My Two Favorite Recipe Books Right Now

For anyone out there looking for some new recipes, I have two recipe books that I have been loving lately. 

First, up is the 350-calorie meal "Cook This, Not That" book.  We got this book when Preston was doing his Biggest Loser challenge, but the recipes in it that we have tried are so good that we are still using it OFTEN and trying new recipes.  Some of our favorites so far are the Chili-Mango Chicken, Moroccan Salmon with Quinoa and the Chicken Fajita Burrito.  All the others we have tried have been delicious (though some are kind of spicy for the kids), and it is fun to look at the comparisons they have at the bottom of every recipe that tells you how many calories you are saving when compared to a similar item purchased at a restaurant.  For example, the Chicken Pizzaoli (which was very good, by the way) is only 360 calories,15 g fat, and 812 mg sodium, compared to Olive Garden Chicken Parmigiana, which has 1090 calories, 49 g fat and 3,380 mg sodium.  Wow.

 

The only complaint I have about this book is that the index is AWFUL.  There isn't a very good table of contents either, so I have had to mark the pages of the recipes I want to be able to find again without flipping through the whole book.  Kind of annoying, but I can live.

For anyone who doesn't have this book, buy it:

Again, everything I have made from this book has been awesome.  Just last week Arden and I made the Caramelized Banana Ice Cream.  Sounds questionable, but it was HEAVENLY.  We also really like the Black Bean and Mango Salsa and the Spicy Honey Chicken, and the Thai Peanut Noodles are one of my new favorites.  My only complaint about this book is that there are no fish recipes.  None.  We eat quite a bit of fish around here, so that is kind of a bummer for me. 

If you are looking for something new to try, give these two books a try, and I guarantee you will find a few that you love.  Let me know if you have any recipe books that you think I should try.