The Laura Lea Balanced Cookbook:120+ Everyday Recipes for the Healthy Home Cook

“Features more than 120 healthy, easy-to-prepare recipes for everyday, at-home occasions. Prioritizing whole foods and a balanced menu over diet fads and trends — and including pantry shopping lists and serving portion recommendations — the recipes manage to be nutritious and healthy while simultaneously comforting and satisfying. The perfect stocking stuffer for those resolving to eat healthier in the new year.” * NBC News, BETTER *“The Laura Lea Balanced Cookbook isn’t your average cookbook. Laura Lea hits the mark between home-cooked nostalgia and whole food goodness with recipes that’ll keep your taste buds satisfied and your belly full from dawn til dusk.” * Edible Nashville *“A friendly and relaxed approach to healthy eating. Goldberg’s diverse and enticing recipes promise to make healthy eaters out of even the most reluctant.” * Publishers Weekly *“The Laura Lea Balanced Cookbook: 120+ Everyday Recipes for the Healthy Home Cook calls upon whole ingredients to make up these yummy meals. They’re nutritious and completely good for you!” * POPSUGAR *“Laura Lea painstakingly tests these recipes over and over, seeks feedback from lucky friends and family, and perfects them through trial and error. Even in the restaurant world, I don’t know many chefs who work as diligently and prolifically to develop reliable recipes quite like Laura Lea. I love making her recipes. In general, I never ever follow recipes but Laura Lea’s are different. I follow them because I’ve tasted the results and wouldn’t even know where to start to create the things that she does. She takes the time to to understand every little nuance of an ingredient, what is made up of, what it’s capabilities are, and how to make it sing.

Her food is designed to make you feel good. As we know, “healthy” food hasn’t historically been thought of as the most delicious. But the level of deliciousness she achieves with food that is good for both your body and soul takes tremendous drive and skill. I find myself craving her food. A lot. Laura Lea’s cooking is not simply for sustinence - it makes you feel something. It also directly reflects her sunny, nurturing, and enthusiastic personality. You can taste the love and passion she has for her craft. . In Simply Laura Lea, she shows us that we can take better care of ourselves while still enjoying the pleasure of something very delicious and satisfying. In our house, we refer her food as ‘Laura Lea treats’”

Laura Lea is a certified Holistic Chef, consultant, and founder/writer/photographer of the popular food website LLBalanced. After graduating from the University of Virginia, she discovered her passion for healthful cooking and nutrition while living a fast-paced corporate life in New York. She handed it all over to enroll at the Natural Gourmet Institute and headed back to her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, to launch LLBalanced where she provides readers with affordable, comforting, and make-ahead family-friendly meals that are packed with nutrients and flavor. Her dishes are often remakes of Southern-influenced comfort food, with the intention that we can have the best of both worlds. She currently consults with individuals, corporations, and restaurants on all aspects of healthy eating and nutrition while contributing articles and recipes for, among others, Nashville Lifestyles, Southern Living, and Shape. Laura Lea also has a regular local cooking segment on WSMV Channel 4, where she demonstrates how to make some of her most popular dishes.

Alice Randall is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels, The Wind Done Gone, Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, Rebel Yell, and Ada’s Rules and the only person to ever study with Julia Child for credit at Harvard. An acknowledged authority on African-American cookbooks, Randall teaches the course “Soul Food, in Text, as Text” at Vanderbilt University. She also writes country music, including Trisha Yearwood’s now classic “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl).” Randall has been recognized by the National Institutes of Health as a Health Champion and is Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Nashville Ambassador.