easier to pick a recipe for when I'll be able to find nice fresh ingredients for it. The recipes we tried were yummy!

A gorgeous cookbook filled with beautiful illustrations of delicious healthy recipes and pictures of the author's family enjoying cooking and eating together.

Loved her Colorful Kitchen book, so I had to take a look at this one when it was offered. I have to say up front, I am not a vegetarian or vegan, I like meat. But I also love vegetables ! And this book is loaded with tasty recipes! I can't wait to see a hard copy of this book as I want to see the photos in color. I think many of these recipes will find their way onto my table! Cabbage Steak sounds unique and tasty (We love cabbage at my house), The Baked Pears sound perfect for late summer and early fall desserts. I liked that Ilene Moreno included freezing instructions for her recipes. I love cooking ahead for the winter! This book will make a fine addition to my recipe book collection.

I loved all the pictures. The recipes were varied and easy to follow.. I liked how the cookbook was set up. The font was large and easy to read.

Family table are usually surrounded by fun and laughter. This book has many colourful recipes for your family time........