Chapman Emma - A beautiful mess: weekday weekend: how to live a healthy veggie life ... and still eat treats

We dedicate this book to our mother, Elizabeth Chapman. She is a constant source of inspiration, love, and passion in our lives. She has and continues to teach us to live a creative life without fear, to take on projects that scare us, and to try and enjoy every meal that we are lucky enough to have along the way.

Text and photographs copyright 2017 by Red Velvet Art LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 9781452155760 (epub, mobi)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Larson, Elsie, author | Chapman, Emma, author.
Title: A beautiful mess : weekday weekend /
text and photographs by Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman.
Description: San Francisco : Chronicle Books, [ 2017 ]
Identifiers: LCCN 2016053237 | ISBN 9781452154718 (hc : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Vegetarian cooking. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.
Classification: LCC TX .L 258 2017 | DDC 641.5 /dc LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ 2016053237

Prop and food styling by Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman
Designed by Alice Chau
Cover and designed by Mara Dockery
Photos on by Alyssa Rosenheck

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If you are like us, you love food. You might not plan out every meal, but you do look forward to the next one. We love the fabulous variety out therein the color, shape, texture, and taste of foods, and in the techniques from all around the world for preparing them. We love trying new foods. We love exploring new restaurants. We love cooking delicious meals at home. We love it all!

But of course food isnt just about flavor, or the experience of eating it. Food is also what sustains us and is the huge core factor in our overall health, and this can feel really daunting at timesespecially in this era, when a proliferation of information creates a dizzying swirl of choices. Are we eating enough healthy foods? Should we be eating more organic, local, seasonal, non-GMO, gluten-free, vegan, low-calorie, low-fat, low-sodium, sugar-free foods?! The answers for how to eat healthy can feel far away and ever changing. Its enough to make you want to throw your hands in the air in frustration... and then promptly have a brownie and glass of wine for dinner, thinking youll worry about it tomorrow.

Not that weve ever done this.

Over the past few years, it was this very frustration that pushed us to try to develop a new approach to figuring out what we should be eating. And thats how we came up with a simple system we called weekday/weekend eating. Its easy to follow: there are only five rules. And its sustainable: you could eat this way forever, if you wanted to. We recommend, however, that the first time you try it, just do it for to weeks. Meant to be both a changeup of your routine and doable for anyone, Weekday Weekend is designed to help you become more aware of your eating habits and learn more about easy options for improving them, without making you feel like if you dont know everything, you cant be a part of the healthy-eating club. Starting with a realistic timeframe will support the no intimidation premise of our program while still giving you enough time to see some change in your habits.

Most importantly, Weekday Weekend eating is built for variety and has plenty of space for indulgences. We want to make food choices that will promote a long, healthy lifebut with room for treats, because lifes too short to go without those!

WEEKDAY:

WEEKEND:

The Weekday Weekend concept is simple. For days a week, we eat according to rules.

1. eat a variety of foods.

Eat the whole rainbow of colors, and eat seasonally when you can. Every different color in food (including whites and browns) indicates a different array of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, enzymes, and other elements that speak to our bodies on the cellular leveland the bigger the range you select from, the more benefits from natures bounty youre reaping. Eating seasonally makes sense on many levels, including carbon footprint and supporting small farms and your local economyand in terms of health benefits, of course, produce contains the most nutrients when it is at its peak of ripeness. Plus, paying attention to color and what emerges directly from the source season by season makes shopping, cooking, and eating funit should never be boring.

2. no refined or artificial sugars or sweeteners.

Were mainly talking about refined white sugar or all those hidden sugars that are often sneaked into our foods, such as yogurt, bread, and fruit juices. Naturally occurring sugars are OK; in this cookbook, we mainly use fruits, honey, pure maple syrup, or a little bit of molasses to sweeten weekday recipes (each choice stems from the subtle note they can add to the flavor of the finished dish, as well). The goal here is not to demonize sugar. We love sugar! We just dont want it to be a large part of our daily diet, but rather something we enjoy as a treat now and again.

3. no refined white flour or white rice.

Whole grains are welcomed; if youre new to this way of eating, you might be surprised just how many whole grains there are to enjoy! In this cookbook we will mainly be focused on recipes that use percent whole wheat flour, oats, brown rice, black rice, quinoa, and spelt flour. But there are SO many more whole grains that can be enjoyed while you try out Weekday Weekend. If you want to challenge yourself even more after trying Weekday Weekend you might consider going gluten-free or even grain-free for a while just to see how you feel. But for our purposes were going to start simply by focusing on avoiding white flour and white rice.

4. no dairy.

Its just too easy to douse everything in butter and cheese, isnt it? The good news is there are SO many other options out there. You can still enjoy soy or nut milks, soy or coconut yogurt, or vegan butters or cheeses so long as they do not contain added sugars You can also use any oil you prefer for cooking; we mainly use olive oil throughout this cookbook but feel free to try others for variety, like coconut oil. Well also show you how to make your own mayo so you wont be missing out on having something decadent and creamy now and again for sauces or dressings.