You may know her as Feel Good Gourmet who keeps posting on social media platforms, but Yumna Jawad is taking her content to the next level.
May 7th, Gourmet cookbooks that will make you feel good hits shelves featuring 125 easy and healthy recipes that combine Javad’s two loves: Mediterranean and Midwest cuisine. We spoke to the influencer about her new book, from the cover to the recipes any home cook can make. Plus, we got her recipe for delicious spiced couscous stuffed peppers. This will become your new favorite meatless Monday dinner. Read our exclusive interview.
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Get the Recipe: Spiced Couscous Stuffed Peppers
eat well: what makes it so Gourmet cookbooks that will make you feel good Individual?
Javad: I think there are a lot of cookbooks out there that have great dinner recipes and great recipes in general. I think what makes my cooking truly unique is not the perfect fusion of Mediterranean and Midwest cuisine, but rather his one ingredient added to elevate an everyday recipe. For example, if you’re making pancakes and instead of adding vanilla extract to your regular pancake recipe, you add rose water, and it doesn’t feel so scary. This element of everyday, approachable recipes. Most are dinner recipes, but there are also breakfasts, desserts, and snacks with one or two Mediterranean elements that make Mediterranean cuisine even more special.
eat well: What made you decide on the cover of the book?
Javad: The main recipe on the cover of the cookbook is chicken shawarma. This is one of the most iconic Middle Eastern recipes, and one that I grew up eating all the time. What I find really interesting is that even though this recipe seems so difficult, it actually just involves browning the spices and the chicken. I want them to be excited about making it, and I want them to know how fun it is to eat it on its own, add it to a sandwich, or put it on top of a tabbouleh or other salad. There are many other recipes listed there. Various toppings such as pickled turnips, pickled onions, and sauces are added to make it very delicious. I also wanted something very colorful, so when I saw tabbouleh, pink turnips, red tomatoes, and lettuce, I felt it was very vibrant, exciting, and representative of my culture.
Yamuna Jawad
eat well: What is the most valuable recipe in your cookbook?
Javad: I think it will be baked feta pasta. I feel like a lot of my followers found me because of Baked Feta Pasta. This recipe became all the rage in 2021 and so many people started making it. I love the simplicity of this recipe with melty feta cheese, bursting cherry tomatoes, and fresh basil. And these three colors are the colors of the Lebanese flag. It felt very vibrant and beautiful to look at, and felt familiar to a lot of people. So even if someone picks up this book and opens it up and is overwhelmed and doesn’t know where to start, having that recipe right at their fingertips is going to feel right at home. It’s just rewarding for me to be able to come full circle with this recipe that’s so iconic to my brand and that so many people find out that I actually feature it in the book. I felt that. It was also great because I didn’t have to retest the recipe since I had made it so many times in advance.
eat well: What recipes in this book are so easy that even a beginner cook can make them?
Javad: Two of them actually come to mind. I think about the recipes I keep making and the recipes my daughter keeps making. First up is roasted chicken thighs with yogurt and rosemary. In the book, I marinate chicken thighs, but you can marinate any type of chicken with yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, spices, etc., and you can also get creative with the spices. But adding yogurt as a Mediterranean element not only adds a little tartness and creaminess, but also helps keep the chicken moist in the oven. It’s very easy and a perfect recipe for beginners. All you have to do is heat up the chicken and make sure it’s well cooked. Another thing I think would be really fun to make are these brownie date balls. Made with walnuts, dates, cocoa powder, and chocolate chips. Combine the four ingredients in a blender or food processor. You give them a few pulses, it takes about 30 seconds, and then they start getting sticky from the date. This combination literally tastes like a brownie, but without the need to bake.
eat well: What is your favorite vegetable and how do you cook it?
Jawad: I mean, I have a lot of favorite vegetables, so I have to say two of them. One of them is cucumbers because I eat cucumbers every day. It’s very moisturizing. I add it to salads, eat it on its own, and dip it into hummus. I love eating them fresh, diced, sliced, and in a variety of ways. If I had to pick my favorite vegetable, that would be my favorite, but the more cooked one would be the sweet potato. And sweet potatoes are not a Mediterranean dish, and we don’t really eat them in Lebanon. So that’s one of the things I struggled with. Would you like to include this in your book? But this book is actually about recipes from the Midwest, grown up in Michigan, and is supposed to be homey recipes. I love sweet potatoes because there are so many ways to prepare them: toasted, fried, mashed, boiled. This book includes oven-baked sumac sweet potatoes. I think the wedges are really fun to eat, so I’m going to add some spice to it, a little bit of peppery sourness. We just turned this plain potato into something more exciting.
eat well: In a conversation with EatingWell last year, you correctly predicted that cottage cheese would be a summer food trend. What do you think will be the trend this year?
Javad: You can use dates in your recipes. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the date will be like. They started with “Date Snickers,” dates filled with nuts and peanut butter and dipped in chocolate. I also created the much-talked-about date wrapper, which many people have been making by flattening dates and spreading peanut butter and chocolate on top. If you cut it in half, it’s filling enough to eat. There is a big date cake that a lot of people are making right now. Make a cake by mixing dates, milk and flour. It’s so simple and I love that more people are using dates and recipes. I’d love to see dates used more than just date stuffing or the usual way of looking at dates. I wish this book had more date recipes. Because after the book was published, I came up with this date bread. It was just genius, delicious, and an amazing bread that my followers are going crazy over. From now on, I want to do all kinds of things on dates.
eat well: What is the most life-changing kitchen hack you have ever learned?
Javad: Measure out a generous amount of peanut butter. I love peanut butter and always use it in my oatmeal. Spraying the measuring cup with oil before adding the peanut butter is quick and easy and makes measuring a lot easier.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
