Near and Far Cookbook Review

Heidi Swanson, known as the author of 101 Cookbooks is a recipe blogger and author whose recipes I have enjoyed in the past. When I had the opportunity to review her new cookbook, Near and Far, I jumped at the chance.

The subtitle of this book is Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel and she has recipes from all over the world. International recipes always intrigue me because I like different tastes. The areas she includes are San Francisco, Morocco, Japan, Italy, France and India.

The Red Lentil Hummus is an interesting twist on hummus (which we love at our house). It includes red lentils, garlic, lemon juice, tahini, sea salt, whey or kefir(we used kefir), black sesame seeds, and olive oil. It is great to have a recipe for hummus with red lentils as they are easy for me to access.

This book is a vegetarian cookbook which is not a good choice for me anymore. I have 2 grain free family members so we have meat at most meals. If you cook at least some vegetarian meals this is a good option for you, but if not then you may want to choose another cookbook.

Also this is not a gluten free cookbook and does not claim to be. But again for my family we need gluten free and grain free recipes. There are of course many recipes that do not involve grains like the hummus recipe above.

The Roasted Tomato Salad was another good option for my family as it involved tomatoes and goat cheese. It did call for harissa which is an ingredient I have never used before so I leave that out. It is still a good recipe without this ingredient.

My conclusion here is this is a good cookbook but not a great one for my family and their needs. Heidi Swanson is still amazing in her recipe development.