Healthy Eating Books - A couple of mini-reviews

[Taz]

I've just received a couple of healthy eating books through Amazon on healthy eating.

The first book is called Healthy Eating For Two (or just you) by Frances Price, costing £7.69. It's a 310-page paperback with hundreds of recipes for all types of meals with the focus on healthy eating. Each recipe has the ingredients listed for different numbers of diners (eg. 1 serving and 2 servings) so it's hard to make a mistake with the amount of each ingredient. It's a fairly advanced cookbook and probably more suited to the more experienced person rather than someone like me who does not know how to turn the oven on! However, the recipes seem to be excellent but there are no photos of the finished dish.

At the bottom of each recipe is a listing of the nutritional breakdown of the dish. I've skimmed through many of the recipes and am very impressed with the nutritional content of them. Interwoven with the recipes are a handful of general cooking guidelines which make for interesting reading. You'll also need a fairly well equipped kitchen to make some of the dishes. Anyhow, the recipes in this book are something to aspire to for a complete beginner like me.

Here's a random selection of recipes from this book to get your stomach rumbling:
- Cincinnati Turkey Chili
- Texas Caviar
- Gazpacho Salad
- Spicy Sesame Noodles
- Greengrocers Frittata
- Turkey Florentine
- Creamy Cider Scallops
- New Light Greens
- Strwaberry-Rhubarb Cobbler
- Pears Poached in Red Wine

The other book is called Low Fat Meals In Minutes by Ainsley Harriott, costing £6.25 (price marked on book: £14.99). I know it sounds corny but I think this book is much better than the previous one. It's a 192-page hardback with the pages colour-coded into sections so that you can easily turn to the type of meal you want to make. The layout of this book is superb and very clear. There is a clearly-visible coloured box showing the nutritional content of the dish. The facing page shows a full-colour picture of the finished dish.

The text is simple to read and understand with the preparation time, cooking time and the number of people the dish will serve stated before the recipe itself. Most of the dishes use very simple foodstuffs available from grocery stores. You can also get away with a fairly basically equipped kitchen. This is the book i'll be starting with and after a few months, i'll look at some of the recipes in the first book.

Here's a random selection of recipes from this book to get your stomach rumbling:
- Celeriac, Orange and Saffron Soup
- Baked Cantonese Cod Corners
- Jamaican Jerk Chicken
- Thai-style Mince with Fragrant Rice
- Spicy Beanburgers
- Vegetable Creole-crunch Salad
- Fruity Cocont Yoghurt Treat
- Fresh Cherryade