Eat More, Nourish Your Brain and Fight Depression with Kornelia Santoro’s Cooking for Happiness

Cookbook: Cooking for Happiness

When you undergo depression, even the things you loved doesn’t make you feel good. What about food? Is it the same feeling for food? Oh, yes! It, absolutely, is! You don’t feel like eating anything but what if someone places in front a cheese or butter-filled rich food that you actually thought was unhealthy? Most of the times you cannot keep yourself away from such food. Isn’t it?

Cookbook Cooking for Happiness by Kornelia Santoro talks about her personal experience on how she went through the phases of depression and how she would feel then and binge to escape the sadness. Binging isn’t important, the significant part in the cookbook is how she overcame this low and dreadful feeling with the help of food! Yes, FOOD!

Click here to Read Kornelia Santoro’s Interview with FJ

Kornelia, in her book, discusses on how food can help overcome the nightmares like depression. The cookbook is full of scientific reasons and the connection between science and food with amazing facts; sometimes these facts will leave you in awe.

baked bread in white ceramic bowl

There’s so much to read and cook in this cookbook. Even if you are not into reading, the amazing facts like what kind of yeast you should have on your kitchen shelf, what are the vitamins, minerals and protein-rich foods you must include and then the recipes from these suggestion are just perfect to stop you from eating unhealthy food endlessly.

READ ALSO:
Eat What Makes You Happy, tells Kornelia Santoro in Interview with Foodeez Junction

Cooking for Happiness has the food stories you can relate to if you have undergone depression at any point of time.

The cookbook is divided into three parts Nourish Your Brain, Comfort Food and Stress-Free Dinner Parties. When I say nourish your brain you might think that I’m going to talk about the boring set of healthy recipes. No! Well, healthy recipes are far more interesting these days and Kornelia has well put them in her cookbook. Nourish your brain, the first part, has recipes of Carrot cake, Indianised Fasolada, Tabbouleh, Apple Pie and Tuna Pate among others.

In the second part which is the Comfort Food zone, Kornelia tells how denying your favourite food affects your mind. What Kornelia mentioned as the difference between Comfort Food and Junk Food surprised me. From the recipe of Lasagna to Pizza, you can find all in this section. It’s very well mentioned in the Contents section of the book.

The third and my favorite part is Stress-free Dinner Parties. The author has beautifully mentioned on how to prepare for a big dinner party along with cuisines, recipe, shopping list, how and when to serve them.

The Recipes I Tried

Mashed Potato (Pg170)

I loved the texture of mashed potato; it turned out to be perfect. The creamy texture with the flavor of nutmeg is just a right thing to have when you want something different.

READ ALSO:
Vegetable Lasagne Recipe – Step by Step Guide

Handmade Pizza (Pg165)

If you follow the recipe step by step without changing the quantity of the ingredients, your wheat-crust pizza will be crunchy and a healthy option. I’d made this pizza at home this weekend and it was a hit. It turned out to be perfectly crunchy. Important thing is not to miss on any of the steps mentioned in the recipe. And, certainly, you get to know the importance of ingredients used in pizzas.

As I flipped the pages of this cookbook, I could find very less recipes for vegetarians. Though I’m not a vegetarian but I’m allergic to eggs. Most of the recipes mentioned in Cooking for Happiness have egg as ingredient. I wished there was a substitute mentioned in the recipe and, also, wished there were more pictures of the recipes.

Overall, I loved this cookbook as it certainly has those amazing scientific facts, and an additional discussion on the main ingredient after each recipe makes it more interesting cookbook to read. Bring smile to your face with Cooking for Happiness, which is more than just a cookbook.

The views expressed in this cookbook review are personal views. This was not a sponsored review. However, the FJ team received this book from Harper Collins for testing and review purposes.

— Images and Review Shared by Sara Khan