EVERY CALORIE COUNTS COOKBOOK - by Dana Carpender

Tell us which recipes you've tried from this book and what you thought of them, whether they were great or duds. Don't post the actual recipes here because of copyright issues. If you've tweaked one of the recipes to come up with your own version, feel free to post it in the recipes section at the top of this forum.

NOTE: Let's use a separate thread for each cookbook that we review.

Chicken Satay - page 74

This was OK, but a little bland like it needed salt or something. I gave it a rating of 3 out of 5.

Blackberry Jam - page 484

I had to adjust the recipe because frozen berries come in 12-ounce bags, not 16 ounces. I left all the other ingredient amounts the same as originally called for. Dana called for blackberries but I used raspberries. At first I didn't think it was going to set up but after about 2 hours of chilling it was fine. I do think it's a little too tart for jam and I would double. That won't affect the carb count if you're using liquid Splenda but it would add about 1 net carb per tablespoon if you're using granular. By the next day the jam became too thick to be spreadable. Depending on how juicy your berries are, you may want to use less gelatin than called for. I gave this a 3 out of 5.

Although I'm a big fan of Dana Carpenter, and I have no problem with calorie counting, I've realized I do not enjoy this book.

Here's my review of this book:

http://livinlavidalocarb.blogspot.com/2006...-and-carbs.html

So what did you "not enjoy" about Dana's latest book, Debo?

Although I've only tried the chicken satay and jam recipes so far, I've got about 40 other recipes flagged to try. I did find that as I read through the recipes I would mentally change some of the ingredients to the higher fat versions simply because I would never use things like low fat mayo or cream cheese, etc. Even though I've gotten some of my favorite recipes from Dana's books I've also made some real bombs that I can't believe anyone would have liked. I also think that Dana has very different tastes in food than me which might explain why only 40 recipes out of about 500 appealed to me. Maybe it's not so much that Dana's recipes aren't good; they're just not the kinds of dishes that make my taste buds happy.

Of course, her publisher MADE her use some of those ingredients which royally stinks. She's been writing low-carb cookbooks for YEARS, so why would the publisher think low-fat mayonnaise or cream cheese is appropriate. Leave the artistic work to the author of the book, I say. But what do I know?

What Linda said. The recipes and the low-fat ingredients.

Thanks for linking your review of it, Jimmy. It was good.

The Border's nearby recently issued a spiral bound copy of the orig 500 Low Carb Recipes for $4.99 and I bought one for me and one for my daughter. I really like being able to open the book flat while cooking.

Debo aka Chef Deora