48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
highly pleased, April 7, 2006
This review is from: Healthy Calendar Diabetic Cooking (Paperback)
I received this book in Feb., but started with the first week of recipes. Most of the meals have been good, some have been excellent. They seem to be right in line with low glycemic diet guidelines. Several meals that claim to serve 4 didn't serve 3. I have skipped some meals, but have tried several new herbs and vegs.
One reservation--not everyone can tolerate chili, cumin, cayenne pepper, and other "hot" food items. Suggestions for alternate flavorings would have been nice.
I intend to keep using this book to the end, and then start over again, with my own notes and reminders on each recipe I have already tried.
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38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great idea...Updated review 7/30/2010, September 11, 2009
This review is from: Healthy Calendar Diabetic Cooking (Paperback)
I bought this cookbook when my husband was diagnosed as pre-diabetic. I have been using it now for 4 weeks, and there are some good points and bad. I really like the idea, and having a weekly grocery list pre-prepared is great. Some of the recipes are rather bland, but overall easy. I have found some really good ones too, we especially like the side dish recipes. I do have 2 big complaints: I wonder if some of the recipes were ever tried by the author. For example, the recipe for Greek Lemon Chicken and rice has a marinade for the chicken that is then supposed to be cooked to a boil to use as a sauce, the recipe yielded so little marinade it barely covered the chicken much less left enough over to create a sauce. My 2nd big complaint is there are a few recipes where cooking temperatures and times have been left out.
Updated Review 7/30/2010.
So we have been using this cookbook I would say 75% of the time for almost a full year, and I stand by my original review of 3 stars maybe even going down to 2 1/2 stars. I still really like the idea of having a years worth of recipes planned out, with meals and shopping lists organized a week at a time. Taste wise most of the recipes are good, the ones I did not like were more to do with personal tastes and preference than recipe. The side dish recipes are still my favorite. Along with with the sandwich recipes, there is a roasted vegetable sandwich that my husband absolutely loves. Health wise, my husband has dropped from pre-diabetic to a normal blood sugar range. But, he did also take up a very stringent exercise regime of running 3 miles a day, etc.
Now for my complaints. As far as meal planning goes, this book has some major flaws. There are several times, as mentioned in my original review where cook times, temperatures, and 1 time method were omitted. It was not uncommon for ingredients to be left out of recipes and shopping lists. For instance, final step might say something like now serve dish over brown rice, yet no where in the recipe did it call for cooking brown rice, nor did the shopping list have brown rice on it. Brown rice is not something that can just be whipped up, should have been step number 1. First time this happen I put it to poor editting, the second time and third time it made me wonder if it wasn't on purpose. I know the author is trying to get the meals to meet certain dietary measurements, so were these steps/ingredients omitted to meet these measurements?
My next complaint is portion sizes. Some meals had huge portions with side dishes, some meals had small portions and no side dishes. Again I believe this has to do with the dietary measurements the author was trying to make, but what good is a meal with just a main dish? An unhealthy side dish can totally negate any benefit of a healthy main dish. Luckily, I keep a staple of vegetables in my pantry, and freezer so when I came across one of the meals without any side dishes I could pull one of those out, but then I had to wonder if I was cancelling out the benefits of the author's dietary measurements.
Of the recipes that called for any type of marinade or sauce, I would say if you followed them exactly, 90% did not produce a marinade or sauce to cover even half of the dish. I was always prepared to double the amount if necessary. I might want to add that many consider it to be a bad idea, cross contamination wise, to reuse a marinade as a sauce, but this author called for doing just that several times.
If you purchase this book just be aware that it is not as "easy" as it appears. You have to check the recipes to the shopping lists, and skim the steps to check for those omitted items. Plus, make sure you have items on hand for those recipes that are main dish only.
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This cookbook is a MUST for every household!, October 15, 2005
This review is from: Healthy Calendar Diabetic Cooking (Paperback)
My mother-in-law recently suffered a heart attack. Her doctor sent her home with dietary information, but she had difficulty using the information to develop daily menus. I ordered this book for her, and from the first day she found recipes that made sense, were easy to prepare, and better still, were tasty selections. She is able to plan her shopping trips so that she buys staples on a monthly basis, and perishables weekly. She has since lost 30 pounds (in 2 1/2 months), is now exercising regularly, and all of her friends want the book as well. We are ordering for our household, and will continue to refer people to this wonderful cookbook.
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