It’s time for a giveaway! I previewed this book over here, and now I’m ready to review it, after using the book and testing many of the recipes for over a year. So, first read my preview, over here. Then come back here and read the rest of this, and enter the drawing for the giveaway by making a comment below.

Here are my favorite recipes from the book:

• cheesy chicken spaghetti squash casserole
• stew of love
• pizza casserole
• nachos made from cauliflower slices (see below)

• garlic parmesan asparagus

• caramel apple BAM cake (bam stands for bust a myth, the myth being that you can’t have bananas on the THM plan, based on the banana BAM cake from the first book )

• pumpkin bam cake
• cinnamon bun shake
• gingerbread secret big boy shake
• lemonade
• lemon whip
• teriyaki beef and broccoli

I have to admit though, a few times the recipes are a bit too complicated for me.  Even Pearl’s “Drive Thru Sue” recipes can have too many steps. I love to be more simple. I often take the idea of the recipe and simplify it. Nobody here at my home, including me, knows what it’s “supposed” to taste like it so it works! For example, I thought the cheeseburger soup was far too complicated to make because it says to cook the squash with the ground beef and the cauliflower and the broth. Then you are supposed to pick out the squash and cauliflower, avoiding the meat, and puree the veggie blend in a blender, then add it back to the pot with the meat and serve with the meat in crumbled up chunks but not whizzed up. That took too much time. Next time I will cook the squash separately so I don’t have to pick it out from the meat.

Here some of my adaptations from the newer book:

• Southwest Bell Pepper Salad
• Autumn Cinnamon Shake 

Here are some adaptations from the first book:

• Fiesta Grub (E)
• Grain-free, Low-Carb Lasagna (S)
• Wheat-free Pancakes (E) With Syrup
• Basic Wheat-free, Almond-free, and Coconut-free White or Yellow Cake (not strictly THM but inspired by THM)

Here is what I learned from this book, in other words, what wasn’t in the first book:

• The idea of Trimmy soups, invented by Serene, which are superfoods-y and comforting at the same time. They include gelatin and lecithin
• how to make a cream of wheat substitute
• how make oatmeal stretch so you have more volume in a serving but still fit in the limit allowed for an E meal
• how to make a low carb bread that looks like white flour sandwich bread (top photo of this post, with a sweet cinnamon swirl version, pictured below)

• that baobab powder has the highest Vitamin C content of any food
• how fun it is to have themed family dinners (We did this for the spring General Conference Weekend, where I made the THM cauliflower nachos for between sessions and then the scones and jam gravy for the next day) The books has recipes for sushi night, burrito night, pizza night, salad bar night, and more
• that THM has a new line of natural extracts. They are included in many of the recipes, but weren’t ready at the time of publication of this book in September 2017. Now they are available. Hooray! I have the first batch released. I love the caramel and maple. The other flavors are OK (banana, coconut, pineapple, and cherry). I haven’t used those other four much, yet. When I do I will give a review of them. I do have to wonder though, how can extracts be completely “natural”?
• how to make a Yuck Yum Bitty (a smoothie in a meal that can be FP, E or S) one of Serene’s latest concoction fad
• how to have your cake and eat it too. The THM cakes can be eaten for  a meal, just as in the first book, but in this book Serene and Pearl suggest what to do if you are eating the cakes and not losing weight.

I have just scratched the surface of this book in this post and in my cooking! I give it 4 1/2 out of 5 stars, only because it didn’t meet my hopes of going deeper into the numbers and the science of the plan. It didn’t. I think it’s also too bad that the color codes of the fuels: E, S, and FP  for the circles at the top of each recipe aren’t the same  colors as in the first book. That can be confusing. Those are super minor things though, hence I only took half a star away. Overall I love the book. I love how it has testimonials of weight loss from people using the THM Plan from all kinds of people young and old, including men, married couples, sisters, and young men and women. It’s also wonderful to see a recipe index in the back according to the fuel categories of E, S, and FP. So if you know it’s time for an E, S, or FP meal, you can go to the index and pick out a main dish, side, breakfast or baked good, dessert, drink, or sauce for that fuel type. There is so much more I haven’t even tried, like the salted caramel cupcakes, the Almond Joy and Ding Dong look alikes, all the one skillet recipes, the crustless quiche, all the new bars, crackers, and the dressings and sauces, like kale pesto.

For an intro to the THM Plan, go here.

For my 10 Tips for Doing THM On the Cheap, go here.

For my Top 3 THM Food for Purists, go here.

If you would like to be entered in the random drawing of the giveaway of the book, please comment below as to why you want the cookbook. The deadline to enter is April 5 midnight and the winner will be announced sometime in the second week of April.