Rating: 
Summary: Low carb???
Review: This book claims to fit all the popular low carb diets including Atkins. Half the recipes are way over the carb count for the Atkins diet. If you're looking for REAL low carb recipes, look somewhere else!
Rating: 
Summary: Delivers what it promises -- fast, delicious, easy!
Review: This book speaks to me as a carb lover who can't have very many any more. Now I don't feel deprived, and the recipes are so good that I feel like I'm cheating. I, naturally, started at the back, looking to assuage my sweet tooth, and discovered "Mocha Fudge Cake". (You can even eat both servings without doing damage.) But that's not all -- great tips about shopping (keep a cooler in your car for anytime shopping) and storing food (freeze parmesan cheese). The book is well-organized, and helps you add low levels of carbs gradually so that you don't ever get hungry. And say goodby to prolonged binges. If you have a bad day or week, you can easily go back to the quick start section and get back onto healthy eating without starving yourself. As a run and grab kind of person, I now have lists of healthy flavorful things to grab. I like the fact that Linda allows room for your own creativity by suggesting ways to substitute in many of her recipes. From quick snacks to quick start all the way to those excellent desserts, you'll eat healthy without focusing on dieting.
Rating: 
Summary: worthwhile
Review: This is the best low carb book I have bought. I wish I had found it before most of the others, which I never use. I grew up in a house where cooking was not a big thing - so I actually don't know much about what flavours complement each other or how to whip things together. I also do not know how to stock a basic pantry and used to find myself running to the supermarket 4 or 5 times a week picking up items at random, trying to make a meal. This book tells me what to buy, and how much. I am not following the menus, but design my own, and I have saved plenty of time and money by following the buying guidelines for each meal. This book is practical, saves me time, and is healthy. It is not about how to fry up bacon and melt cheese on top. It does not have recipes with ingredients like soy protein isolate or other unidentifiable items like whey protein, guar, xantham gum etc. They might not be unhealthy, but frankly, I don't know what they are, and it if takes me more than 30 seconds to locate at Safeway, I am not interested. This book focuses on real food, not substitutions for fake food. She doesn't show you how to make pretend chocolate cake out of soy protein and equal. They all taste gross anyway. This book has helped me to live in the real world, with real food, but moderating my intake of sugars and refined carbohydrates.
Rating:
Summary: This cookbook really works
Review: When I read the first review, of this book posted here, I thought, this person doesn't get it. Linda Gassenheimer has created a very smart collection of recipes which she groups in three stages of a low-carb diet. The recipes in LOW-CARB MEALS IN MINUES are based on three separate 14-day menu plans for beginning, middle and advance low-carb lifestyles. Each recipe in the menu is part of a particular 14-day plan so that all fat intake is planned. You may get an individual recipe that seems to have more fat than it should, but Gassenheimer has compensated by offering recipes with less fat for breakfast or dinner. Most recipes found in such books as The Zone, Sugar Busters and Dr. Atkin's New Diet Revolution, are not very appetizing. This books is the exception. I'm a cook so I want to good food and Ms. Gassenheimer, a Cordon-Bleu trained teacher, host of her own NPR food show and James Beard Award-winning author of DINNER IN MINUTES (based on her syndicated column) offers delicious, easy, quick and healthy recipes that the low-carb dieter can live with. Ever try to buy breakfast in a coffeshop or a take-out? Most breakfast items are loaded with carbs--bagels, danish, cereals, bread, french toast, pancakes, waffles, hash brown potatoes--you name it--loaded with carbs. Gassenheimer takes the guess work out of this difficult to organize meal. There are even desserts to enjoy. Some of my favorite whole meal recipes menus include: shrimp caesar with pears and yogurt, mussels mariniere with mesclun salad, pesto chicken with steamed artichokes and fresh figs, nuevo tex-mex layered salad, pecan ham roll-ups with cinnamon oatmeal, sirloin burger with fresh slaw, asian ginger salmon with sesame broccoli and yellow bean salad, sunny-side up swiss melt, and grilled potobello and canadian bacon omelette. This is the recipe book us low-carb addicts have been waiting for.
Rating: 
Summary: Not so good for VERY low carbers
Review: While the recipes in Ms. Gassenheimer's book look wonderful and the layout and photos are terrific, this is one book that has made it out of my house to the resellers because the carb counts for most of her recipes are too high for those of us with very low carb diets. If you are doing Atkins, most of her recipes will be beyond your scope. One benefit of her book though is that she also focuses on keeping it lowfat while doing low carb. But buyer beware if you are on ultra low carb because the book won't do much for you!
Rating:
Summary: Who says this is low carbohydrate?
Review: While this is a pretty book with tempting pictures, the recipes are just not low carbohydrate. Just a short thumb through the recpies shows the following carb counts **per serving**: 66 grams: Winter Casserole Soup and Grilled Cinnamon Oranges, 47 grams: Cheese and Roasted Red-Pepper Stuffed Endive with Bran Cereal, and the list goes on. To be fair, there are some recipes with carb counts in the teens and twenties, but that is even too high for a person with high carbohydrate sensitivity. A second problem is that the recipes are way too fancy for every-day cooking. These are not staple-type recipes, but instead recipes for the gourmet cook wannabe. I'm sure there's a place for this cookbook, but I wish I hadn't purchased it myself, as FOR ME it was a waste of money.
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