Smorgasbowl by Caryn Carruthers is full of yummy looking, healthy recipes and amazing pictures. This collection of healthy recipes is beautifully presented and most of the recipes look worth trying. I do feel like there aren’t that many recipes in total compared to most cookbooks, but considering the specialized form of recipes that isn’t all the surprising. Overall this is a nice healthy cook book and I would recommend it to anyone who likes these kinds of healthy recipes.

I love the concept of Smorgasbowl! As huge fan of mixing texture, tempertaure and tastes with a good nutrition level for lunch & entertaining this opened my eyes to even more ideas. It's great to give foundations of how to improve and ensure all the bowls/meals are a hit with everyone due to the 4 point plan and the great inspiration on how to tick these all off through the book. Some of the ingredients may be harder to find in the UK but I will definitely be keeping my eyes peeled or substituting them to make some of these delicious bowls.

This veggie forward cookbook will have you diving into delicious, healthy meal bowls every meal of the day. Think eating out of a bowl is just for soup or cereal? Think again! Surrounded by picky eaters or those with dietary restrictions? No problem, Beautifully photographs, precise, well tested recipes and lots of practical advice made this cookbook a pleasure to read. The recipes fill all the requirements of great eating - taste, texture and colour with the added bonus of being super nutritious. Who couldn’t do with adding a few more vegetables into their diet? These recipes makes doing just that a pleasure not a chore. I’m dying to dive in! Excellent first cookbook Caryn! Looking forward to your next one! Highly recommend

I received an ARC of this cookbook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The recipes in this book are easy to make, but some of the ingredients are expensive.

Loved this book for many reasons: easy to follow recipes, all recipes mindful of macronutrients (carbs, fats, and proteins) and perfect for my husband and I who LOVE bowls! This book gave us so many more ideas (breakfast bowls, what!!!) to share at the dinner table!

This is a beautifully presented book with gorgeous photos, and I imagine it would be your new favourite book if you're a certain type of beige&white, artfully unkempt, GOOP-inspired instagrammer. Unfortunately I'm none of those things.

I did have a NetGalley copy which for some reason showed overlapping text for me, which made reading it difficult and I admit I may be missing a lot in the bits I skimmed. I looked through the recipes, but that's all I did, because these aren't for me. I was hoping for some quick and easy ideas, or interesting new meals. Most of the meals in this book I would never make purely based on cost - they're heavy on expensive and sometimes niche fresh ingredients, of many kinds, and many of the recipes require not only large amounts of preparation time- and effort- wise but also specialist implements that I just don't own (things like a spiraliser). I did appreciate the lists of components to help customise recipes, but since they contained things like avoiding processed foods again that makes everything more difficult and expensive. These were also generally not to my taste; I don't eat avocado, I don't like excessive sauces, I still don't understand chia seeds, I don't care for kimchi and I live in a small English village where none of the shops sell tahini and I doubt anyone has even heard of jicama. That already rules out a huge chunk of the book.

A beautiful coffee table book for an influencer, but not a practical cookbook.

Smorgasbowl is a great introduction to how to build a hearty, healthy meal in a bowl, similar to Buddha bowls! When I made the Egg Roll Bowl with Chili Garlic Oil and told my husband it was from a book I was reviewing he said “add another star to your review for that book!”. While this book is great and the recipes I tried were very good, I would note that it’s a bit shorter than most cookbooks.

Another wonderful cookbook! The pictures were super vibrant in this one and I really liked the different approach to some of these bowls. I look forward to making some of these recipes!

thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

Now, what is Smorgasbowl I hear you say? Well, it's a new book by Caryn Carruthers and it's called Smorgasbowl. This is a new book about - how to create simple, colourful and effective meals that all the family will like. These recipes that Caryn has put together are very colourful and so tasty. The best thing of these recipes are they contain very little dairy, gran, low in salt and sugar which is great if you have food allergies.
So, what is Smorgasbowl's? You use bowls to put your food in and not on a plate. You can use sauces, toppings, scoop of yoghurt, some rice or even add a pita to your meal, or even leftovers, etc You will learn how to create delicious and exciting meals using the four pillars of bowl building which is detailed in this book..........So entertaining your family, a buffet party or can even be use for a dinner party, everyone will have fun putting their Smorgasbowl together.

I loved this book especially if you have any leftovers from the day before, for example; leftover meat, salad, cooked vegetables sauces etc, Caryn shows you that you can create a new and delicious Smorgasbowl for your family and nothing is wasted.
Caryn shows you with Brilliant Illustrations throughout this book and explains in detail what goes best together. This book uses a lot of fresh vegetables throughout (but you can use frozen) Fruit etc which is very good for you. However, vegetables can be so boring (as my nieces tell me all the time!) but this book made them enjoyable and great fun to get my nieces involved in preparing and putting their Smorgasbowl meal together, When they finished putting it all together their bowls looked so colourful and inviting. My nieces ended up enjoying their meal and wanted to do it the next night. Another thing I loved about this book - They started to enjoy vegetables and fruit and especially Sprouts! and pan-fried cabbage! Plus, they now love humous with pita bread.

Within this beautiful book, every recipe it will give you a colourful chart and, on the side, to tell you if it is;
GF - Gluten free
DF - Dairy free
P - Paleo
V - Vegan
Which I found excellent especially if you or someone in your family is one of these.

Pan Fried cabbage was a hit Humous with added chilli's a hit, Anchovy walnut dressing Out of this world! Loved it. I loved the new take on our much-loved family favourite Niçoise inspired bowl and it was a big hit with my hubby and it was DF and GF.

Bacon Radish bowl - with sugar free bacon??? I used normal streaky bacon and it was just perfect - Bacon grilled of course!

The Cajun Salmon bowl was wonderful and everyone loved I used feta cheese instead of cotija cheese which worked well.

This book was a real treat and inspiration, Plus a Big thumbs up from my hubby and my 2 very fussy nieces, especially as I am trying to healthier and eating more Vegetables and fruit etc in our diets etc. Overall, I loved this book But not quite sure on the breakfast bowls However, they would be great for your lunch or your main meal. All you need is to find a bowl and make your own Smorgasbowl on what you have in your kitchen cupboards etc.

I highly recommend this book and a must have for any kitchen.

Big Thank you to NetGalley and Radicle Publishing for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Go get this one. As someone who is trying to pull herself out of the 2 years of being holed-up eating poorly during Covid, this cookbook is an inspired breath of fresh! It’s fresh and the recipes are do-able and full of color and crunch and flavor and complexity. Have I mentioned that they’re do-able? I loved that they’re laid out with lots of photos and options which is great if you’re out of something and need to pivot at mealtime in the kitchen. Who hasn’t been in that situation? I also love the ease of “bowl” plating - -so easy and pleasing and it allows me to meld flavors and textures. Highly recommend this one!! Heartfelt thanks to Radicle Publishing for the copy.

An interesting book although a little disappointing to me as I typically eat a mix of foods from bowls so nothing especially innovative there for me. However, the information about grouping foods for colour, texture, hot/cold, sweet/sour is useful. The illustrations are good although too many are repeated - this may reflect the pre-publication status of the book. The recipes are straightforward with easily accessible ingredients although perhaps less so for some in the UK - there's always online though. Measurements are a mix of cups and ounces/pints but, honestly, use you common sense for many; measurements most important for the sauces as does it really matter about quantities of carrot or cauliflower? There's a good mix of meat/vegetarian/etc options and I like the little colour coded dots giving the basic "diet type". Personally I miss carbohydrates in there but that's the author's choice. I like best the various dressings and these will improve variety in my bowls. Thanks to NetGalley and Radicle Publishing for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Smorgasbowl is just what my kitchen needed! This cookbook has bright colorful images directly across from the ingredient section. It makes my decision easier if I can see what the food will look like. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions at the front of the book explaining different food textures and tastes. It makes it easier for me to switch out some of the ingredients based upon dietary restrictions. I've made a few recipes and they came together well.

Thank you to Radicle Publishing & NetGalley for the electronic copy in exchange for my honest review.

Smorgasbowl is a fun and convenient collection of tutorials and recipes for customizable one-bowl meals written and curated by Caryn Carruthers. Released 10th Dec 2021, it's 130 pages and is available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook formats.

The general idea is a simple one: provide ingredients for DIY bowl meals, and allow people to build their own bowl based on taste, preference, and/or dietary restrictions. The bowls themselves are beautifully colourful and appealing. The author makes an effort to make recipes which combine a variety of textures, tastes, and temperatures. I'm a huge fan of "grazing" type dining and love the casual twist this book brings to the table (sorry, not sorry).

The bowls are arranged thematically: an introduction with examples of how-to-build selections & tutorials, followed by breakfast, soup & salad, entree, and sauces. Recipes are formatted with a title and introduction in the header along with yields and coded labels (gluten free, dairy free, paleo, vegan, etc), followed by ingredients in a bullet list. Measurements are in imperial (American) only. Instructions are easy to read and understand. Recipe ingredients will be generally easy to find at any medium to large grocery store in North America. Some few fresh ingredients (jicama for example) might require a trip to a farmers' market or whole foods type store.

The book is beautifully illustrated throughout. Photographs are abundant and "instagram-worthy", with well styled, attractive, appetizing food. All of the recipes are accompanied by one or more photographs. The book is, admittedly, full of diet/culture advice. It's clear that the author is well-meaning and earnest in her exhortations against sugar, processed ingredients, and grains, but for most people, unnecessary. The recipes can, of course, be easily adapted to fit a more mainstream diet.

It would be a 5 star read without the grain-phobia, and as it is, a 4+ star read even with it. Lots of interesting and appetizing recipes and variations here.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes

This book is full-packed with healthy, yummy recipes - each one with its beautiful photo. I really appreciate the advice about how to balance the flavour, texture, temperature and nutritional properties of the various ingredients in each bowl.

I can't wait to try them all!

I love a cookbook that invites creativity and endless combinations, and this one did just that. There are lots of recipes to get you started on making bowls more often and ideas on some inventive ways to spice things up. But my favourite part was the discussion on how to make bowls and what kinds of combinations you should look for. The section on how to balance ingredients and build bowls to fit your tastes and diet was really interesting as well.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a tricky book to rate.

There aren't a whole lot of recipes in this book. While there are some for specific bowls with specific dressings or ingredients, it's really more of a book of general guidelines with information on how to make your own bowls using these guidelines. The author also excludes grains and includes some very specific and sometimes hard to find ingredients which makes some of these recipes difficult to achieve. I like the concept and there are some nice pictures, but overall the recipes and suggestions included don't really fit my lifestyle.

I had never heard of smorgasbowl before so I wanted to check this book out. For what I understand it's a bowl prepared with nutricional balance and variety. In the beginning there are some samples of flavors, textures, nutrition and temperature so you can build your own bowl and then the author show some of her favorite recipe combinations with some great photos but not all of her combinations appealed to me. I would try the summer and the winter fruit salads, cantaloupe fruit bowl, Mexi-bowl and the Mediterranean tilapia. I like the concept and I would create my own bowl using the samples. I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

Smorgasbowl: Recipes and Techniques for Creating Satisfying Meals with Endless Variation is a fun cookbook using healthy ingredients to make meals in a bowl.

Almost everyone wants to eat healthy, but also wants to eat dishes that are actually fun and unique – no same-old, same-old that can get very boring. These dishes contain lots of whole grains and vegetables, as well as lean meats, fish, and poultry, so each bowl has everything for a well-balanced meal. Carruthers has used her imagination and presented dishes that are colorful and delicious. They are mostly easy to make, and will appeal to everyone.

Many of the ingredients called for are a bit different from the usual staples, so a trip to the supermarket will be necessary, but it’s actually nice to have healthy ingredients on the pantry shelves rather than junk food. While the dishes presented are very appealing, there is room for variation, and that’s one of the best parts of the book – cooks can vary the bowls to contain their favorite ingredients and also ingredients that appeal to picky family members and friends. Perusing through the book will give everyone ideas that will make for individualized dishes. The photographs are beautiful and enticing, which can make it difficult to choose what to make, but the recipes are written in traditional recipe form, and are concise and easy-to-follow. This book is a fun one to add to any recipe collection.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

Although I think this would have been a good book with great ideas, information and recipes - I couldn't read it as all the writing ran together and overlapped. The photos looked good though.

This is a beautiful book. The photos are amazing and the layout is a design dream. This book gives you the tools to mix and match ingredients to create the bowl you are craving. That being said this book does also describe itself as “simple” at times which does seem to miss the mark. These recipes are beautiful, delicious, and nutritious but not necessarily simple (at least coming from a mom of two kids).