Cookbooks

[BrownIdGirl]

I am someone who likes to cook and have been drawn to the recipies posted here and other sites. Wondering if anyone uses specific low-carb/low-cal cookbooks to come up with new things to make for L&G meals. Also wondering what guidelines to use when evaluating existing recipies - not necessarily ingredients list, but nutritional guidelines. For example, how many calories max, max carbs, fat, etc?

[Mike]

I have come up with a few recipes and basically I follow the lean and green guidelines. I try to only use the veggies listed and the lean portion sizes, then I determine how many servings of each thing I have used and divide the portions appropriately for each Lean and Green serving.

As an example, if I have 4 different servings of protein (like eggs, lowfat cheese and chicken) I try to make sure that there are 4 servings of veggies in the meal as well. Then I just divide it into 4 servings.

If you are following the Lean and Green guidelines, carbs, calories, fat and other issues aren't issues. (as long as you are staying within the guidelines).

In adapting recipes, I just go through the recipe and see how I can apply the Lean and Green guidelines to the recipe and work it in. A good example is the zucchini pie recipe I listed. My original recipe for that included flattening out a can of Pillsbury crescent rolls in the bottom of the pan. I just deleted that and increased the veggies to make sure there were enough veggie portions for the lean and green.

Hope this helps.

[lifelovinaries]

goodness mike...now you have to go and mention crescent rolls in the bottom? The zucchini pie was DELICIOUS as posted here on the forum. Now you just took it up about 10 notches! But, ok, i won't try it with the crescent rolls just yet.

[Mike]