The Best of Cooking Light: Over 500 of Our All-Time Greatest Recipes (Hardcover)
June 30, 2009 by TheChef
Filed under Artistic Culinary Art Styles
Product Description
Here?s great news for cooks who love creating fabulous meals with fewer calories and far less fat. Now, from the world?s largest epicurean magazine comes its biggest collection of gourmet-inspired, easy-to-prepare, and health-conscious recipes ever. Spanning 17 years, The Best of Cooking Light features more than 500 of the editors? hand-picked favorites.
About the Author
Launched in 1987, Cooking Light is America’s favorite food magazine. Every month, more than 11 million readers turn to it for the freshest ideas in food and fitness to help them eat smart, be fit, and live well.
Buy The Best of Cooking Light: Over 500 of Our All-Time Greatest Recipes (Hardcover) at Amazon
I am rarely a collector of “Best of” anythings, usually finding them too confusing and incomplete. Besides, who’s deciding the “best”…?
This book is an exception. As a seriously addicted Foodie, my new cookbooks are read as I would a novel; from cover to cover. If there is a recipe that I want to try I mark it with one of those little colored post-its. This book is full of little purple post-its. Even though I subscribe to the magazine of the same name, and make at least one thing out of it each month, there is something quite satisfying about having all 500 of the “best” recipes in one volume, without all the ads.
Pictures are divine. The instructions clear as a bell. It has recipes for novice and intermediate cooks alike. Some recipes are quick to prepare and others can take awhile. But none are very complicated. I made the “Gorgonzola Fettuccine with Asparagus” in about 25 minutes (including preparing the asparagus) for a surprise lunch guest, and the very nice “Eggplant Parmesan Lasagne” in about an hour when my guy and I decided last minute to nix dinner “out”. The “Caesar Potato Salad” was oh-so-good with a roasted chicken on a busy Sunday (the touches of anchovy paste and vermouth were fun.)
Almost every recipe makes some sort of substitution in the name of lower calories and fat, satisfying the “light” part of the title, but this is not a low-carb book (thank goodness…) I like having the nutritional information handy, even if I don’t feel like planning a meal around it!
Bottom line…nothing out-of-this-world innovative or exotic or too new, really. But good, interesting, easy to prepare, lower calorie, everyday recipes in ONE volume. A great book to add to your collection or give to the beginning “foodie” in your circle!
A passionate home cook that has been honing her cooking skills for the last 25 years, concentrating on Italian cooking for the last 10 years, writes this review. My favorite cookbooks are “The Professional Chef” by the Culinary Institute and “Culinary Artistry”. With more than 500 cookbooks in my collection I tend to be critical of the new additions to my cookbook library. This book has turned out to be a little gem with only a few areas that I would change.
The book is subdivided as follows:
Appetizers and Beverages
Breads
Fish and Shellfish
Meatless Main Dishes
Meats
Poultry
Salads
Sandwiches
Sides
Soups
Desserts
The recipes in this book have great taste, balanced nutrition and straightforward preparation. The instructions are very concise and easy to follow for both the novice and seasoned cook alike.
My overall observations about the book are as follows:
Pros:
1. Book covers many ethnic cuisines in its recipes
2. The recipes are always very good, and differ little in taste compared to the high fat versions
3. Recipe directions are very thorough
4. Bread section is very nice, and many of the recipes are quicker than most bread books
5. Complete Nutritional Analysis is given for each recipe (Calories, Fat, Saturated Fat, Protein, Carbohydrates, Fiber, Cholesterol, Iron, Sodium and Calcium)
6. Most recipes have a full color picture provided in the book
7. Nice sturdy binding that will stand up to many years of constant use
Cons:
1. Shortening (aka: Trans fat) does show up in some of the recipes. I expected cooking light to specify the use of the new trans fat free shortening and they did not.
2. I could have used a little more whole-wheat flour and less white flour in the recipes as well.
As a reader of Cooking Light for about a decade, I have always been pleased with their ability to take a standard “unhealthy” dish and improve its nutritional statistics. In all those years I have yet to find a Cooking Light dish that didn’t taste great. I give Cooking Light kudos for making over many of my favorite recipes so that my family can enjoy them more often.
I have given this book 4 stars instead of 5 because the editors did try to make the recipes healthier by reducing the white flour where appropriate and by eliminating standard shortening and recommending trans fat free shortening instead. Overall it is a very solid healthy cookbook, but their is a little room for improvement.
“The Best of ….” books are ideal for people who don’t subscribe to the magazine, and I don’t. What this book does is clearly point out that the idea of cooking light doesn’t have to be the usual bland stuff.
When I opened the book it fell open to Roasted-Poblano Guacamole. Wow! Then I flipped a few pages and came up with Buffalo-Style Catfish Strips. Double Wow!
There’s a whole section on breads. I don’t normally bake, but their Jamaican Banana Bread just happened to fit the ripe bananas sitting on the counter. The rum, pecan and coconut topping for the bread sounds great. The bread has just finished cooking as I write so I can’t tell about it yet (too hot). I had to sample the topping while preparing it and it’s wonderful — just like the whole house smells.
This book is organized by the big dishes: breads, meats, soups, desserts, etc. The only real question is how light can these foods be, yet the banana bread took half or less of the sugar that most banana bread recipes require. That’s a lot lighter. Highly recommended.
5.0 out of 5 stars
love the magazine? then you’ll love this cookbook
I subscribe to Cooking Light and don’t often get to read the entire magazine, let alone cook most of the recipies in them.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Light and Tasty
Wonderful cookbook. Variety of recipes that are easy, tasty and do not hurt the waistline too badly.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A permanent addition to my kitchen!
I have made 4-5 recipies from this book and each has turned out great. They are suprisingly easy and do not taste bland, like so many other light recipies I have enountered.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome light cookbook!
I was skeptical about the recipes in a “light” cookbook, but I’ve tried a couple of the recipes so far, and they’ve been FABULOUS!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book!
I just got this book recently and I only made one recipe. I made the Tomato-Basil Soup and it was FANTASTIC!
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great all-around cookbook
I have a ton of cookbooks, but I still think this is a worthwhile one to have! I love the magazine, and the cookbook is a great supplement to that.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome cookbook!
As a young 20 something just out of college, its sometimes hard to find cookbooks that don’t have “weird” ingredients, cutlery, or other supplies necessary.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A necessity in any kitchen
I love my new Cooking Light cook book. It has everything I need, even an entire section on vegetarian mains for those times I’m having vegetarians for dinner and want to impress…
5.0 out of 5 stars
kukkimom
This book is superb. It has fantastic photos — a must for me because I like to see what my dishes will look like, not just read about them. The recipes I’ve tried are great!
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you only have one cookbook . .
If you only have one cookbook - this should be it. At least, if you are trying to eat healthy and look like a gourmet cook at the same time!