Simply Ancient Grains: Fresh and Flavorful Whole Grain Recipes for Living Well [A Cookbook]

I like the beautiful layout of the book and the amount of information that is given on the use of grains. The recipes are well written out and easy to follow and delicious. The author explains so much very helpful information.

Jackpot!!! It's been a long time since I was thrilled with a cookbook. Speck is a wizard with grains and surprising ingredients juxtaposed with the familiar items in my pantry. The photography in her book is stunning, the recipes easy to read and follow and the outcomes are so wonderful that eating out in a restaurant has suddenly lost all its panache. I just want to be in my own kitchen cooking simple, elegant, surprising meals. Speck offers breakfast options that have never been seen before, as healthy and tasty as I could wish for, chewy, brightly colored, intriguing combinations and she goes on from there with sides, entrees, desserts. This is sure to be a well-worn cookbook that sits in my lap more than on the bookshelf. What a treat.

I am a nutrition consultant and personal chef. I love discovering new books to inspire me in the kitchen. This has been a go to book since it arrived in April. I love cooking grains in my crock pot. Who Knew how simple that would be! I have been cooking with ancient grains for a while but Maria has taught me a few new tricks. I love they way Maria teaches you about all the diffrent grains and how to cook them. The recipes are easy to follow and delicious. What is nice about her book(s) is that you can adapt any vegetable or grain to fit what is local and avalible to where you live and season. I hope you enjoy reading and expereancing "simply ancient grains". Not only are they wonderful, Maria makes them not so "scary" for people who are just starting to discover the wonderful verity of grains/seeds this world provides.

I've just started integrating grains (except rice, of course) into our diet. This is a great book with some yummy recipes. We especially like the wild rice and mushroom dish! So happy to have this resource available to learn about grains so easily available but rarely in our diet!

After Maria Speck came on the cookbook scene a few years ago with Ancient Grains for Modern Meals, I couldn't wait to see what her next book would hold. Simply Ancient Grains is a perfect continuation of her first book. In her first book, we received an excellent introduction to cooking and baking with whole grains and whole grain flours. Her second book takes us farther down that road and branches out. Maria is especially talented with combining textures and flavor profiles that aren't too far fetched, but just enough to keep you intrigued. Her Greek and German background combine to bring fresh flavors and inventive ways to using whole grains and whole grain flours. As a pastry chef and chef instructor, I appreciate Maria's detailed recipes that help you cook or bake, even if you don't have much experience. In today's world of home cooks/bakers, many do not have the skills our mothers had in the kitchen, so home cooks need a little more guidance. Maria does an excellent job of giving plenty of information to help cooks and bakers recreate her recipes. This is because Maria's recipes are well-tested. She is one of our current cookbook authors who is extremely reliable. I know when I cook from her books or recommend them to my students, I feel confident the recipe will turn out the way she has described - and it does every time!

Don’t get me wrong--I love grains and was looking for recipe ideas, other than breads, to use the bulk grains I purchased. However, Ms. Specks books, including Ancient Grains for Modern Meals (i.e. “[...] with Fruit, Volume 1”) contain a preponderance of fruit-containing recipes. I’m not a fruit person. The books are excellent if you like fruit in every course but Ms. Speck’s books aren’t of much use to someone like me. It also pains me to add that this book contains one of the most horrifyingly inauthentic recipes for Irish soda bread (which must be made with soft Irish wheat and, being “austere,” lacks additions of any kind) I’ve ever run across; to its credit, at least it doesn’t contain yeast. SAG and its companion volume are both gorgeous books and actually do contain a few recipes that look interesting. There‘s an informative “ancient grains from a to z” section, as well as sections on the storing and cooking of grains. Recipes are easy to follow and most people shouldn’t find it difficult to locate the ingredients (especially if you live near a fruit market). Unfortunately, there aren’t enough to redeem my overall rating. And again, the rating applies only to me; I’m sure there’s an audience for recipes of these types.

I love cooking with Maria Speck's books because I love yummy food that I can prepare easily at home. And I already found a recipe that will become my comfort food: Baked feta fingers in saffron quinoa with tomatoes. Amazing! I love the versatile tomato sauce that also freezes quite nicely. All the recipes are well tested, so be ready for some culinary surprises, like the cumin-scented cauliflower soup. It sounded strange but what was I supposed to do with some leftover cauliflower? The dish turned out great. This book is easy to use for the cook who wants to discover a variety of grains, as well as, the grain connoisseur who is looking for new recipes. All the recipes offer variations, so do not feel you have to start up a grain library. (But you can do that too, if you want.) Did I mention that the book has a recipe for a dark chocolate cherry cake with marsala cream? Enough said.

If you want to cook and eat whole grains, this is a great book. The author explains everything you need to know about the different types of grains and how to handle and prepare them. She uses a very wide variety of ingredients in her recipes, some of which are unusual for us modern city people. I'm looking forward to using some of these recipes, and I know I'll appreciate the reference aspect when I want to know about all types of grains.

I now own a grain mill. This book is packed of delicious recipes, which go from no time at all to prepare to having to spend more time to prepare. The results though are always the same: delicious and appetizing.

Lots of inspiration

Great recipes for breakfast lunch and dinners. Nice photos and the ones I have tried so far are all delicious and healthful.