Florida's Food Forest Cookbook: 400 Healthy, No-Waste Recipes for 20 Popular Perennial Plants

by Amanda Pike

Overview

Florida's Food Forest Cookbook makes creating healthy, easy-to-prepare, zero-waste meals straightforward. For those looking to convert their lawns and backyards into food forests (using the author’s Transforming Florida Yards), this companion cookbook offers 400 sweet and savory recipes and menus for 20 easy-to-grow, sustainable plants that thrive without pesticides, herbicides, toxins, or additives.

The included recipes—containing no more than six ingredients—are quick and easy to prepare, helping Floridians improve their well-being. Florida faces high rates of malnourishment and chronic disease. Approximately one in three children is overweight or obese, and one in six has a developmental disability—both conditions can be exacerbated by poor diet and sedentary lifestyles. If current trends continue, more than half of Florida’s population is projected to be overweight or obese by 2030, with a similar proportion expected to be living with prediabetes or diabetes, posing a significant public health challenge.

Florida's Food Forest Cookbook is a back-to-basics manifesto that empowers home gardeners to enhance their quality of life and culinary knowledge while improving both their health and their landscapes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683344681
Publisher:	Globe Pequot Publishing
Publication date:	04/07/2026
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Amanda Pike, PhD, ATR-BC is a board-certified art therapist, professional educator, certified educational leader, and past president of the Florida Art Therapy Association. Dr. Pike grew up spending summers exploring her grandparents' farmland, and lived in Cuernavaca, Mexico for multiple years, working for a holistic wellness company. During this time, she learned to grow and use plants to create health and beauty products. During her master's and bachelor's degrees, she lived and worked on farms and therefore brings to her writing the groundedness of first-hand experience. She currently owns a two-acre, permaculture farm in Jupiter, Florida where she manages her food forest complete with free-roaming chickens and 26 beehives. At present, Dr. Pike also serves as Education Chair and Chapter Representative for the Palm Beach County chapter of the Native Plant Society and provides on-going consultations for educational and community-based programs. Her last book, Eco-Art Therapy in Practice, published internationally by Routledge, highlights the importance of growing and using plants in educational and therapeutic settings. In particular, this text highlights Dr. Pike's knowledge on cultivating natural settings like food forests to enhance physical, mental, and emotional health. As a certified educational leader and local 4-H program facilitator, Dr. Pike helps make food forestry an accessible and practical landscaping option.