Rating: 
Summary: Low-Carb Foods at Their Best
Review: Dr. Chud's lower-carb cookbook "The Gourmet Prescription" is excellent. I found this book in a catalog and ordered it immediately. My husband is currently on the Adkins Diet and I was interested in expanding the amount of low-carb recipes that I have so he won't lose interest. Dr. Chud's book came to the rescue. It is divided into the Preface, which is worth reading, a section on Proteins, and a section on Carbohydrates. There are recipes for fish, poultry, pork, veal, beef, lamb and ostrich as well as salads and vegetables, beans and lentils, and fruits and fruit desserts. Try the Roasted Salmon with Herbs, the Grilled Chicken Breasts with Sun-Dried Tomato Ketchup, and Fresh Bean Salad with Parsley Buttermilk Dressing to name a few. Dr. Chud offers many recipes using roasting and stove-top smoking. Each recipe offers a nutritional analysis of calories, proteins, carbohydrates, fat, cholesterol, sodium, and fiber. And the photographs are wonderful! If you are on a lower-carbohydrate eating plan or thinking about starting one, buy this book. You will feel wonderful. Hopefully, Dr. Chud will come out soon with a sequel!
Rating:
Summary: Delicious recipes, exquisite photographs! A winner!!!
Review: Rarely do you come across a cookbook like this! Dr.Chud's "prescription" is "Eat as though your life depends on it." Based on growing evidence that insulin plays a major role in fat storage, metabolism and appetite, Dr. Chud supports an "insulin-modulating" way of eating. For her book "The Gourmet Prescription" she has created a number of recipes that reflect her philosophy. She invites you into her kitchen and leads you step by step into creating wonderful, flavorful dishes! The photographs are mouthwatering in their appeal and the variety of foods presented impressive. You feel like you are actually in the kitchen with the author as she shares her thoughts on nutrition and how to maximize flavor using simple techniques and tools. Her heart and soul jump through the pages! As a result of using this book I have discovered new vegetables, cooking techniques etc. The smoked shrimp "fajitas" are a new family favorite. The chicken kebabs with spicy lime sauce are declicious especially when pared with the black bean salad with avocado! Everything I prepared was wonderful and there are so many other recipes that I look forward to trying! I did wish that a glycemic index for foods and a resource guide for some of the lesser known ingredients was included. Dr. Chud does include a nutritional analysis for each dish. She uses a stovetop smoker in some of her dishes. I substituted a wok and it worked great. This is a cookbook that delivers what it promises!
Rating: 
Summary: Best of the low-carb cookbooks
Review: I've tried many (most?) of the low-carb cookbooks, and returned almost all of them, either because the recipes were stupid (who needs a recipe for an omelette?) or because they weren't Zoneable -- unlike Atkins, the Zone doesn't allow massive amounts of fat but does allow a small amount of unfavorable carbs per meal.The book I like best -- and use a lot -- is Deborah Chud's "The Gourmet Prescription: High Flavor Recipes for Lower Carbohydrate Diets." It sometimes feels a bit stiff for everyday use (I wish she would have some more family-style recipes, even though I'm not a mom; I just don't need restaurant-style meals every night) and many of her recipes use her own recipes for 'condiments and flavor enhancers' as ingredients. She also has a strong bent toward Chinese-inspired flavors, whereas my own tastes run to mediterranean, latin, and southeast asian. But, even given all those caveats, I think this book is the best of the bunch: nice photos, pleasing graphic design, well-documented recipes. I hope she comes up with a second volume of casual recipes with a broader ethnic slant.
Rating:
Summary: Escape Diet Boredom
Review: After many frustrating years of trying to find a healthy and satisfying approach to cooking and eating, I have finally found it in The Gourmet Prescription. I am a gourmet eater and cook who can not live very long on Martha Stewarts' recipes, nor can I entertain from any of the diet/health books available. I have prepared 15 or so of these delicious recipes for family and friends. They have been all been wonderful. Not only did guests lick the bowl of the Moroccan Chicken Thighs, and devour the saute of Roasted Fennel and Tomatoes with Smoked Peppers, but at the end of the evening no one was uncomfortable. Something I have frequently felt at the end of an otherwise delicious and enjoyable meal. Dr. Chud is a brilliant and revolutionary chef. Her beautifully photographed book will, I hope, popularize the use of the home-smoker to bring high-flavor without the fat to foods. I strongly reccommend the Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Ancho Chile Infusion, the Warm salad of Grilled Scallops and Wilted Frisee with Smoky Ranch Dressing, and the Baked Pesto Portobellos. If you like the way you feel in the "ZONE", you'll love the way it tastes and feels when you have the right cookbook. Buy it! You'll like it! Thanks, Dr. Chud!
Rating:
Summary: Delicious recipes, exquisite photographs! A winner!!!
Review: Rarely do you come across a cookbook like this! Dr.Chud's "prescription" is "Eat as though your life depends on it." Based on growing evidence that insulin plays a major role in fat storage, metabolism and appetite, Dr. Chud supports an "insulin-modulating" way of eating. For her book "The Gourmet Prescription" she has created a number of recipes that reflect her philosophy. She invites you into her kitchen and leads you step by step into creating wonderful, flavorful dishes! The photographs are mouthwatering in their appeal and the variety of foods presented impressive. You feel like you are actually in the kitchen with the author as she shares her thoughts on nutrition and how to maximize flavor using simple techniques and tools. Her heart and soul jump through the pages! As a result of using this book I have discovered new vegetables, cooking techniques etc. The smoked shrimp "fajitas" are a new family favorite. The chicken kebabs with spicy lime sauce are declicious especially when pared with the black bean salad with avocado! Everything I prepared was wonderful and there are so many other recipes that I look forward to trying! I did wish that a glycemic index for foods and a resource guide for some of the lesser known ingredients was included. Dr. Chud does include a nutritional analysis for each dish. She uses a stovetop smoker in some of her dishes. I substituted a wok and it worked great. This is a cookbook that delivers what it promises!
Rating:
Summary: Make sure you like smoked foods...
Review: First - I love this book. The recipies and advice are definitely very good. I've prepared many of the dishes in here, and have always been pleased. I just wanted to point out one thing about this book though... I recommended it to a friend who wasn't nearly as happy as I was because they dislike smoked foods. The majority of recipies in this book call for some sort of smoked ingredient. In fact, you'll need to get a stovetop smoker to really utilize this cookbook. I personally think that the smoked foods are great, and a stovetop smoker is quite inexpensive (and one of the best additions to my kitchen in a long time) - but I do realize they are not for everyone. So - if you like the smoked food flavor, and you cook low-carb - this is a great book. If you're not a fan of that smoky taste, keep on looking.
Rating:
Summary: Forget low carb or not...dig in to these recipes
Review: I own a hundred gourmet cookbooks. I am pretty close to a pro level cook. And I wanted to investigate low-carb diets, but not give up my highfalutin habit. So this book was very promising, but of course I was very skeptical. (I had been cooking through "Jean-Georges" just before I started this diet, not that that made me fat, it didn't, but it raised the bar a bit on what I expect from a plate.) Anyway let's cut to the chase. These are some of the best recipes I've ever made, because she uses the smoker (which I ran out and bought) and she also knows how to do all sorts of other great things. I really couldn't care less whether these recipes are healthy or not. I'm staying on my diet for a few weeks and going back to gourmet cooking when I reach my goal weight. However I will continue cooking through this book for a long time. Lots of stuff to learn. And my meals will be popular with the ladies as well.
Rating:
Summary: I'd give it 10 stars if I could...
Review: This is hands down my favorite cookbook of all time. I can't recommend it highly enough. I don't follow a strict low-carb diet, but I do try to limit how much bread/pasta/rice I eat, and this book is something I refer to again and again. Even if I wasn't watching my carbs, the recipes are tasty and interesting and I wouldn't hesitate to serve them at dinner parties to folks who were not watching their diets (in fact, I have done so with raves from my guests). My beef with most low-carb cookbooks is that the recipes are often loaded with fat and dairy products (cottage cheese makes me want to hurl), but not this one. It's not entirely free of dairy products, but they are used appropriately (e.g. buttermilk in ranch dressing) without going overboard. While certainly not fat-phobic, the recipes do use trimmed lean cuts of meat (beef or pork tenderloin, chicken breast, turkey, etc...) and encourage the use of lower-fat condiments when appropriate. The pictures will make you drool--they are gorgeous. The recipes here range in difficulty from quick and easy to sophisticaed gourmet cuisine of the caliber that you would find in the finest restaurants--but they are all innovative--no run-of-the-mill food here. Personally, I think there's a good balance of easy and difficult recipes here. It's fairly easy to cook some of these ahead; for example: the recipe for plum sauce freezes well, so it's easy to make up a batch, portion it out and freeze it, so when dinner comes all you have to do it pop a pork tenderloin in the oven and defrost the sauce while you assemble one or two of the carbohydrate side dishes. The author gives storage recommendations for such recipes (length of time the sauce/dressing will keep if refrigerated or frozen), which is handy (most cookbooks I own don't give such information). The book is divided into protein and carbohydrate sections, making it easy to create balanced meals. My favorite protein dishes are the Moroccan Chicken Thighs, roast chicken with rosemary-garlic rub, Pork Tenderloin with Plum sauce, chicken skewers with almond dipping sauce (like Malaysian satay but even tastier) and turkey patties with apples and smoked leeks, although every other one I've made has been excellent as well. The carbohydrate dishes include lots of interesting salads (the black bean salad w/ avocado is fantastic), vegetable sautes and roasted vegetables (I made the roasted asparagus with garlic oil the other night and it was amazing!). Desserts are fruit-based and hit the spot when you want something sweet after a good meal without blowing your healthy eating plan (figs with "virtual" marscapone cheese... YUM!). Some of the recipes call for smoked vegetables, but not having a stovetop smoker I use roasted vegetables instead with great results. With the focus being on gourmet cuisine there are also a few recipes that call for ingredients that might seem exotic, however any moderately experienced cook can make substitutions with no problem, and your run-of-the-mill grocery store/supermarket will have enough to make probably 80-90% of the recipes as-is. (although I do admit, it's difficult to find ostrich, but I've substituted sirloin or beef tenderloin and the recipes come out great). The Internet can also be a good resource for hard-to-find spices or condiments as well. I am an avid cook, and what I like most about this book is that it inspires me to be creative in cooking lower carbohydrate cuisine even when I'm not using it directly. I've modified some of the recipes and created several of my own after studying the techniques and flavor combinations presented here. It's made me a better cook. My only problem with the book is that the recipes are so good it's difficult to stick with a sensible portion size :-) I hope Dr. Chud comes out with another book!!!
Rating:
Summary: A specialized cookbook
Review: There is much to enjoy in Chud's Gourmet Prescription: beautiful color photographs, clearly written recipes, and extremely creative combinations that are as flavorful as they are colorful. I love pulling out this cookbook and riffling through it, and I often find ways of improvising other meals of my own based on Chud's recipes. Her recipes for sauted chicken breasts with blueberry sauce and smoked turkey breasts with rasberry adobo sauce are ones to which I return again and again. In fact, the sauces are my favorite aspect of the book--the lemon ginger sauce for broccoli was a revelation. I was somewhat disappointed with this book initially because of the number of specialized ingredients (flavored oils, fructose as a substitution for sugar, etc.) and because of the author's insistance in the introduction that one adhere to her recipes religiously--she suggests that the result will otherwise be extremely inferior. Many recipes and sauces also call for the use of a stovetop smoker, including and especially in the Smoked Allium Paste that forms a base for many other sauces and condiments. I am personally pleased with the smoker ..., which can also be used as a steamer and roaster in the oven. Nevertheless, the buyer should be forewarned that this is not the kind of cookbook one can bring home and immediately begin to use. It requires lots of shopping, searching, and occasionally, improvisation. But the more I use the book, the more I like it. I defintely like how I feel after a "prescription" meal. So: If you are a fan of the way a low-carbohydrate diet makes you feel and are interested in creative food combinations, new cooking techniques/equipment, and excellent, unique flavors, this book is a good choice. If you are merely looking for something to replace those god-awful recipes ... (Olives and cottage cheese, anyone?) but are not interested in embarking on restocking your pantry and your kitchen, you should probably continue your search.
Rating:
Summary: melizabeth
Review: The recipes are excellent, although can be time consuming if you do not have the items you need smoked at the very beginning. I have tried many, many recipes from this book and have not had a bad one yet. The only reason why I did not give this book 5 stars is because I live overseas and the grocery stores in the area that I live in, do not carry some of the more exotic ingredients. If you like cooking, enjoy experimenting, and want to eat smart and healthy, this book can fulfill those needs.
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