After hearing about Get The Glow and Deliciously Ella nearly everywhere I went for a solid two weeks, I finally decided to add the books to my Amazon basket and make an order. It was near impossible to go on Instagram, Twitter or YouTube without someone mentioning either of the books, so I knew I had to give them a try.
I try my best to eat relatively healthy as it is (although I’m partial to an M&S cookie… or five) but no matter what I’m always sniffling with a cold and am ready to hit the hay by 6pm. Unlike a lot of other “health” cookbooks, Ella and Madeline encourage and promote foods that nourish and feed your body and soul – which is exactly what I need.
I was sceptical of both books at first, presuming they’d tell me that I need a specific grain that can only be found in the Alps between 12pm and 3pm when the sun is at a specific point in the sky, but nearly all of the ingredients in both books are easily accessible and relatively cheap. I did have to go to my local health food store to get tahini, almond butter and coconut oil, but a lot of supermarkets stock these products nowadays.
I stocked up on nuts, quinoa, fruits and veggies and throughout the past few weeks have tried several recipes which I’ve loved. My NutriBullet is so handy to use for the recipes as it can chop nuts and blend everything together easily. I tried Ella’s Simple Oat Cookies which actually were simple to make and enjoyed snacking on them all week long. I’m going to add dark chocolate chips to them next time, though. A gal’s gotta have some chocolate in her life.
I also tried Madeline’s Quinoa Bread, which I was so excited to make. However, there was an error in the recipe that wasn’t corrected, so when I used quinoa instead of quinoa flakes to make the bread the whole thing fell apart and had to be thrown into the bin. I wasn’t too impressed at the waste of money, time and ingredients but I read that using quinoa flakes is totally worth it, so I’m going to give that a try.
My ultimate favourite recipe that I’ve tried so far is Madeline’s Raw Chocolate Brownies. The recipe calls for medjool dates, which can be quite expensive, so I used regular dates and the recipe turned out perfectly. The brownies were soft, gooey, chocolatey and sweet and stopped me from craving chocolate all week long.
Both books are full of information and are really interesting and beneficial to read. Get The Glow includes a six week programme and the recipes are divided into breakfast, snacks etc. Deliciously Ella is divided into fruit, vegetables, grains etc, which makes it harder to browse for specific meals, but I just use sticky notes to mark the pages that I like so they’re easy to find.
So, if you’re looking to try out a few new healthy recipes or to find out more information about different foods and what they do to your body, I’d really recommend picking both books up. They compliment each other really well and although they both promote the same thing, both books are quite different.
Let me know in the comments below if you’ve tried any recipes from the books or blogs, or if you have any healthy-treats suggestions! x