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Books That Cook: Cookbook makes losing weight palatable
By ELLEN FOLKMAN 3 Steps to Weight Loss
Are you serious about losing weight? Really serious? Does your health depend on it? 3 Steps to Weight Loss offers delicious recipes combined with textbooklike information to help you achieve your goals. Author Lawrence Cheskin of Johns Hopkins University shows that desired weight loss can be achieved by eating foods such as Horseradish Flank Steak, Warm Chocolate Bread Pudding and Lamb Chops With Sweet Potato Chutney. Before diving straight into the recipes, Cheskin advises devising a plan. The first 12 pages of this cookbook are devoted to helping readers do that. Reasons for losing weight, goals, activity levels and a food list are some of the topics addressed. The final chapter stresses the importance of exercise. Each recipe offers nutritional facts, diabetic exchanges, daily values and number of servings. Most recipes serve four, but some serve eight or more. Grilled Vegetables on Focaccia, Mint Rubbed Leg of Lamb, Deviled Roast Beef or Chicken and Garbanzo Bean Soup could all be scaled back easily for fewer servings or saved for a second meal. Variety is a key to any diet. Failure often comes when boredom sets in. With 3 Steps to Weight Loss, it will be easy to be successful. Some weight loss programs are all about salads, fruit and cottage cheese. Although there is a chapter on salads, Cheskin offers a wide variety of choices for all meals. For breakfast, try Baked Brie Strata, Tropical Coffee Cake or Blueberry Breakfast Scones. Lunch might consist of Curried Crab Salad, Teriyaki Beef Soup or a Muffuleta. Finish your meal with Mango and Raspberry Tart, Berries With Zabaglione or Mocha Pudding Cake. Asian influences are seen in a number of recipes, such as Thai-Spiced Scallops, Asian-Style Turkey, Beef Satay With Spicy Peanut Sauce and Hoisin and Citrus Shrimp Saute. There are alternatives if Asian is not your taste. You may choose instead tastes from other cuisines: Southwestern Black Bean Cakes With Guacamole, Broccoli Omelet Provencale, West Indies Chicken With Fruit and Greek Lamb Salad With Yogurt Dressing. The America's Test Kitchen Cookbook
The America's Test Kitchen Cookbook is more than a collection of recipes. The editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine show good food, bad food, what works and what doesn't, equipment ratings, food tasting results and science experiments. This cookbook is also the companion to the PBS series America's Test Kitchen, which premieres this month. The 26 chapters run the culinary gamut from soups to fried chicken to holiday dinners to cookouts to desserts. A plus in each chapter are the companion recipes to the main event. For example, the spaghetti and meatballs chapter shows how to brown meatballs and make a smooth tomato sauce. But what is a pasta dinner without garlic bread? Learn how to make crisp bread with a sweet, nutty flavor, plus check out suggestions for three variations. Scattered throughout the chapters are instructions for peeling shrimp, mincing garlic to a paste, steaming rice and tying a prime rib, among other culinary tasks. There is nothing particularly creative about the recipes here. The ingredients are readily available and the instructions easy to follow, especially those that include step-by-step illustrations. Each chapter begins with no fewer than two pages explaining the test results, what problems were encountered during the testing and how those problems were remedied. This information is helpful, although it is better suited to novice cooks. There is good information about the equipment and food taste tests, but this is really a matter of personal preference. Some things tested include ketchup, vegetable peelers, corkscrews and boxed stuffing. The most interesting information comes from the "science desk," which explains such issues as why potatoes turn brown, how brining works and how key lime pie thickens. The America's Test Kitchen Cookbook is about getting basic recipes right, something that's always welcome. Caprial's Desserts
If you suffer from "pastry phobia," Caprial's Desserts will help you overcome your fears. Like a culinary class, this cookbook focuses on the basic process pastry chefs practice daily, using master recipes and techniques as a springboard for developing creative desserts. With more than 60 master recipes in seven chapters, the possibilities are endless. Turn Sour Cream Cheesecake into Berry Cheesecake, Individual Mocha-Orange Cheesecakes or Chocolate Cheesecake. The authors offer a choice of crusts, either crumb crust or chocolate cookie crumb crust, making a total of eight potential recipes. The ingredients used in these recipes are common to most baking recipes, and the instructions are relatively easy. A mixer is beneficial with many of the recipes, especially Angel Food Cake, where the directions say to "whip 12 egg whites on high speed until frothy." This is not a task to be done by hand. Caprial's Desserts teaches the home chef how to transform a basic recipe into a foolproof dessert. Take the traditional Apple Pie and turn it into a Maple-Bourbon Apple Pie with the addition of two simple steps. Add a Florida flair to Creme Brulee with coconut milk or take basic Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and make Fresh Peach Ice Cream. The variations to the basic recipe are invaluable, but there are recipes to make the dish all the more special. Hard sauce is the traditional sauce to serve with Bread Pudding; however, variations include serving a berry sauce with the Lemon-Almond Bread Pudding or a Caramel-Apple Sauce with the Apple Bread Pudding. The final chapter addresses Desserts for Special Occasions. These recipes are a bit more difficult, but don't despair. With some experience, you can make shortcuts. Frozen puff pastry should be acceptable for the Hazelnut Palimers. If you want to make this pastry from scratch, you'll find the step-by-step color photographs helpful. These "special desserts" do not have suggestions for additional recipes. It is almost inconceivable how Chocolate Toffee Mousse Cake or Raspberry-Almond Praline Napoleons could be improved. - Ellen Folkman's cookbook review column appears monthly in the Taste section.
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From the Times Taste section From the features wire |
