Back to Butter by Molly Chester & Sandy Schrecengost

The angle: Food shouldn’t be complicated. Time to simplify.

Recipes for right now: Multi-Seed Crackers, Roasted Corn Guacamole, Classy Chicken Salad with Dates & Walnuts, Red Rice Salad with Cumin Dressing, Meaty Baked Beans, Banana Date Sprouted Muffins, Crispy Peach Cobbler

Who would enjoy this book? Cooks with CSAs, cooks trying to steer clear of processed foods, chronic dieters looking for another option.

• Who wrote it: Molly Chester & Sandy Schrecengost

• Who published it: Fair Winds Press

• Other highlights: There was definitely a time in my life when I thought that staying healthy and slender meant filling my fridge and cupboards with things like non-fat milk, artificial sweeteners, and baby carrots. I could have used Molly Chester and Sandy Schrecengost — and their new book Back to Butter — to help guide me back then.

Back to Butter emphasizes a traditional diet — like the one eaten in the generations before so many of our dietary staples, like milk and beef, became manufactured products and before weekly health scares warned us off one food or another. The philosophy is summed up in the title: let’s get back to real butter and away from the kinds of “ingredients” that come with their own ingredient list.

I like that the book starts with a detailed look at what a traditional foods diet means and why it makes sense. The first several chapters also delve into the practicalities of a traditional food diet: stocking your pantry, evaluating ingredients at the store, and basic techniques like making buttermilk and cooking quinoa that serve as foundations for the recipes that follow.

The recipes themselves cover the basics of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If this kind of diet is very new to you, these recipes are a great starting point. If you’re already on board with a traditional diet, these recipes might feel a little basic, but I have no doubts that you’ll find some new ideas to try.

Find the book at your local library, independent bookstore, or Amazon: Back to Butter by Molly Chester & Sandy Schrecengost

Apartment Therapy Media makes every effort to test and review products fairly and transparently. The views expressed in this review are the personal views of the reviewer and this particular product review was not sponsored or paid for in any way by the manufacturer or an agent working on their behalf. However, the manufacturer did give us the product for testing and review purposes.