Customer Reviews

Bobby Flay's Grilling For Life: 75 Healthier Ideas for Big Flavor from the Fire

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

`Grilling for Life' is the second Bobby Flay book I have reviewed and it is very similar to his last book. Like `Boy Gets Grill', it is relatively short at only 75 recipes to the earlier book's 125. It is correspondingly less expensive than similar celebrity cookbooks. At a list price of $22, it is worth about 120 recipes if it were priced at the celeb cookbook median of $35. The theme of the book is highlighted by a nutritional analysis of all the recipes plus a selection of recipes that naturally avoid empty calories, saturated fat, and excess sodium.

In addition to the low recipe count, you also get the budget treatment from the photography, which is almost entirely in black and white and almost entirely of small amateur looking snapshots of Bobby at the grill. The book has none of the insider culinary wisdom I have seen in my last two reviewed books written by chefs (Gordon Ramsay and Michael Schlow). On the other side of the coin, Bobby does give us some very nice, no nonsense introductory chapters on basic grilling equipment; cooking to safe meat temperatures; herbs, spices, and chiles; flavorings; and basic grilling how-tos. All of these sections are done in the confident style of someone who knows what he is talking about and without a trace of doubt. This is in spite of at least one egregious error that probably has Alton Brown cringing in his `Iron Chef America' anchor chair at his colleague's scientific gaff. The error was in Bobby's correctly rejecting an artificial sweetener for the very wrong reason that it contained chlorine. Just two pages later, Bobby sings to the importance and varieties of table salt, which is half chlorine and half sodium, an explosive metal!

Flay repeats one really great feature from his earlier book when he gives the titles of each and every recipe in his table of contents. He also repeats his appendix of Internet sources.

The overriding raison d'ętre of this book is to give us nutritionally sensible recipes, ideally to replace all the high saturated fat, high sugar recipes in all the world's previous grilling recipes. And, the nutritional analysis is done by a professional dietitian, Joy Bauer, who oddly, is not given author's crediting, only the honor of writing the foreword.

One very good thing about the book's nutritional strategy is that it does not follow any one-diet plan. Rather, it gives you all the facts you need to have about the amount of total fats, saturated fats, cholesterol, carbohydrates, sugar, protein, sodium, fiber, and total calories. Thus, you pick your regimen and look for the recipes that fit that regimen, be it low carb, low fat, high fiber, or low calorie. The problem is that in order to find the recipes that best fit your lifestyle, you have to be pretty sophisticated about nutrition. For example, is 410 milligrams of sodium a lot or a little? It seems like a big number, yet a milligram is a very, very small amount. The same recipe shows 30 grams of fat, which seems like a small number, except that a gram is 1000 times larger than a milligram. The blocks of nutritional analyses would have been just a little more useful if they would have included the minimum daily requirements for a middle aged person of slightly higher than normal weight. A similar service would have been to give a nutritional summary for the party menus at the end of the book, summing up all the statistics for the various dishes in the menus. A third nutritional service the book overlooks is to provide a good moderate calorie / low carb barbecue sauce. In the index, there is no reference to any recipe for barbecue sauce at all. A fourth idea would have been to give a cross reference of recipes by type of diet, whether low fat, low calorie, low carb, or vegetarian.

Bobby's general outlook on healthy eating is the same as mine and the same as Rachael Ray's point of view in her latest book, '30 Minute Get Real Meals'. That is, avoid empty calories and eat reasonably sized portions. Bobby (and Rachael) both avoid extreme products such as 0 fat imitation cheeses and other dairy products. This is important not only because non-fat dairy (and many dairy imitation products such as margarine) simply do not behave the same as the real thing when baked or sautéed. Like Bobby, I also like to avoid the synthetic weight loss foods as you can never tell what some of the many chemicals put into the mix will do to you over time. We learned our lesson on margarine and transfats. I'll stick to moderate amounts of real butter and vegetable oils and go easy on other animal fats.

So why provide all the statistics when the objective would have been served by portion sizing, replacing white bread with lettuce wraps and whole grain flatbreads, and avoiding transfat sources. As I said above, these numbers are still useful if either carbohydrate or protein or fat content is important to your regimen.

As far as the recipes go, they are all classic Flay, with lots of strong flavors from chiles, cilantro, garlic and onions, vinegars, ginger, fresh herbs, and strongly flavored cheeses. There are a few grill friendly recipes such as cole slaw that are not actually grilled, but the large majority of the recipes have one or more grilled ingredients. Flay keeps the recipe selection on the healthy side by using lots of vegetable recipes (15), seafood recipes (26), and poultry recipes (11). That's over 2/3 of the recipes right there. There are only 16 four hoofed meat recipes and 8 drink and dessert recipes to round out the count. In addition to the selection, I really like the very simple organization into basic ingredients. All this really fits Bobby's `no nonsense American boy made good in the kitchen' persona.

Recommended to health conscience grilling enthusiasts.

Flay is grillin' genius and consummate spokesman for smoke in cooking. Here he takes off on carb craze by teaming up with a nutritionist to provide grillin' recipes with good carbs in mind. Further, the nutritionist (Joy Bauer) testifies that Flay utilizes lots of disease busting ingreds, e.g. olive oil, chile peppers, etc. He's interested here in purity of flavor.

Collection is extensive and creative, not just carb redos of some regulars, although some are included as well. Those tried so far are fabulous, e.g. Grilled Fennel and Orange Salad with Almonds and Mint; Grilled German Sweet Potato Salad; Red Cabbage and Beet Slaw; Grilled Spice-Rubbed Vidalia Onions; Buckwheat Pizza with Cilantro Pesto, Jack Cheese and Grilled Shrimp; Grilled Red Snapper with Grapefruit-Thyme Mojo; Souvlaki with Merguez Sausage and Pepper-Yogurt Sauce; Cantaloupe-Mint Agua Fresca;

Each recipe has great, clear instructions along with sections on equipment, sources, menu/party suggests.

Thus, this is serious consideration for the healthy conscious into great grillin' food for friends and family.

I liked the book but was surprised by the amount of fat in some of the recipes. Although I believe grilling is healthier than pan cooking or frying, I was surprised by the amount of recipes that had nothing to do with grilling. From salads to desserts. I was hoping for more on grilled desserts that are light and fresh off the grill. Liked the book, but was disappointing in many of the recipes and the fat count on alot of the recipes are high!

Bobby Flay's recipes are outstanding. I wouldn't dream of trying to compete with his selection of ingredients, but frankly, I cannot always get the freshest seafood where I live, my budget does not always allow for the purchase of expensive meats, and I do not always have the time to prepare some recipes.

I tried this book by first borrowing it from the Public Library. At first glance, I was not sure it would work for me, but then, on page 193, I read how Flay suggests mixing and matching his vinaigrettes, relishes, sauces to my needs. He also gives specific suggestions on what to pair with which type of protein, so I thought I would try it.

For example: My husband and I made the Grilled Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Goat Cheese with Green Chile-Cilantro Sauce. They are excellent, but the pounding, stuffing and grilling of the chicken breasts takes more time than our schedule often allows.

We vowed to enjoy the original recipe again as soon as possible, but in the meantime, we have used the Green Chile-Cilantro sauce for everything from our own, quick garlic-grilled chicken tacos to omelets (using the sauce with eggs came from a suggestion in the book). This single sauce recipe alone makes purchasing the book worthwhile.

Since then, I continue to experiment with fitting Flay's sauces and seasonings into my lifestyle and budget. I can take the simplest vegetable or protein, put a Flay sauce on top, and turn it into an impressive burst of flavor.

What is equally important: Flay includes the nutritional information on each recipe.

Publishers take note: A growing number of us want nutritional information in ALL cookbooks, regardless of the type of recipes they contain -- those of us who love great food yet also love to take care of ourselves -- those of us who are not looking for "diet" recipes, but rather want the highest quality recipes with the perfect ingredients. Taste mixed with portion control is what is important to us, and having the nutritional information is a wonderful asset that allows us to enjoy whatever we want.

Amazon, perhaps you will take note, too? How about allowing us to search your cookbook selections by showing us exactly which cookbooks contain nutritional information and which ones do not?

This is an outstanding cookbook you will really USE. I had to purchase it.

There are already plenty of 'how to grill' cookbooks on the market: so what makes Babby Flay, Stephanie Banyas & Sally Jackson's Grilling For Life: 75 Healthier Ideas For Big Flavor From The Fire something special? It's the first to address issues of how to get the boldest flavor possible from food and fire while making healthy choices in the process. From choosing heart-healthy oils and herbs to using vinegars and honey to replace sugared commercial sauce options, Grilling For Life is packed with juicy ideas - many of them refreshingly different.

This is a great book for people who like to grill and who also want to eat healthier. The recipes are amazing, they're typical Bobby, full of flavor and bold. I was never a fan of Bobby until I got his "Bobby Flay Cooks American" and tried some of his recipes. They were flavorful, mouthwatering and simply wonderful, and this book's recipes are just as good. I gave the book 4 stars only because it has very few photographs. It only has about 6 pages of photographs with about 14 recipes featured in them, even thought the book has 75 recipes. If that doesn't bother you, I'm sure you'll enjoy this book and the great recipes it contains.

The recipes were easy to follow, his descriptions and advice were awesome and the food was absolutely delicious. Highly recommended.

I'm by far an inexperienced amateur chef...I tried one recipe so far: Salmon filets w/ pepper relish & anchovie vinaigrette. It took me two hours to prepare a 1/2 hour meal but the end result was great. I'm looking forward to my next conquest. Give this book a shot. Happy Grilling!

Another excellent Bobby Flay cookbook. His recipes are easy to follow and packed with flavor. When sitting down to a home preparted Flay menu, it almost makes you want to start your own restaurant. Delicious!

I bought this book on a whim for my father for father's day. I couldn't have made a better choice. Every recipe he's tried has been fantastic so far and it's really sparked his passion for cooking.

Flay gives easy step-by-step instructions and great advice on purchasing grill accessories, etc. I cook all the time and was able to glean some interesting information from the text as well.

I couldn't recommend this book enough. It's the best grilling book we've found (and we've tried a bunch).