The Food That Makes Me Nervous: The Food You Crave by Ellie Krieger

There's something disconcerting about Ellie Krieger's affect.  I get distracted by the pinched, nervous look in her pale face, her cracking voice, and her obviously feigned enthusiasm.  To be honest, to me, she looks kind of hungry.  I imagine her to be a hair's breath away from freaking out and eating everything in sight, as soon as the Food Network TV cameras turn off.  I don't know, maybe I'm just projecting.  Or maybe I'm just jealous that she's beautiful, has an advanced degree from Columbia University, and hosts her own show on the Food Network.

Anyways, after the yeasted pastry and stuffed pasta extravaganzas of the last few weeks, and what with the warmer months approaching, I felt like I need to, ahem, tighten my belt a little and try out some cookbooks that do not have the capacity to single-handedly affect my clothing size.  So I decided to put my snobbiness aside and try Ellie's newly released light cookbook.

Every time I try a light cookbook, I am disappointed, and this one was no exception.  Like most light cookbooks, most of the food in Ellie's book will only taste delicious to you if you are on a diet.  If you are not, most of the recipes will be basically fine, sometimes even good, but uniformly a little watery, starchy, overly acidic, or all of the above.  Basically, this is what happens to most recipes if you take out too much of the fat and try to replace it with starches, dairy or acid.

The Peanut Satay was basically yummy but the accompanying peanut sauce tasted a little mealy from being diluted with chicken stock (which, in my experience, never really works well for sauces that are not served warm).  The soba noodle salad was too acidic, because the rice vinegar in the dressing was not balanced by enough oil.  It would have been better more lightly dressed with a fattier vinaigrette.  The roasted cauliflower with nutmeg was perfectly good, but not any different from roasted cauliflower recipes in non-light cookbooks (1 head cauliflower, 2 Tb oil, hot oven = yum).  The whole wheat fettucine with roasted red pepper and feta sauce was ok, but once again a little mealy tasting.  I will say, I normally despise whole wheat pasta but the pureed roasted pepper and feta in the sauce resulted in an aggressive sauce that made the whole wheat characteristics a lot less noticeable.

The portabella mushroom panini - portabellas stuffed with blue cheese and sun dried tomatoes, lightly brushed with oil, and cooked on a grill pan - were better than expected, but still a little watery.  With just a little more oil, they might have been pretty good. 

I was frightened about how the desserts would turn out, but actually they were our favorite dishes from the book.  The mocha cake with cream cheese frosting incorporates an alarming cup and a half of nonfat yogurt into the batter, but after I doctored the frosting with a little extra sugar and some amaretto, the finished product was actually pretty moist and yummy (proving that Scharfenberger cocoa, Callebaut chocolate and espresso are an unstoppable combination capable of making anything taste delicious).  The ricotta cheesecake, which I topped with strawberries and a strawberry champagne jam, was a little watery and starchy but fun to eat.  Mr. Addict, who is my litmus test for the credibility of light recipes, snacked on both of these of his own volition.

At the end of the day, I did not learn anything new, try anything that was challenging, or taste anything remarkably delicious this week.  But, these recipes were quick and painless and decent to eat.  I had healthy leftovers to take with me to work every day without any effort.  Also, I should mention that I lost a few pounds this week.  If you are on a diet, maybe this cookbook would be helpful for you.  Certaintly, it's far from the worst diet cookbook out there and the culinary techniques and flavor profiles are basically solid.  However, I don't think it really succeeds as a cookbook.  The only light cookbooks that I can think of that do are those by Sally Schneider, Patricia Wells, Alice Medrich and Nick Malgieri.  If you are a food snob who wants to try out a light cookbook, I would definitely turn to those first. 

There are, however, several beloved cookbooks in my collection that are not overtly "light" cookbooks but nevertheless largely contain recipes that are relatively low in fat and calories - Mangoes and Curry Leaves and the books by Jack Bishop are two examples.  Instead of wasting more money on light cookboks, I think I will try to focus more on cooking from those types of cookbooks and on selecting the healthiest recipes in otherwise non-light cookbooks.  If any of you have a favorite cookbook with healthy or light recipes, please post it in the comments!

Comments

[gruzia]

I've never actually tried a "light" savory recipe (though i do subscribe to cooking light, go figure) but I find that a lot of cuisines have naturally light dishes that really, really work without any tinkering: indian dal dishes (generally about two tablespoons of oil for the finishing tadka), south indian sambar, thai green papaya salad, spring rolls, sushi, etc.

[Mr. Addict]

I wasn't really knocked out by these recipes as I have a healthy fear and disrespect of "light" recipes.

That being said, the cheesecake and mocha cake were not bad at all.

[P.Bromley]

I find this woman a little scary as well when I have seen her on TV. I appreciate you trying a light cookbook to balance out some of your more "hedonistic" choices! I might try the mocha cake as it sounds like it was one of the most successful recipes and is not too "light tasting." On a related topic, the whole Food Network channel is a joke at this point. There aren't any real chefs on there like there used to be.

[erns]

I love this entry, I have a very similar feeling toward light cookbooks. Which has been a problem recently because I'm actually trying to adjust my eating habits so I stop gaining five pounds every year. Not easy!

I just started a food blog about light(ish) eating, and I've just written an entry that mentions THIS article. Cool, huh? You can find it at: http://lessbutmore.wordpress.com/2008/07/26/it-doesnt-matter-what-you-call-it/

[catherine]

Fat Girl Slim by Ruth Watson is a fantastic diet book for cooks. It is a record of a diet undertaken by a British restaurateur and cookery writer. The dieting principle was simply calorie counting. For tasty recipes, for snacking ideas, and for insight into an appropriate mental stance for the cooking enthusiast trying to lose weight, I recommend it highly.

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