Review: Hungry Healthy Happy Cookbook

Happy hump day!

Just a FEW more days to go until Easter – are you holding out if you’ve given stuff up for Lent? (With the amount of Creme Egg related goodness around here lately, I hope you’re going to have a massive blowout soon!).

Speaking of giving stuff up, today I’m bringing you a review of a new healthy eating cookbook whose mantra is not giving ANYTHING up! (Great news for cake fans!).

Hungry Healthy Happy, by the fantastic healthy food blogger Dannii Martin is what I’m talking about today! FYI – I was sent a copy of the book by the publisher to review, but as ever, I’m sharing my honest opinion.

I really admire Dannii’s approach to healthier eating – it’s sensible, delicious and mindful. It’s definitely not a diet, just flavourful and yummy approach to taking care of yourself.

Dannii has A LOT of experience in this area – she successfully changed her diet and lifestyle and lost almost 100 pounds in weight as a result! Her blog, also called Hungry Healthy Happy, is incredibly popular – in  fact, it’s one of the top food blogs in the country!

The book is broken into sections, covering Dannii’s weight loss story, the principles of weight loss, the importance of exercise, eating well on a budget, what to have in your cupboards and a sample meal planner for two weeks with 100% recipes from the book, with each day giving the calorie count, plus breakdown of protein, carbs, sugars, fat, fibre and salt. If you follow the plan, you’ll have three healthy delicious meals each day, plus snacks, and you should lose weight!

Recipes wise, we have breakfasts, snacks, lunches, main meals and side dishes, desserts and drinks. The very first two recipes in the book are Banana Pancakes and Blueberry Waffles – both still treats, but much healthier versions of them. Dannii also gives tons of ideas on how to mix up porridge so that you don’t get sick of eating it! And there’s loads of recipes featuring eggs.

I LOVED how this book is made up of hearty, filling meals and snacks that I wanted to eat, just made healthier! Hungry Healthy Happy is packed full of fruit and vegetables, and doesn’t contain too many solely meat-focused recipes (though it’s easy to add meat if you want to!).

Main meals include Chicken Kiev, Moussaka, Pizza, Mac and cheese, chicken tikka masala, and pad thai – all things that you might consider out of bounds when trying to eat healthily!

As someone with a massive sweet tooth, I also loved the variety of healthier sweet treats in the book, including banana bread, lemon squares, blueberry crumb bars, chocolate chip cookies, carrot cake bites, and gingernuts. While they’re not healthy enough to enjoy every day, these are definitely a better alternative to a normal cookie or piece of cake when you really need a sweet treat.

Finally – every single recipe in the book has a picture (I HATE books that don’t do this!), and a calorie breakdown so you can make informed choices.

So if you’re looking to eat a bit more healthfully and mindfully in the run up to summer, I wholeheartedly recommend getting this book – I know I’ll be making recipes from it for years to come.

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