Keto Simple: Delicious Low-Carb Meals That Are Easy on Time, Budget, and Effort

Keto Simple is the newest cookbook from author and keto-lifestyle advocate Martina Slajerova, published by Quarto - Fair Winds Press and available 7th Jan 2020. It's 176 pages and will be available in paperback format.

The main focus of this cookbook is making recipes more streamlined and simple. There aren't very many evenings I come home from work and feel like spending 2 hours+ of my evening cooking complex recipes. Anything that simplifies the process and requires fewer difficult ingredients or very expensive specialty items is a huge bonus for me. This book contains quite a number of recipes which are made with fewer ingredients, less time, and fewer difficult to find items.

Each recipe includes an intro with recipe special features such as nut-free, gluten-free, etc. There is an introduction with other info such as portion control and yields followed by bullet list ingredients in sidebars with prep-time estimates. The recipes' ingredients lists are provided with English/American measurements with metric/SI measures in parentheses. Nutritional info is provided in the footer under the recipe instructions.

The book is very well illustrated with most pages having full color photographs which support and fill out the text. The content is presented in plain and understandable language blessedly free from mumbo-jumbo. It includes a good layman accessible introduction, how to use a ketogenic diet, and what to expect from a lifestyle change which includes replacing some (or most) dietary carbohydrates with fats as a source of energy.

 The recipes are arranged roughly thematically: pantry basics, breakfasts, snacks, sides, soups & salads, lunch box, dinners, and desserts. There is a reference/resource guide along with links, and a cross referenced index including single ingredients for looking up related recipes.

I really liked that many of the recipes come with built-in alternatives which make it very easy to switch things up and add even more variation to menu planning without a lot of extra effort. Most of my reluctance to adopt a keto diet has been resistance to how difficult and time consuming it seems. This time of year inspires most of us to make lifestyle changes and I intend to try to incorporate some of them in my own family.

Four stars.

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