The Blender Girl: Super-Easy, Super-Healthy Meals, Snacks, Desserts, and Drinks--100 Gluten-Free, Vegan Recipes! by Tess Masters, Anson Smart

The debut cookbook from the powerhouse blogger behind theblendergirl.com, featuring 100 gluten-free, vegan recipes for smoothies, meals, and more made quickly and easily in a blender. What's your perfect blend? On her wildly popular recipe blog, Tess Masters--aka, The Blender Girl--shares easy plant-based recipes that anyone can whip up fast in a blender. Tess's lively, down-to-earth approach has attracted legions of fans looking for quick and fun ways to prepare healthy food. In The Blender Girl, Tess's much-anticipated debut cookbook, she offers 100 whole-food recipes that are gluten-free and vegan, and rely on natural flavors and sweeteners. Many are also raw and nut-, soy-, corn-, and sugar-free. Smoothies, soups, and spreads are a given in a blender cookbook, but this surprisingly versatile collection also includes appetizers, salads, and main dishes with a blended component, like Fresh Spring Rolls with Orange-Almond Sauce, Twisted Caesar Pleaser, Spicy Chickpea Burgers with Portobello Buns and Greens, and I-Love-Veggies! Bake. And even though many of Tess's smoothies and shakes taste like dessert--Apple Pie in a Glass, Raspberry-Lemon Cheesecake, or Tastes-Like-Ice- Cream Kale, anyone?--her actual desserts are out-of this-world good, from Chocolate-Chile Banana Spilly to Flourless Triple-Pecan Mousse Pie and Chai Rice Pudding. Best of all, every recipe can easily be adjusted to your personal taste: add an extra squeeze of this, another handful of that, or leave something out altogether-- these dishes are super forgiving, so you can't mess them up. Details on the benefits of soaking, sprouting, and dehydrating; proper food combining; and eating raw, probiotic-rich, and alkaline ingredients round out this nutrient-dense guide. But you don't have to understand the science of good nutrition to run with The Blender Girl--all you need is a blender and a sense of adventure. So dust off your machine and get ready to find your perfect blend. Editorial Reviews Amazon.com Review Featured Recipes from The Blender Girl Download the recipe for Antioxidant Avenger Download the recipe for Fresh Spring Rolls with Orange-Almond Sauce Download the recipe for Watermelon Gazpacho Review Healthy fast food has a new superhero. Tess Masters blends up great-tasting dishes that make it easy to eat well, detoxify, and rebalance. If you're looking for healthy, convenient meals without all the processed stuff and sugar, look no further. --Mark Hyman, MD, chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine and six-time New York Times best-selling author Tess Masters has created innovative and heartwarming plant-based recipes for every meal of the day that will keep your blender busy and your family happy and in good health. Your blender will become your new best friend as you create culinary blended bliss together. --Joy Pierson, nutritionist and coauthor of The Candle Cafe Cookbook and Candle 79 Cookbook The Blender Girl is not just a collection of fruit smoothies. It's a gift of deliciously balanced recipes, power packed with information that adds a new twist to the old adage 'drink your solids and chew your liquids.' --Ann Gentry, author of The Real Food Daily Cookbook Review Healthy fast food has a new superhero. Tess Masters blends up great-tasting dishes that make it easy to eat well, detoxify, and rebalance. If you're looking for healthy, convenient meals without all the processed stuff and sugar, look no further. --Mark Hyman, MD, chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine and six-time New York Times best-selling author Tess Masters has created innovative and heartwarming plant-based recipes for every meal of the day that will keep your blender busy and your family happy and in good health. Your blender will become your new best friend as you create culinary blended bliss together. --Joy Pierson, nutritionist and coauthor of The Candle Cafe Cookbook and Candle 79 Cookbook The Blender Girl is not just a collection of fruit smoothies. It's a gift of deliciously balanced recipes, power packed with information that adds a new twist to the old adage 'drink your solids and chew your liquids.' --Ann Gentry, author of The Real Food Daily Cookbook About the Author Australian-born TESS MASTERS is a cook, writer, actor, and voiceover artist. She shares her enthusiasm for plant-based foods at theblendergirl.com. As a presenter and recipe developer, Tess collaborates with leading food, culinary, and lifestyle brands. She has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Vegetarian Times, and Zeste and on Glamour.com, Chow, Epicurious, and AllRecipes, among other publications and websites. Away from the blender, Tess enjoys a diverse performance career. She has toured internationally with stage productions, worked in film and television, and lent her voice to commercial campaigns, audiobooks, and popular videogame characters. Tess and her partner, Scott Brick, live in Studio City, California, with their West Highland White Terrier (and blender-cuisine maven), Cookie. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction Birth of the Blender Girl Hello, my name is Tess, and I'm a blendaholic. And when it comes to passing on my addiction to others, I'm also an enabler. But fear not. This habit (one you may soon find yourself hooked on, too) is healthy, and comes with a blender-load of positive side effects. We can't bottle time, so in our hectic lives we've taken to bottling, canning, boxing, and vacu-packing everything else. Convenience foods offer a quick (and often, virtually empty) way to fill up on the fly, and it's only human that we make the trade-off. But we don't have to compromise on health, nutrition, or good eating just because we've got pressing things to do. Enter the blender, which makes healthy fast food possible. This phenomenal machine is the greatest culinary gift bestowed on us since fire and spoons! Blending makes life easier, levels the playing field in the kitchen, and allows anybody to whip up nutrient-dense, tasty foods with limited skills and time. No, we don't check our teeth at the door. While this book does contain a repertoire of drinks, smoothies, and soups, you'll find more here than food to sip, glug, or scoop up in a spoon. My recipes are blender centered but by no means blender only. I favor blender-inspired dishes--appetizers, snacks, salads, desserts, and easy main dishes you can attack with your trusty knife and fork. The blended components--sauces, spreads, and condiments--play a vital role in these dishes; a delicious pesto or homemade mayo can elevate that basic bowl of pasta or plate of steamed vegetables from bland and boring to brilliant. So, okay, yes, in addition to being an addict and an enabler, I'm also a zealot! But I hasten to say, not an evangelist. I'm neither a foodie nor a chef nor a gourmet shopaholic. I'm a regular person and a self-taught cook who just loves food. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Chock-Full Chocolate Surprise serves 2 to 4 This smoothie is a fun way to get kids to eat more veggies. Unlike the murky color of some vegetable smoothies, the brown of this smoothie makes it look like a chocolate milkshake, enabling you to hide all manner of nutritious goodies inside. And it's so delicious and creamy, nobody will know that it contains greens! Note that the broccoli must be frozen and the cauliflower must be steamed and cooled, not raw. This is quick and easy to make if you have a bit of leftover cauliflower. If you can't quite get your head around blending wet florets, you can always add an extra banana and reduce the sweetener. 1 cup (240ml) unsweetened soy, rice, hemp, or almond milk (strained if homemade) 1/2 teaspoon probiotic powder (optional; see note, page 30) 1/2 cup (22g) firmly packed baby spinach 1/4 cup (25g) frozen broccoli (about 2 florets) 1 banana, plus more to taste 1/2 ripe pear, cored, plus more to taste 1 cup (120g) steamed cauliflower florets (cooled completely), or an extra banana (to save time if you don't have a bit of leftover cauliflower) 2 tablespoons cacao powder or unsweetened cocoa powder, plus more to taste 2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup, plus more to taste 1 cup (125g) ice cubes Throw everything into your blender and puree on high for 30 to 60 seconds, until smooth and creamy. Tweak flavors to taste (you may like a bit more banana, pear, cacao, vanilla, or maple syrup). Note: This smoothie is best consumed immediately, or the day it is made.