Herbs in My Kitchen: Reference Guide for Everyday Cooking

With today’s busy lifestyles, we all find it difficult to put together meals that are both nutritious and tasty. Who wouldn’t want to literally add some spice to everyday meals and special ones? Ann Powers made dietary changes to try turning around a puzzling set of health problems, and in the twenty-eight years since making those changes, she’s studied a wide variety of cuisines that have a focus on the often mysterious key ingredients of herbs and spices. Now she shares that wealth of information in Herbs in My Kitchen: Reference Guide for Everyday Cooking, a tremendously user friendly reference guide that allows even the busiest among us to make healthy and tasty meals, taking ingredients on hand and using spices and herbs to make the everyday something special.

With today’s busy lifestyles, we all find it difficult to put together meals that are both nutritious and tasty. Who wouldn’t want to literally add some spice to everyday meals and special ones? Ann Powers made dietary changes to try turning around a puzzling set of health problems, and in the twenty-eight years since making those changes, she’s studied a wide variety of cuisines that have a focus on the often mysterious key ingredients of herbs and spices. Now she shares that wealth of information in Herbs in My Kitchen: Reference Guide for Everyday Cooking, a tremendously user friendly reference guide that allows even the busiest among us to make healthy and tasty meals, taking ingredients on hand and using spices and herbs to make the everyday something special. If you’ve got nagging health problems that could very well be related to your diet, are a fan of a particular cuisine you find it hard to recreate at home, or want to learn how to make eating healthy less boring, Herbs in My Kitchen will help you easily create an impressive Indian dish, spicy Cajun creation, or exotic Caribbean meal. It’s easy with this handy four-part reference guide. Focused on eight distinct world cuisines with one thing in common—centering around local fruits and vegetables, with meat as a judicious addition instead of the primary focus of the meal—the book first looks at each of cuisine, providing handy lists of typical ingredients laid out by category such as fruits and vegetables, meats, seafood, and herbs. That’s followed by an alphabetical reference guide to herbs and spices, with enlightening information about the origin of each along with the typical best uses of that herb or spice. Each one is accompanied by gorgeous mouth-watering photos taken by the author that will get you eager to give that spice a try. The third section provides another easy reference, this time to ingredients you might have on hand and listing the spices to use with that ingredient for the various types of cuisine. Finally, Powers provides a quick and easy to read primer clearly demonstrating that healthy eating doesn’t have to mean boring. She helps make preparing meals fun and tasty!

Twenty-eight years ago, Ann Powers was faced with a puzzling set of health problems that seemed unresponsive to all the treatments offered by the many doctors she saw. On the advice of a friend of a friend of a friend, she embarked on a grueling three-week process to detoxify her body, after which she slowly introduced different foods back into her now healthier diet. Through this process, she learned which foods triggered adverse reactions for her, and found salt, sugar, and processed foods were the worst offenders. Holding degrees in business and accounting, Powers’s busy lifestyle left her little choice but to learn how to easily create tasty, healthy meals rather than relying on the fast food and processed items so common and convenient. With cooking being one of the ways she relaxed, she began experimenting with various herbs and spices in combination with the fresher ingredients in her new diet, and she took copious notes. Realizing that a host of modern ailments can be traced to our poor diets and unhealthy lifestyles, she embarked on a more intensive study of the herbs and spices she’d been using and the cuisines around the world that relied on them. After decades of learning, she now seeks to share this wisdom, teaching others how to eat healthily without sacrificing taste and without spending your life in the kitchen. With a focus on fresh produce and minimal meat, the suggestions and advice she’s given in Herbs in My Kitchen: Reference Guide for Everyday Cooking will inspire even the busiest person. Now living with her husband and son outside Chicago, Ann Powers keeps active with swimming, skiing, biking, and travel, and of course, cooking delicious meals that keep her active and healthy every day.