If you’re interested in learning more about eating healthy, Clean Food is a great place to start! Written by cookbook author, nutritionist, and clean food advocate Terry Walters, this updated and revised edition is a helpful guide to “eating clean.” I received a review copy from the publisher, Sterling Epicure, and also a copy to give away! I’ll tell you a little about the book and share a recipe, and you can see the end of the post for details on the giveaway.

Clean food, simply put, is naturally grown and minimally processed. Walters explains in the book that the more processed your food is, the more you lose out on natural nutrients. So it’s important to eat seasonal, unprocessed, organic, and locally-grown foods.

The book starts off with several chapters that include helpful tips on eating clean, and then the recipes, more than 230, are divided seasonally for Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. This helps you take advantage of using fresh, seasonal ingredients all year long. There are lots of full color photos of many of the recipes throughout the book, too.

Some of the great-sounding recipes include Artichokes, Fennel and Olives over Penne, Banana Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies, Honeydew Cucumber Soup, Lemon Berry Cream Pie, Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burritos with Cashew Cheese, and Wholegrain Pancakes.

I thought I’d try the Olive Tapenade because I love olives and have bought olive tapenade many times, but never made it myself. It’s delicious and very easy to make, so I think I’ll make my own from now on!

OLIVE TAPENADE from Clean Food

Makes 1 1/4 cups

I often prepare this tapenade for company and serve it with Garlic Crostini as an appetizer or as an accompaniment to a pasta dinner. But I enjoy it even more the next day spread on toasted sourdough bread in a roasted vegetable or portobello mushroom sandwich.–Terry Walters

• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 1/2 cups kalamata olives, pitted
• 1 cup oil-cured black Greek olives, pitted
• 2 generous Tablespoons capers
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice, plus more if desired
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Extra virgin olive oil, as needed

With food processor running, drop in garlic and mince. Turn processor off, add olives, capers, thyme, parsley, lemon juice, and pepper to taste. Process until smooth, scraping down sides as needed. Add olive oil a little at a time to achieve the desired consistency. Adjust flavor with more lemon juice and transfer to bowl. Store in airtight container in refrigerator or freezer.

I wanted my olive tapenade to be thick, so I didn’t add any extra lemon juice and just used about 1 Tablespoon of olive oil. But you can make it as thick or thin as you like. My tapenade was also a little on the chunky side because the food processor setting on my blender wasn’t working that great…if you have a good food processor, your tapenade will be a lot smoother! The tapenade tasted really good on my crusty loaf of bread and I want to try it on a roasted vegetable sandwich sometime like Walters recommends!

I like making recipes that taste great and are good for you! If you do, too, here’s how you can have a chance to win a copy of this book…

GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED And the winner is…comment #22, Rachel. Congratulations!

The Giveaway: If you’d like to enter to win a copy of Clean Food, leave a comment on this blog post between now and Friday, March 8, at midnight (CST)–the random drawing will be made from the comments on this post only! The winner will be chosen randomly via Random.org and announced on Saturday, March 9. Winner will be notified via email (if  winner does not respond in 3 days, I’ll do another drawing).

First entry: Leave a comment on this post telling me telling me what your favorite fruit or veggie is.

Bonus entry: If you are a new or existing follower or subscriber, you can leave one extra comment telling me the way (or ways) you are following.

The giveaway is open to residents of the continental U.S. and Canada.

I hope you get a chance to try the Olive Tapenade! I’m a big olive fan…do you like olives too?