Fast Food Fix: 75+ Amazing Recipe Makeovers of Your Fast Food Restaurant Favorites (Paperback)

by Devin Alexander (Author)
Key Phrases: popcorn chicken, reserved baking sheet, preshredded potatoes, Big Mac, Burger King, Los Angeles (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Is it possible to make fries that taste just like McDonald's with no trans-fatty-acids? Yes, but it's not easy. Blessed with an obsessive, analytical mind and cursed with a craving for Burger King, Alexander offers healthier (but not necessarily healthy) substitutes for brand name burgers, milkshakes, fries and pizza. In true fast food fashion, recipes are single servings, but some are generous enough to serve two. Though substitutions are included (use a whole wheat for a white bun or turkey for pork), Alexander reminds readers the goal is to "cut fat and calories...without affecting taste." This takes precision: though the Popeye's Cajun Battered Fries are still spicy and delicious and relatively straight-forward to make, the recipe for Hardee's 1/3-lb Western Bacon Thickburger has steps for breading onion strings, frying bacon, forming and grilling the burger, preparing the bun and making barbeque sauce. Luckily, her directions are clear and her comments are funny-in the KFC Popcorn Chicken recipe she tells of dissecting 38 popcorn pieces and finding chicken in only 20, then explains how to make the recipe "drive-though" style by preparing ahead and freezing batches. And the fabled McDonald's French Fries? They aren't quite the same and they're a pain to recreate, but they taste great. Fast food addicts with moderate kitchen savvy may find themselves hooked.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description

Indulge your fast food cravings without guilt—with recipes that deliver the same great taste without putting your health at risk or inches on your hips
Americans all want to "eat healthy," but when they yearn for the fast foods they love, what they want most are the fabulous flavors that have made them favorites in the first place. That’s what makes this collection of recipe makeovers so exceptional. Los Angeles food writer, chef, and caterer Devin Alexander specializes in low-fat, high-flavor, scrumptious cuisine. In Fast Food Fix, she shows the reader how to transform 75 fast food favorites into healthier versions that are even more flavorful than the originals. Fast Food Fix:
• demystifies the special seasonings and secret sauces of choice fast foods—showing how to reproduce their flavors quickly and easily from common ingredients
• teaches how to lighten many dishes with new cooking techniques, such as the oven-frying method that yields incredibly crunchy popcorn chicken with 35 fewer fat grams than the original version from KFC
• reveals simplified cooking methods that save time in the kitchen, proving that "fast food" can still be fast even when prepared at home
For Americans hooked on fast food flavors, these recipe makeovers by a chef with an impressive repertoire of culinary tricks will quickly become a kitchen staple.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books (April 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594863105
• ISBN-13: 978-1594863103
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #39,074 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #87 in

  Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Culinary Arts & Techniques

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! Yummy and Easy Recipes, June 4, 2006

By	umsami "amazon-junkie since 1996" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

I ordered this book after seeing an excerpt in Women's Health. I've been really surprised by the quality of the recipes (and the fat content and calories of the originals!) The first thing I made was the Big Mac sauce to dress up some burgers. It was yummy... and tasted just like the original. To be honest, you could easily put this stuff on anything... including veggie burgers.... and it would taste great. This book even inspired me to purchase my first kitchen scale. You don't need it to do the recipes, but in reading how she recreated the fast food favorites I thought I could do the same with other restaurant favs. My only complaint is that I still can't find a potato curler anywhere (online or off) to make the Curly Fries... unless it's part of a $50+ garnishing set. I'm thinking about taking a 3 month break from all fast food restaurants for myself and my family and resorting to this book instead. Note: You can find lots of these recipes online for free if you'd like to try one. But I think once you have, you'll buy the book!

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Amazing, June 2, 2006

By	Angee (Ozone Park, New York United States) - See all my reviews

I have absolutely no complaints about this book. The recipes are easy to understand. Alexander describes them clearly and simply. As for the taste, absolutely delicious. Even if all the recipes don't taste exactly the same as their fast food counterparts, they come quite close and the money and calories that you'll save more than makes up for it. I highly recommend this book. I'm still amazed at how right on the money some recipes are, like the Big Mac Sauce. The recipes are quick and easy and I guarantee you'll use this book again and again.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book full of healthy copycat recipes., March 19, 2007

By	Boston Book Addict (Boston, Mass.) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I used to love fast food. However, recently I have become much more health conscious and have watched my fat and calorie intake and have avoided heavily processed foods. If you're in the same boat as me, you will probably love this book. This book contains pleathora of recipes, many of which are probably your fast food favorites. What's great about it is that while she is able to significantly cut back on fat and calories, she still tries to keep the recipes as close to their restaurant counterparts as possible. In other words, there will still be beef in the Big Mac, not turkey. She also keeps the portion sizes the same and in some instances, portions are even larger. The proof is also in the taste. The recipes taste shockingly close to the originals (the Big Mac and Dunkin Donut's Cranberry Orange Muffins are my favorites). You can tell she has put a lot of diligence into testing and perfecting the recipes.

In her preface, she also offers some very interesting nuggets about nutrition and the restaurant industry in general and some inconsistencies she's seen. Even if you don't make any of the recipes, this information can be eye opening.

My one complaint is that I wish there were suggestions to lighten the recipes even further. She does provide some, but it would be great to get even more tips since some of these recipes, while healthier, are still somewhat indulgent to someone on a reduced calorie diet. This cookbook also doesn't seem like the quick and easy variety a la Rachel Ray. This doesn't trouble me because I actually like spending time in the kitchen, but for those looking for an extremely easy, 3-4 ingredient meal this probably isn't the best cookbook.