I've Seen Better Cookbooks
Written: Apr 27 '05 (Updated May 05 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Well organized, pictures
Cons: Time consuming recipes, costly ingredients
The Bottom Line: I'm rating this book only average. Only a very few recipes in the book are easy to prepare and are tasty.
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| krus54's Full Review: The South Beach Diet Cookbook Books |
I have wanted to write a review of this cookbook for some time but I wanted to give the book a fair chance. I don’t buy that many cookbooks anymore because I find I can get just as many recipes off the Internet for free.
But the South Beach Diet cookbook is different. There are not THAT many recipes for this diet available from other sources.
I will tell you right away I'm not going to waste your time listing out the all the names of all the recipes. I will mention a few that we found particularly good and some that we tasted and then promptly dumped in the trash.
What is the South Beach Diet?
According to the doctor that devised this diet, Arthur Agatston, this is an easy-to-follow, three phase heart healthy diet, which teaches the right carbs and wrong carbs as well as the right fats, and wrong fats to eat. I have lost about 30 pounds over the past year or so on this diet. And it wasn't that difficult to do. By the way, one of the other reviewers of this book mentioned that she was glad to include this book with her other low-carb books. This diet is not a low-carb or low-fat diet. It's eating the RIGHT carbs and fats and it is very important to read the original SBD book (blue cover) to understand this diet.
I will get to the bottom line first. This book is fair. I have three big complaints about it:
1) The recipes call for a lot of fresh herbs or other ingredients that are costly. Fresh herbs are expensive and I have found that I will use them for one or two dishes and then they go in the trash after another couple of weeks in the refrigerator. Some of the recipes require a small amount of ingredients that you would rarely or never use again. So you would have to buy an entire jar/package/can, use your tablespoon or two and then the rest will most likely get discarded. For instance, how often will you use chipotle pepper powder after you have used the 1 teaspoon or double-strength tomato concentrate (Italian tube). For how many other recipes have you used ancho chilie powder, capers, flaxseed oil or tamarind paste? For those of us on a budget, I believe some of these can be expensive meals to cook.
2) There are not enough recipes from this book that I would ever cook, because my wife and I are fairly picky eaters. Recipes such as Grilled Clams Gremolata, Spiced Pickled Eggs, Cottage Cheese Stuffed Celery just did not appeal to us.
3) A good number of the recipes can take a fairly long time to put together and cook.
The recipes are presented in a very clear, concise manner. Each recipe lists the number of servings and the nutrition per serving, and which phase of the diet the recipe can be used for.
For the most part, there are not as many Phase I recipes in the book as I would have liked because Phase 1 is the most restrictive. That's where someone might need the most help in finding foods to eat. It's a two-week period in which most all carbohydrates are cut out of the diet. This is to wean the body from the carb cravings. I won't go into details. You can read the original South Beach Diet book (which also has some recipes) to get all that information. The Appetizer section has the most Phase I recipes and the least any of the other phases.
In Phase 2 of the diet, you can start adding back the 'right' carbs: wild or brown rice, sweet potatoes, sugar-free preserves, whole wheat bread, and several other no-no's that were not permitted in Phase I.
Phase 3 is the least restrictive and I have not gone to phase 3 or tried any of the recipes.
I read a couple of the other reviews of this book and the reviews make the the book look very appealing, especially the listings of some of the recipes. The problem is that many of those really good sounding recipes take a LOT of time to prepare and cook and/or they are Phase 3 recipes. It's MY guess that many people buying this book are looking for Phase 1 or Phase 2 recipes.
There is only ONE Phase 1 dessert in the book: "Chilled Espresso Custard" and I can tell you we won't be preparing that one!
For those on the diet here's a recipe (modified from the SBD book): Get some Polly-O brand reduced-fat ricotta cheese. Polly-O is the best I've had because when you blend it up, it has a smooth texture, unlike Sorrento or other brands that can have a 'gritty' texture. Add two packets of Splenda and some sugar free vanilla syrup (order from Davinci Gourmet online which has a HUGE line of sugar free syrups). Use a blender and add just a few mini-chocolate chips. It's heaven! It tastes very close to the filling from a Cannoli.
How the book is organized
The first three sections discuss what the diet is, how to stock your kitchen for the diet, and a Q&A from Dr. Agatston.
Next are the recipe sections:
Breakfast
Appetizers and Snacks
Soups
Salads
Side Dishes and Accompaniments
Fish, Shellfish, and Poultry
Meats
Vegetarian Entrees
Desserts
What kinds of recipes worked for us?
Grilled Canadian Bacon (Phase 2):
We don't eat pork in the house so I had to make a substitution for Canadian Bacon. Jennie-O (The Turkey Store) brand makes an Extra Lean Turkey Ham which comes in a 2-3 pound package. It's usually stocked with the packaged hams. We have the grocery deli slice up into thick slices. When fried this tastes almost exactly like Canadian Bacon. This recipe calls for ¼-inch slices. The Canadian Bacon (or substitute) is broiled for about 4 minutes. The slices are turned, and sugar Free apricot preserves are brushed on the bacon and put back under the broiler until well-done. This is excellent.
Buckwheat Pancakes (Phase 2):
This is made with buckwheat flour, whole wheat flour (I use King Arthur White Whole Wheat which is available in most of the local grocery stores), and unsweetened applesauce. This makes a lot of pancakes. I freeze them and then in the morning it's a quick breakfast to put a couple of them in the microwave, heat, and have with sugar free pancake syrup.
Black Bean Soup (Phase 1)
I love black bean soup. This turned out to be a good recipe but like many of the recipes in the book took a lot time because the recipe calls for dried beans which need soaking. I also added a touch of hot sauce to spice it up.
Oven-Fried Chicken with Almonds-Phase 2
We don't like the taste of the almonds, so we left them out of this recipe. This is made with whole wheat bread crumbs. We didn't think this would be very good, but it turned out fantastic.
What kinds of recipes DIDN’T work for us?
Spicy Chinese Chicken Kebabs-Phase 2
Last week I tried these, made with OJ, hoisin sauce, sugar free ketchup (Heinz makes ketchup now with Splenda!), Chinese Chili sauce with garlic, and sesame oil.
This dish smelled incredible but just did not taste very good. It may have been because we used the George Foreman grill rather than grill outside. I'm not sure. But we were VERY disappointed because there just wasn't much flavor to the dish. Also, you can see from the ingredients that this is another dish that can cost a lot of money. How many people regularly use Chinese Chili sauce with Garlic or Sesame Oil? I stock those particular ingredients in the house because I occasionally cook Chinese
Chicken Capri-Phase 1
This doesn’t take much time to put together. It looks like it should be good but surprisingly, it had very little flavor! Made with reduced-fat ricotta, oregano, boneless chicken, garlic, reduced-fat mozzarella and crushed tomatoes. It may have been better if we used Italian style tomatoes (as long as they don't have any added sugar or corn syrup) but we won't try again. We didn’t save the leftovers....hmmm, actually, we didn't even finish the firsts. It got dumped in the trash and we had salad for dinner.
Sesame Baked Chicken-Phase 2
This one was so tasteless, I had to put an “X” on the page to remember not to ever make it again.
Final Comments
There’s probably a dozen recipes, at best, in this book that we’ll use. Overall, I’m disappointed in this.
Some of the other reviewers for this book noted that that there are over 200 recipes in this book making it sound like there's a huge selection. In my opinion, it's not that many. If you take those 200 recipes and break them out by each of the recipe section (appetizers, meats, etc.) then categorize each one of those into Phase 1, 2, and 3 you will find there really aren't THAT many recipes for each phase for each recipe type.
But don't be too discouraged if you're on this diet. When you’ve read the original SBD book and understand what you can and cannot eat and after you’ve been on the diet, you’ll have a pretty good idea on how you can successfully modify many other recipes.
Recommended:
No
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krus54
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Member: Dave Schwartz
Location: Henrico, VA
Reviews written: 134
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