Current Cookbook - The South Beach Diet Quick & Easy Cookbook

THE SOUTH BEACH DIET QUICK & EASY COOKBOOK - 200 Delicious Recipes Ready in 30 Minutes or Less - by Arthur Agatston, MD

This cookbook has a copyright of 2005. I don't know where I go this book. I have cooked from this book many times.

I'm not going to get into talks about diets or whether the South Beach Diet works. I will say if you are on the South Beach Diet or think you want to try South Beach, buy this book.

I find that eating low carb or "good carb" can be a bit tricky. It usually means eating a lot of fresh foods which means many trips to the grocery store and time to prepare all that fresh food (don't tell me to cook stuff on Sunday to prep for the coming week, that would entail being home on Sundays). This means I can't stick some pre-made frozen dinner in the microwave to be ready in five minutes nor is stopping by the local fast food place usually part of the diet. If you are busy or get home late after errands or the gym, getting dinner on the table quickly with fresh foods can be time consuming. That's why diet books that deal with quick meals are my favorites. And yes, I can hear you now. "But Mrs. L, fresh foods are quick to throw meals together". You are not me and I take twice as long to prepare a 30 minute meal...sometimes even longer.

Mr. L and I have tried quite a few recipes in this book and not only are they pretty quick, but they don't taste bad either. Remember, South Beach isn't a low fat, tastes like cardboard, no sauce, all you are allowed to eat is celery, type of diet...it's full of a variety of tasty fresh foods.

The front of the book gives an extensive list of ingredients that work for the diet (like which cheeses are best) and some info on quick meals you can make without a recipe. Unlike most of the other books of his, there is not a lot of info on the diet in general.

Chapters are pretty general (breakfast, poultry, desserts etc.) with each recipe giving which Phase of the diet it's okay for, along with some nutrition information (calories, saturated fats etc.). No really out there ingredents. There are some recipes that require "packaged" foods (like pesto from a jar, canned beans, low fat shredded cheese).

If you are on the South Beach diet and have a life I highly recommend this book. I've already posted a couple of recipes from this book like Baked Pesto Chicken and Beef and Bean Chili.

If you are not on South Beach but on Atkins, Somersize, Mediteranian or any other "healtly carb" lifestyle, this book would probably work for you too.

Comments

[Emie]

This Cook book has many nutritious food we can cook?