Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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305 of 313 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lighter yes, but a "diet" book this is not, April 3, 2006
This book isn't quite 4 stars, in my opinion, but alas, no fractions...
Let me start by saying I'm a HUGE fan of Cook's Illustrated. I subscribe to their magazines and their website, I watch their PBS show "America's Test Kitchen" and I own several of their books. What I love about CI is their scientific and educational approach to cooking and baking. They never throw a recipe at you and expect you to go at it blindly. All their recipes are prefaced with a detailed write-up of their test kitchen trials and tribulations...they painstakingly test every single recipe and they take you along for the ride. What you get in the process is not just a "recipe", but a deep understanding of why a recipe works, and with it a better understanding of cooking and/or baking in general. You will definitely improve your skills in the kitchen if you are exposed to CI.
With all that being said, it is no surprise that I eagerly anticipated the release of this book. It didn't take long, however, for my enthusiasm to wane. My biggest problem with this book is its one-dimensional approach to "lighten" recipes. By that I mean CI's main focus in this venture was on lowering fat and/or calories, but does not pay enough attention to other problem diet busters, like sugar and bad carbohydrates. I am not proposing that CI should have made this book "low carb", but a marriage of low fat/good carbohydrates would have been a more practical approach, especially given what we have learned about nutrition in the past few years. The inclusion of more whole grains would have been a much healthier approach. There are so many tasty whole grain alternatives these days to choose from, like brown basmati rice instead of white, or whole wheat pita bread in place of white. There are some recipes dedicated to healthy grains like quinoa and bulgur, but too many recipes with processed, nutrition-less grains. I am also disappointed with the limited attention on good, heart-healthy fats (eg/good mono-unsaturated fats like olive oil and canola oil in place of the less healthy vegetable oil). It seems their research on diet and nutrition was a bit short-sighted and old-fashioned.
Also, be aware that this is NOT a diet book. In CI's defense, I really don't think that was their intention. I think what they mainly set out to do is take many of our guilty favorites (like macaroni and cheese, chicken parmesan and cheesecake) and lighten them up without compromising too much of their flavor. They certainly accomplished that task. This does not mean, however, that you will lose weight eating them. While there are some recipes in the book that are inherently healthy and light, many of the dishes are still not considered "low calorie". Also, nutrition information does follow each recipe, which is nice, but they are very hard to apply since CI does not let you know what size each serving is.
As far as the recipes go, it is a well-rounded book that includes several appetizers/hors d'oeuvres, salads, soups and stews, vegetables, grains, pasta, poultry, meat, fish/shelfish, and a whole section dedicated to stir-fries. They also offer lightened up recipes of breads and desserts. There are definitely some winners here: like the "Tortilla Soup", the party dips, the "Chipotle Chicken Skewers", their Vinaigrette, "White Chicken Chili", "Chicken Parmesan" and even their "Scalloped Potatoes". I have also heard very good reviews of their "Chocolate Bundt Cake" and their "New York Cheesecake", though the cheesecake recipe is very time-consuming and tedious.
I have come across a mediocre dish or two, but for the most part, the recipes are worthy of the Cook's Illustrated name.
So if you are looking for a way to cut some fat and calories from your every day cooking, but still want to eat some tasty fare, then this is a great cookbook to have on your shelf. But if you want to lose weight, this book alone is not going to do it for you. Although I do admit that cutting fat is certainly a good start.
Hope this helped!
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80 of 85 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Christopher Kimball Hung The Moon... and Then Put It on a Diet., May 12, 2006
Recently, I found myself in a quandry.
I found I couldn't cook worth a damn. I mean, up-in-smoke not-even-the-dog-would-touch-it bad. Bad, bad, bad.
I naturally blame my husband for this problem, because I had been a really great cook when I met him. But through the years of his working for restuarants (at night, of course) and having kids, I got out of the habit. So when he finally started showing up at the dinnertable, the fare had become dramatically worse. Actually, aside from macaroni and cheese, it seriously stank.
Enter my need to re-educate myself. That's when I bought my copy of the Best New Recipe. I had known, from a newlywed subscription of Cook's Illustrated that Christopher Kimball and his team left no asparagus unturned when it came to cooking. I remembered an article on how to steam broccoli. Seriously--they tried every single way up to and including any ridiculous folk tale to find out the best way to steam broccoli. These were the people I needed. Not to mention they covered the consumer end of it too--rating everything from apples to bacon and every concievable kitchen gadget known to man. Their contribution to the frugal at heart is immeasurable when it comes to what the best buy is for your money. Really, they are the Scrubbing Bubbles of cookbook writers: do the work so you don't have to.
The Cook's Illustrated people being who they are, let me tell you, they don't care about anything but taste. And when I started losing weight, the New Best Recipe was, basically, unusable for me except for techniques. That's when I discovered that they had finally caved in and wrote a low-fat tome. I immediately went out and got it. And I like it tremendously. Everything I've tried so far has turned out wonderful, especially the oatmeal cookies.
That being said...
The authors have considerably high standards because they taste A LOT OF FOOD. Therefore, I was not surprised (but a tad disappointed) when they thumbed their nose at Splenda because it tasted "artificial". Even my lovely oatmeal cookies have a full cup of brown sugar in the recipe (next week I'm trying the brown sugar Splenda). I also emitted a "what's the point?" of their "compromises." Tell me, Oh Great Kimball of Whom I So Admire, do you think anyone is going to want to make a diet chocolate chip cookie that only saves them ten calories?
Dude. Those Yankee winters have affected your brain. Air has more than ten calories. (Yes, yes, yes, I know you have your standards, but I'm just gonna look to Archway if ten's all I'll save).
So don't expect the Cook's Illustrated team (worthy as they are of praise) to pull a big, juicy, diet-friendly rabbit stew out of a hat: there is some compromise, but it's not all-encompasing--some recipes only save you a handful of calories.
But there are some notable calorie savings in the main dishes that make this volume worth the purchase price alone. Take their mac-n-cheese, which saves you over half the calories per serving, taking them from 650 a serving to 360. Same for lasanga and their cheesecake and the majority of the recipes in the book.
So don't expect everything to be over the moon, but still, it's pretty damn good, people! And trust me, considering the source, it's worth twice the price for all the thought and consideration they put into making sure you have a great meal. Bravo.
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87 of 94 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A landmark cookbook, filled with scrumptious recipes you'll be proud to serve., April 17, 2006
Determined to create a lower fat cookbook which puts taste first, America's Test Kitchen, in conjunction with Cook's Illustrated magazine, assigned two dozen cooks, editors, food scientists, tasters, and cookware specialists to the task. Creating a play-by-play diary for each recipe, the Test Kitchen describes the low-fat ingredients and combinations of ingredients they tried for each recipe, their experiments with cooking methods, and their results, including the reasons for rejecting all but the final recipe.
The end results are sensational. Here you can indulge in lower-fat macaroni and cheese, cheesy chicken enchiladas, guacamole, eggplant parmesan, and fudgy brownies. In fact, if they hadn't shown the fat content and calories for a standard recipe beside the content of their improved, low-fat version, you would not be able to tell by taste that most of these recipes reduce the amount of fat by about 65%. The creamy macaroni and cheese reduces the fat by an amazing 78%.
The centerpiece of the cookbook is the cheesecake, which appears on the cover. It does require steps--easy ones--taken in advance, but none of these steps are time-consuming, and the end results are worth it. Since the Test Kitchen made 28 cheesecakes before developing the final recipe, I followed the instructions exactly when I made it this week for Easter. The directions said to bake for one and a half hours, "or until an instant read thermometer inserted into the center of the cheesecake reads 150 degrees," a specific instruction that I've never seen for a cheesecake before, but it worked, with one of our guests declaring the results to be the best cheesecake she's ever eaten (and I agree). The Carrot-Ginger Soup and the Roasted Artichoke Dip, both involving roasting the vegetables to intensify the taste, are equally good and have had an equal number of raves, as have the Vegetable Lasagna and New England Clam Chowder.
Though the book has sixteen pages of colored photos, it relies primarily on helpful drawings which illustrate cooking methods, along with thumbnail photos of brand-named ingredients and equipment. The Test Kitchen even lists the "best" product, when appropriate--Ronzoni Oven Ready Lasagne Noodles and Sargento Reduced-fat Mozzarella Cheese, among the foods, and Farberware's (inexpensive) Millennium Soft Touch Stainless Nonstick Skillet, and Baker's Secret Nonstick Loaf Pan among the equipment. Throughout the book, the editors stress "Core Techniques," those techniques they have discovered to improve the taste of lower-fat recipes--how to increase the chocolate flavor of low-fat cakes, for example.
Revolutionary in its approach and rigorous in its testing, America's Test Kitchen has produced a cookbook that really will change lives for the better--by making lower fat recipes so delicious that you will never miss the fat. And even if you find yourself unexpectedly using yogurt cheese in your cheesecake or mashed lima beans in your guacamole, you can use those ingredients with the confidence that they work and that the end results will justify your efforts. n Mary Whipple
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