A Guy's Guide to Great Eating: Big-Flavored Fat-Reduced Recipes for Men Who Love to Eat [Paperback]

Don Mauer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1999

From the author of the spectacularly successful Lean and Lovin' It, a brawny collection of big-flavored, fat-reduced recipes for men who love to eat. A once overweight guy who never met a food he didn't love, Don Mauer learned the hard way that most low-fat cookbooks don't appeal to meat-and-potatoes taste buds and come with skimpy portions that may work for New York fashion models but leave men hungry. This cookbook is different, written for men by a real guy with a big appetite. The 175 easy-to-make recipes - Smokin' Chili Pepper Cheeseburgers, Seemingly Sinful Fat-Free Roasted Garlic Whipped Potatoes, Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Pie, Fresh Blueberry Cobbler - are based on Mauer's own favorites. The guy-sized portions get 20 percent or less of their calories from fat, and each recipe comes with a full nutritional analysis, including the amount of saturated fat. A Guy's Guide to Great Eating will end the arguments in the kitchen between men who insist on eating what they love and the people who love them.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For anyone who loves good food, it can be a sad, sad day when the doctor looks you in the eye and tells you to strip the fat out of your diet. It's one of those "if you fail, you die" messages. Never pleasant.

Best to keep on hand a copy of Don Mauer's A Guy's Guide to Great Eating, if only for moral support in times of dread. Mauer received just such a message. But rather than sulk, he tore into his favorite dishes and figured out how to yank out a lot of the fat without sacrificing big flavor. He lost 100 pounds for his efforts, and published the wildly popular Lean and Lovin' It.

A big guy not likely to take kindly to spa-sized portions, Mauer has intentionally aimed A Guy's Guide to Great Eating at men with big, meat-and-potatoes appetites. The idea is that only 25 percent or less of the calories in any recipe in this book can be attributed to fat. This isn't to say that the Double Chocolate Chip Fudge Brownies aren't fattening at 167 calories per serving (it's the two cups of sugar). They just aren't loaded with fat (only 11.1 percent of the calories come from fat). The main point here is that they actually taste good and can fit into a realistic diet.

Mauer includes recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. You'll find Light-As-Air Buttermilk Pancakes, Great Gawd Almighty Gumbo, A Guy's Better Burger, Kickass Beef-Chunk Chili, Sizzlin' Szechuan Chicken, Steakhouse Oven-Fried Potatoes, as well as cookies, cakes, and pies. All of that and Mauer doesn't rely on any never-seen-in-nature products. --Schuyler Ingle

From Library Journal

Perhaps the approach of Father's Day explains the simultaneous appearance of three "men's" cookbooks. Its catchy title notwithstanding, Boswell's A Man and His Pan is essentially an eclectic collection of favorite recipes from a man who likes to cook, whether for his family (there's a separate chapter on cooking for kids) or for guests. Boswell is coauthor of The Best Fryer Cookbook Ever (HarperCollins, 1998) and the packager of the "365 Ways To Cook" series. Here the gimmick, such as it is, is that all the recipes, from Pepper-Crusted Steak Flamb?ed in Whisky to Asian-Flavored Arctic Char, are made in a large nonstick frying pan. Many are quite easy, although they do assume some experience in the kitchen. For larger collections. With his wife, a food writer and editor, Bowers, who has a restaurant background, has written an entertaining but at heart serious cookbook. Despite his tongue-in-cheek macho tone, he conveys a lot of useful information on food and cooking, starting with "Men and Hardware" (kitchen equipment) and moving on to "Men and Flame" (grilling, flamb?eing, and "blowtorch cooking"), "Men and Fat" ("They Don't Call It a Fry-Mama"), and "Pommes des Hommes" (vegetables), among other topics. The recipes are tasty and wide-ranging, not confined to hearty "guy food" by any means. Recommended for most collections. Mauer, author of the best-selling Lean and Lovin' It (Chapters, 1996), has always been the family cook, but about ten years ago, he changed his habits, scaled back on fat, and lost 100 pounds. Disdaining diet books that consider half a cup of macaroni and cheese enough for a serving, he's come up with 175 recipes that are relatively low in fat but designed to satisfy hearty appetites. Mauer has a more "down-home" approach than Bowers and a less sophisticated style, but many family cooks, male or female, will find lots of recipes to try here. For most collections.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; None edition (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395915368
• ISBN-13: 978-0395915363
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,083,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes, you *can* cut calories and fat and still eat *great* !, October 19, 1999

By 

Zhezahn "Zhezahn" (Mebane, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Guy's Guide to Great Eating: Big-Flavored Fat-Reduced Recipes for Men Who Love to Eat (Paperback)

Buy this book and treat yourself to meals that are so good you won't even notice that they're good *for* you, as well! Especially try Don's magic on his Never Better Roast Pork Loin. It's absolutely fantastic. Cruise over to the Casserole section and try his exceptional Macaroni and Cheese...this book will keep you busy! Don's pleasant, conversational style makes it seem like he's in the kitchen with you, prompting you to try new and different tastes and techniques. It's a great book. Thanks, Don!!

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you want to cut fat but love to eat, buy this book!, July 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Guy's Guide to Great Eating: Big-Flavored Fat-Reduced Recipes for Men Who Love to Eat (Paperback)

At long last, a realistic low fat cookbook. Hurray for Don Mauer! I have tried several of the recipes in this book and each one has been wonderful. The lasagna is fabulous, and my family loved the caesar salad. Some of the ingredients may seem unusual, but trust the author and go with it. You won't be disappointed. You'll be pleasantly surprised by the generous portion sizes too. This book is a winner.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Guy's guide to great Eating, January 18, 2002

By 

Shan Martin (Houston, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Guy's Guide to Great Eating: Big-Flavored Fat-Reduced Recipes for Men Who Love to Eat (Paperback)

I have been using low-fat cookbooks for about 10 years and this is the best low-fat cookbook I have ever owned (this is impressive, due to the fact that I probable own 50 low-fat cookbooks). Every recipe I have tried so far is wonderful. The servings are big enough for both my husband and me. This is not just a man's cookbook, it is a cookbook for anyone who likes to eat and cook.