Complete Paleo Meals in 45 Minutes or Less - Well Fed Weeknights

This cookbook is amazing! I've tried four recipes so far and all have been easy and delicious. There are so many recipes, recipe ideas, clear cooking instructions, and beautiful photographs for all the food. If you're going to buy a cookbook, get this one (even if you're not into the paleo thing)!!

The best cookbook ever! Fast, delicious, appealing, and most of all, completely healthy! Guilt-free! What a pleasure! I'm always pressed for time, but I'm also fanatical about good all-natural nutrition, while my family just wants their food to taste good. Melissa wins! I enjoy and trust this book so much that I sell it in my naturopathic endocrinology clinic because it helps correct hormone imbalances! Not exactly what Melissa set out to do, but it works well to help the great majority of my patients who struggle with crazy appetite, overweight, excess body fat, high stress, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes, full-on diabetes, the whole nine yards. I am so happy to have such an inspiring book, both at home and in my clinic!

This is another great book from Melissa Joulwan! I have Well Fed and Well Fed 2 and I was really excited for this one to come out. She always has such great, flavorful recipes and the idea that I could get that in under an hour is amazing.

Method
I have bought cookbooks in the past where I have tried to make the dish in the estimated time only to have it take 2 or 3 times longer.That is so frustrating and makes for a late dinner! That is not the case in this book - Joulwan goes through her method for recipes making the cut and she has prepared them a number of times and needs to be able to make the recipe in 30-35 minutes or less because she gets that the rest of us don't cook all day every day. I really appreciate that she has done that and all of the recipes I have made have been in under an hour. No more super late dinners!

Intro
In all three of her books that I have, Joulwan writes an extensive intro before the recipes. I always find lots of good tips there about kitchen set up, food prep and some "basics" - this one is equally amazing. The potato tip alone is worth the price of the book!

Recipes
I LOVE her recipes - which is obvious since I keep buying her books. I am pretty good at reading recipes and deciding if I think it will be good or not, but I feel like the recipes in the Well Fed books just have to be trusted. I learned a long time ago after taking several risks with her books that I cannot judge whether or not I think it will be good by reading the recipe (that is weird, I know, but she is so good!)

This book is no exception - the flavor combinations she puts together are wonderful, even for something as simple as how to dress up canned tuna. I made a stir fry last night in under 45 minutes that had so much depth of flavor I couldn't believe it.

Get this book! Try the recipes in it! Even if it looks weird - trust her!

Amazing book!!! Love the layout of the recipes... I love to cook and my family and I are new to the Paleo lifestyle, so I appreciated the step by step for making each meal! Last night I made the Chicken Pesto Meatballs w/ Zucchini Noodles. One word to describe it: PHENOMENAL!!!! I seriously recommend this book!!

I love:
+ Recipes are delicious and filling. Personal favorites are the Chinese Pancake and BLT Egg Salad
+ The weekly cook up is a great idea, and allows us to prepare most meals in <20 min
+ Melissa's writing style and personal anecdotes included with each recipe make you feel that she is a friend, guiding you while cooking. It is just plain cute.

I am irritated by:
+ Many of the recipes (really, the recipes used the "Food Court" section) do not have ingredient measurements. I get it, this is to help you prepare the meals faster (I mean, who cares if your salad has 1 or 1.5 Tsp of walnuts? Just throw 'em in) but when cooking with my hubby, he will use all of the available ingredient, leaving nothing for the next days' recipe. Whatever. I like my salad with two cups of pepitas. No baby, the Yucatán Chili Saute didn't really need them.
+ I love variation, but with a full time job and new baby - oh and something about the laundry - my mind isn't what it used to be. Many of the recipes (again, I'm looking at you, "Food Court") have the prep, main ingredients and variation-ingredients spread out over two plus pages. My mind does not work that well anymore. I always miss something. Flipping pages and remembering where you were is hard when you are doing 400 other things.
+ Without the cook up, <45 min is a stretch. I can do it, but G-d help me if i need to preheat the oven.

I hate:
+ Ingredients are out of order. They should be listed in what you use first, seconds, etc. They are not. Or maybe I'm confused by all the page flipping. All I can say for sure is it really pisses me off.
+ The book binding is a complete and utter disappointment. Pages were falling out and haphazardly stuck back in my book. It was $6 and 20 minutes of my time to get it rebound. I could have spent that time, and that $6, drinking cheap wine. Or making faces at our newborn and investing in her collage fund. Or both.
+ Seriously, if this girl is eating a hot dog, I'm putting it on a bun. With mustard. And don't try to sell me on these organic, pasture raised, grass fed hot dogs. I'm no hot dog hater (quite the opposite, actually) but it's still a hot dog.

Overall, I'm glad we purchased the book. We eat at least 2 recipes per week from Melissa's "Well Fed" series. This has been a nice add.

I loved Melissa's first two cookbooks and this new one might just be my favorite. Her recipes are simple, but full of flavor. All her recipes are designed to be made each night, but she also gives tips if you did want to prep the meal in advance. I spend my Sundays meal prepping, and now it's even easier. Thanks again for another great book.

I only gave this 4 stars because the recipes call for so many ingredients. Example: Morrocan Steak Salad with Fig and Pistachio Dressing has 21 ingredients and 3 separate preps. There are 8 hotdog recipes and the shortest list of ingredients is 8-9, however, the Deli Dog recipe has 17 ingredients. You will be spending time collecting ingredients to ensure these meals only take 45 minutes to complete.
With all of that said, these dishes have been delicious! I loved the Morrocan Steak Salad with Fig and Pistachio Dressing, Spicy Nigerian Beef, and the Pork Medallions with Blackberry Compote and Cauliflower Puree. We even liked the simpler dishes we have made. Overall, I would say that if you love to use up your spices and really mix it up, this is for you! I do not cook out of this book 7 nights a week, but 3 nights a week is doable for me. I do not at all regret the purchase as the food is delicious!

Good recipes and perhaps more importantly, a added piece to the philosophy of trying to eat healthily each and every day... If you decide to eat something out of the routine- consider it a withdrawal from your bank account and enjoy that thing you crave... then get back to doing good things for your body... and pay attention to the results of that withdrawal to see if you want to do that again.... really love my new life eating good food and not processed!! This series of books has been truly a life saver for me - a 4 year of chemo melanoma survivor....

I decided to purchase the hardcopy of the book instead of the Kindle version because I've found it's easier to navigate, but regret it with this book. Within a few days of doing nothing extraordinary (turning pages), the cover is falling off. I've read other reviews that report this as well. So in this case I would have been better off getting the Kindle version - it would have been cheaper and less frustrating.