Light & Healthy 2010: The Year's Best Recipes Lightened Up [Hardcover]

Americas Test Kitchen (Editor)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 302 pages
• Publisher: America's Test Kitchen; 1 edition (January 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933615575
• ISBN-13: 978-1933615578
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #282,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

America's Test Kitchen is a 2,500 square foot kitchen located outside of Boston. It is the home of Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines and is the workday destination for over 3 dozen test cooks, editors and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes until we understand how and why they work and arrive at the best version. We also test kitchen equipment and supermarket ingredients in search of brands that offer the best value and performance. You can watch us work by tuning in to our public television show, America's Test Kitchen.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Light and Healthy (America's Test Kitchen), May 14, 2010

By 

Teresa D. Hanna "terrypirate" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Light & Healthy 2010: The Year's Best Recipes Lightened Up (Hardcover)

Having been a follower of the TV program for years, I was delighted to have a lighter version of their recipes. Recipes are detailed as to why certain ingredients work, and all show the calories, fat, sat fat, and cholesterol in the before and after versions. As a diabetic, I appreciate all the short cuts I can get. It also does not hurt that the first listing is for Chicken Caesar Salad: my all time favorite go to meal.

My only criticism is that the binding is not spiral (allowing the book to be folded), but pages are large and lie flat should you need to have information close while cooking.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No sacrifice of flavor or texture here, July 24, 2010

By 

Lindsey Ellis (San Diego) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Light & Healthy 2010: The Year's Best Recipes Lightened Up (Hardcover)

I have to start out by saying that I LOVE ATK. I think I purchased this copy for a gift for my mom. I'm slowly cooking through this book, and everything has been good. They have great dessert recipes (peach shortcakes and fudgy brownies) and delicious salad recipes. I'll update when I've cooked more. The pasta carbonara is delish!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reasonably good, but not their best work, September 14, 2010

By 

b - See all my reviews

This review is from: Light & Healthy 2010: The Year's Best Recipes Lightened Up (Hardcover)

I give it 4 stars because compared to all books out there, it's pretty darn good. Compared to the test kitchen's family cookbook, it's a bit less amazing.

The good:

1. LIght + Tasty: The recipes do live up to my standards of being delicious. Most of what I've made from this book, I'd make again (the exceptions were ones that just took too long). And the foods are very light.

2. Instruction and background: Test kitchen books will tell you why you're doing it a certain way and that's quite valuable so you know where to put your energy into making the dish come out right. They also give you the background on the dish to explain the difficulty in making it light and their decisions along the way. This is instruction on multiple levels. Makes you think about substituting certain ingredients in things you already make.

3. Variety: The book may not have many recipes but the ones provided are of a good variety. I've had books from other creators where they have 80% chicken recipes. Ok, I get it, chicken is low fat. Test Kitchen pulls through here, creating dishes with all sorts of meat, veggies, baked goods, breakfast foods, etc, etc. You may not find a solution to every meal situation, but you won't be completely bored if this is the first book on your shelf

The bad:

1. Ok, this is 'minor' but the binding on the book is annoying. It's difficult to get it to lay flat and stay open while you're cooking. I'm tempted to cut the book up, hole punch it, and put it in a simple binder :)

2. They don't tell you how long it will take! Of all the details to leave out, I don't know why they did in this book. It's unfortunate because there are a few times that I've skimmed a recipe, decided to make it, only to realize halfway through that it's going to need to roast/marinate/cool for 2 hours before I can finish. Doh!

3. Number of recipes. Yeah, there's enough variety, but I really wish they had even more. To that end, I've already pre-ordered their new healthy family cook book.

Last words:

Overall a great purchase. Cookbooks are always a bargain so long as you find it good enough to use a few times (because $25 is less than I would have spent if I wasn't encouraged to cook something - and at out instead :). And with this book I've found at least 10 recipes that I'll gladly make again and again - and I even learned some new stuff along the way!