The Low-Carb Gourmet: 250 Delicious and Satisfying Recipes

Rating:
Summary: I've gotten my hobby back!
Review: For years I subscribed to cooking magazines and enjoyed trying new recipes...then about a year ago, I found out how much healthier I am eating low carb. Especially important to my health is avoiding wheat and gluten. I have appreciated basic cookbooks focusing on low-carb cooking (especially by Dana Carpender), and am now comfortable cooking this way for my husband and me. Lately, I have been making the same meals over and over. They're winners, but cooking hasn't been feeling like a hobby. When I opened this book and started reading through it, almost every page looked like something I would mark in a Bon Apetit magazine to definitely try. In the last 2 weeks I have tried a couple dozen recipes and only in one would I do anything different (add more sweetener to the chocolate pudding). There's very few ingredients that I wouldn't find in my neighborhood grocery store, and the recipes are not complicated. I recommend this book for anyone who is feeling bored or limited on their low-carb diet. I'm looking forward to trying more recipes in this book and repeating the ones we have already tried.

Rating:
Summary: Delicious recipes for all styles of eating
Review: If you're on a low carb diet, you might think you're stuck with burgers and veggies. Wrong! This gourmet cookbook lets you eat like a king and queen while losing weight.

Karen Barnaby begins by sharing her own trials and tribulations at weight loss, and explains how low carb diets work. She gives information on how to shop at a number of locations - Italian deli, Japanese grocery, etc. - to get food that is healthy and delicious. Then, it's on to the recipes!

For those bored with breakfast, Karen has a number of tasty solutions, from egg and sausage muffins to a deep dish pizza quiche. There are almond puff pancakes and Colin's omega waffles. Moving through the day, she offers a wide variety of appetizer, lunches, snacks, dinners, and yes, desserts.

If you're thinking these recipes will require "unusual" ingredients, think again. Sure, some do call for pine nuts or sea salt. Others, however, simply take the food you SHOULD be eating - celery, vegetable oil - and help you find new ways to make it very tasty. There are recipes for stir fried prawns, for turkey tenderloin with pesto, and for strawberry shortcakes with mascarpone balsamic cream.

The photos that are included are mouthwateringly gorgeous and really entice you to give the recipe a try. On the other hand, not every dish has a photo included - something I wish had been different. I always like to see a photo of what I'm trying to make. The instructions are straightforward and simple, and she lists both the effective carbs and total carbs for every dish, along with the fiber, protein, fat and calories. Substitutions are listed where appropriate, to help a chef that runs out of something.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has fallen into a rut with their low carb cooking. And especially if you're planning any get-togethers, this is a sure fire way to show others that low carb creates the most flavorful food on the planet!

Rating:
Summary: Low-carbing never tasted this good!
Review: Karen Barnaby's "Low-Carb Gourmet" represents a winning combination of recipes and cooking (and eating) tips and would be an excellent addition to any low-carber's library.

Considering that this is a low-carb cookbook and not a low-carb how-to manual, the author very clearly introduces and explains the basics of low-carbing. To name just a few examples, in the book, she explains the effects of caffeine, alcohol, and water on the low-carb diet, explains how to calculate true carb counts, provides excellent examples of low-carb shopping lists and ingredients, provides a list of ideal low-carb snacks, suggests low-carb substitutes for high-carb ingredients, demystifies artificial sweeteners, teaches us how to spot hidden carbs in foods, and lists essentials for low-carb baking. She has also made the book an excellent culinary how-to guide in general by scattering throughout the book little side notes and suggestion boxes where she covers topics such as useful kitchen gadgets, how to store parsley to keep it fresh longer, making flavoured butters, tips for stabilizing whipping cream, and how to peel tomatoes (and yes, she teaches us that there IS more than one way to do this!).

Besides providing us with a useful reference book for following a low-carb lifestyle, most importantly, however, Karen Barnaby shows us that low-carbing isn't just about eggs, bacon, and a big slab of steak - it's about healthy, tasty, and varied foods that are not just great for a low-carb lifestyle, but for a healthy lifestyle in general. No matter what your food preferences are, there is something in this cookbook for everyone. For example, among the many recipes in this book, she even includes recipes creatively influenced by international cuisines such as Italian ("Flat Roasted Chicken with Prosciutto and Green Olives"), Chinese ("Daikon Radish, Chinese Cabbage, and Tofu Soup"), Japanese ("Cucumber Salad with Umeboshi and Bonito Flakes"), Thai ("Simple Chicken and Coconut Milk Curry"), French ("Braised Fennel with White Wine and Parmesan"), and Middle Eastern ("Lamb, Feta, and Olive Meatballs"), just to name a few. And although the book contains an impressive number of recipes, what's more impressive is the fact that the author gives suggestions for modifying the recipes and their ingredients to make all new dishes, thereby making the low-carb possibilities endless (and all delicious!).

Readers will be happy to see that every recipe in the book includes a carb count and other nutritional details per serving and will be even happier to find at the back of the book a handy summary chart of nutritional information for every recipe, ranked from the lowest carbohydrate count to the highest count. There is no doubt that readers will appreciate this convenient addition to the book as it allows low-carbers to easily calculate at a glance carb counts of meals they are interested in making. As well, the chart makes it easier for readers to determine which recipes may be appropriate for them at a particular stage of low-carbing (e.g., for Atkins followers, the chart makes it super easy to figure out which recipes are best during the induction phase). And if that's not enough, the author even gives us numerous ideas for low-carb entertaining! And before all you NON-low-carbers raise your eyebrows in suspicion, I can tell you that I have impressed more than a few low-carb skeptics with Karen Barnaby's "Shepherd's Pie with Mushrooms, Smoked Cheddar, Bacon, and Sour Cream". Superb!

I've made numerous recipes from this cookbook, and all of them were easy to follow for the novice chef and were absolutely fantastic! I highly recommend Karen Barnaby's "Low-Carb Gourmet". If she doesn't win you over with her amazingly delicious low-carb recipes, she'll win you over with her engaging and entertaining writing style which made the book a joy to read (AND to use!).