How to Be a Natural Cook

Blogger Heidi Swanson replaced processed ingredients in her kitchen with all-natural ones. The result: these inventive recipes.

During the dot-com boom, twentysomething entrepreneur heidi Swanson launched ChickClick, a hip Web site for teens. "I was working long days, managing dozens of people and feeling totally stressed," she recalls. When the Internet bubble burst, Swanson vowed to get back to a healthier lifestyle. She turned to her enormous cookbook collection and began chronicling her recipe experiments on 101 Cookbooks (101cookbooks.com)—which has become one of the most popular food blogs—before writing her first cookbook, Cook 1.0. A new devotion to all-natural eating led Swanson to launch her next site, Mighty Foods (mightyfoods.com), which is dedicated to organic ingredients, fair trade and sustainability. She followed this with a second book, Super Natural Cooking, due out this month. Swanson uses whole grains, natural sweeteners and nutrient-dense superfoods like walnuts in delicious, approachable vegetarian recipes. "I’m trying to give these super-nutritious, often-ignored foods a total makeover," says Swanson.

Published February 2007