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Since its 1987 spin-off from a popular column in Southern Living magazine, Cooking Light has gone from strength to strength, offering an ever-widening range of great-tasting, healthy and nutritious recipes, all in the context of leading a healthy lifestyle. The magazine, which encourages its readers to ?Eat Smart, Be Fit, Live Well,? has attracted 1.7 million subscribers, making it ?the largest epicurean magazine in the world.?
Capitalizing on this success, the editors of Cooking Light have compiled a collection of over 500 of their favorite recipes, derived from the Greatest Hits column that appears on the magazine?s index page. If you have any of Cooking Light?s popular "Annual Recipes" collections or "The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook," which is my personal favorite, then this latest offering may not be a must-have. If, however, you are a fan of the magazine but have yet to buy a compilation, then this will be a treat. From the simple to the imaginative, you?ll find plenty of good ideas, among them:
- Mini Black Bean Cakes with Green Onion Cream and Avocado Salsa
- Jamaican Banana Bread
- Miso-Glazed Salmon
- Penne with Roasted-Pepper Marinara Sauce
- Pork Saltimbocca with Polenta
- Senegalese Lemon Chicken
- Grilled Tomato Sandwiches
- Yellow Pepper Soup with Cilantro Puree
- Crisp Plum Ravioli with Lemon-Thyme Honey and Yogurt Cheese
- Tiramisu Anacapri
As always, the recipes are well organized and clearly written, with plenty of beautiful photographs.
Each recipe carries a full nutritional analysis, including calcium and iron, in which many of us are deficient. Though a large number of recipes reveal the magazine?s southern roots?plenty of grits, cornbreads, biscuits and catfish (but, surprisingly, no chili)?there is a rich diversity of flavors here: Senegalese, Ecuadorean, Vietnamese, Caribbean, Thai, Japanese, Greek, Turkish, as well as more familiar French, Italian and Chinese influences. There are also abundant vegetarian choices, as you might expect. Many recipes feature brief tips on how to handle a particular ingredient or offer some serving suggestions, but there are no meal plans or menus.
If you have a sweet tooth, there are nearly 80 pages of sinful-looking desserts; but if soup?s your thing, you have a mere 18 pages? worth to flick through. The section for appetizers and beverages features only three of the latter.
And while the book itself is well organized, the index has some flaws. For instance, a few recipes feature asparagus as a primary or secondary ingredient?Asparagus, Ham and Fontina Bread Puddings, Hollandaise-Asparagus Tart or Gorgonzola Fettuccine with Asparagus?yet none of these appears under the "asparagus" index entry, which lists only three side-dishes. If I?m trying to figure out what to do with chickpeas (garbanzo beans), there?s no index entry for them, but I am able to find an index entry for "falafel," which is made from chickpeas. Under "falafel," I can find Falafel with Yogurt-Tahini Dip, but no entry for the Falafel-stuffed Pitas under this heading. So for those of us who like to thumb through indexes trying to find a particular ingredient, this is a little frustrating. If, however, you are content to flick through the book itself in search of ideas, it?s not such a big deal.
All in all, Cooking Light has produced a great collection of recipes?one that will be a valuable reference in many low fat kitchens.
Published by Oxmoor House (ISBN 0-8487-3061-5)