Dreena's Kind Kitchen

I am not a vegan as of yet, but due to multiple food intolerances vegan cookbooks actually fit my lifestyle better. I own several of Dreena’s previous cookbooks, and Plant-Powered Families is actually one of my all-time favorite cookbooks. Something this author does very well is recipes that are accessible for a wide range of people and tastes. She also always has very good hints and tricks to help you in the kitchen, and this cookbook is no exception. It’s filled with very tasty sounding recipes that do not rely on weird frankenfoods, and many of the recipes are gluten-free or easily made that way with substitutes. There are also plenty of photographs which I find very helpful in a cookbook. I’ve actually had this cookbook on my wish list for several months, so I am very thankful to have gotten this ARC. A few of the recipes I plan on trying ASAP are the Crackle Blender Brownies, Lemon Herb Chickpeas, and Gingerbread Granola. Highly highly recommend this cookbook!

Thank you to NetGalley & BenBella Books for this advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I did not read Dreena's Kind Kitchen through an educator lens.

Dreena's Kind Kitchen was well organized, easy to follow, and had beautiful photography. I was really excited to see the array of salad dressings that are different than most cookbooks and still healthy. Most of the recipes looked delicious and the ingredients were easy to access in small communities. The recipes had easy to follow directions and I appreciated the amount of photography within the book. I will definitely be making some of these recipes and sharing this title with others.

I felt like most of these recipes looked pretty good and the pictures throughout are stunning! The book is organized nicely, though it contains no nutritional facts. Some recipes contained more sugar than I would have liked and gluten and grains are used a lot, which I cannot eat, so I feel like many of the recipes do not work for me, but would work for most of the population. In general, the recipes included are healthier options than their traditional counterparts.

Very well done and well laid out book. The recipes were simple to follow without a bunch of off the wall stuff being used. There was a good sampling of different recipes also.

Dreena’s Kind kitchen was a good inspiration for vegan cooking.

My favorite thing about the book: The substitutions and explanations. While many recipes contained ingredients I couldn’t find in my small Spanish town (see below) most recipes included helpful substitutions, explanations on why ingredients were important, and additional tips and tricks. This makes is a much more user friendly read for the average cook working with what they have. I wish EVERY cookbook did this.

Our favorite recipes: The Novio loved the A-Game chili. I loved that it got my meat forward partner to eat a veggie packed meal and ask for seconds and thirds. My favorite recipe was what-amole, which taught me some wonderful tips and tricks to make guac a meal and stretch those expensive avocados to feed a crowd. Baby Duck (3yrs old) loved that this cookbook had me cooking a lot of roasted sweet potatoes which they could eat like candy.

What I didn’t love: A lot of these recipes called for ingredients that simply aren’t available in my area. I live in a small ish Spanish town and, while we have several specialty food stores, there were still ingredients I wasn’t able to get my hands on. Could I have ordered them online? Yes. Do I usually plan that far ahead? No. I also found, for my personal taste, that many of the recipes needed about twice the spice, salt, and fat content that they called for. While its easy to double the amount of seasoning, following the recipe often left me feeling a bit ‘this is tasty but needs a little more…’

Who I would recommend this book for: Honestly? The Spanish would probably love a vegan cookbook like this. The Novio and my friends and relatives here often favor blander food. It was a good way to get him to eat more veg. It would also be great for someone in a slightly more cosmopolitan area who would be able to get their hands on ingredients that I simply couldn’t find, like molasses, cashew butter, or date syrup.

I've been excited for Dreena's new cookbook ever since I heard of it's existence! I love her original cookbook, and Dreena's Kind Kitchen is going to be just as beloved I think. There are so many easy, accessible, tasty and nutritious recipes in it's pages that vegans and meat-eaters alike will love. I started to bookmark things that looked good but then realized I was basically bookmarking the whole thing. I'm especially excited to try her new take on the Sweet Potato cake! Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this!

I am young mother of small children, and I am constantly running out of ideas of healthy meals for my family. This cook book made me feel more equipped to achieve wellness for my family! I would recommend this to any of my friends looking for fun vegan food to feed the family.

Another one of Dreena’s cookbooks with so many good plant-based whole-food recipes. I really liked all the pictures of the recipes. I love Dreena’s blog, she has so many good recipes on her blog too.

I loved this one, it was full of pictures and the instructions super easy to follow up.

I liked that there’s was something for everything from breakfast to dessert, and she won me over with the baklava recipe I love greek food and specially sweets.

I will be trying so much on this books really, I do lots of preps for the week so it will help to have variety on that.

This is a wonderful addition to any whole food, plant-based kitchen for beginners or those who have been eating this way for years.

In this journey to kind eating - kind to animals, the planet and your own personal health - Dreena offers a look into her personal journey with a vegan lifestyle and how she shifted to a whole-food approach and lifestyle in the process. This is a go-to guide for healthy, oil-free, vegan cooking and eating and as everything Dreena does, it will be a treasure in your house, kitchen and your life.

Veggie Power!
Dreena Burton is a famous veg chef and author, well known on television and the web for over for 25 years. The theme of this cookbook is recipes that are kind to our environment. The recipes include family meals, special occasions meals, desserts, breakfasts and of course lunch and dinner. It's obvious that she has created this recipes with the consumer in mind as she includes short cuts and tips to ensure that the dishes work well for a family. Her books are advice are not only good for the environment but also great for your health! Some of the fantastics recipes includes:

• Lemon-Poppyseed Muffins
• Chipotle Chickpea Fries
• Beyond Beet Burgers
• Fiesta Taco Filling
• 1-Minute Pasta Alfredo

Another great addition is a cooking troubleshooting section. I loved that as there are a few tips that will make my cooking faster and of course tastier. I think anyone in a hurry and wanting to eat healthy will enjoy this book immensely! This is a great book for you and also for a friend or family member trying to make changes. #NetGalley #BenBellaPublishers #DreenasKindKitchen

For over two decades, Dreena Burton has been creating and sharing her vegan recipes with the world. Once a strange fad, veganism and vegetarianism has become more mainstream, meaning that more people are choosing to adopt the lifestyle, or at least dabble in it. Unfortunately, as veganism has grown in popularity, so has the prominence of highly-processed vegan foods in the supermarket. Kind of defeats the purpose of veganism and vegetarianism a bit, don't you think?

Her most recent book, Dreena's Kind Kitchen: 100 Whole-Foods Vegan Recipes to Enjoy Every Day is a welcome contrast to the highly-processed vegan/vegetarian foods that have become so ubiquitous on the stock market and in supermarkets over the last few years.

In the early pages of the book, Dreena focuses on explaining how to source, clean, prepare, and store her whole-food ingredients, as well as explaining why a laundry list of substitutions may or may not work. Much of this information may be redundant for people who have long prepared meals that are veggie- or whole-food centric, but it's a great guide for those who are transitioning to a more veggie- or whole-food centric diet or those who are just starting to become responsible for their own meals.

The handful of recipes that I've tried have been very easy to follow along with and the photographs of the recipes are quite enticing. In addition to the substitution information in the front of the book, Dreena offers plenty of substitution options in the recipes, when appropriate. And although I'm sure some people may have trouble sourcing some of the ingredients, I have had no trouble finding them in the suburbs of a mid-size east coast American city.

My only (teeny, tiny) gripe is that some of the names of the recipes are a bit contrived and saccharine. But if that's the only thing I have to complain about, I'd say it's still a darn good book!

Prior to the pandemic I maintained a fairly healthy, omnivorous diet, but since 2020 my food choices have definitely fallen down a slippery slope. I have made a concerted effort over the last few weeks to start placing veggies, grains, legumes, nuts, and other whole-foods in a more prominent role in my diet again, so this book came along at just the right time for me. I can definitely see myself incorporating several of Dreena's Kind Kitchen's recipes into my regular rotation.