The Only Low-Carb Cookbook Worth Buying

The secret to low-carb dieting is to focus on what you CAN have and to have recipes that are so delectable and imaginative that you don't miss what you're cutting out. This book fits the bill exactly. McCullough draws from cuisines as varied as classic French, North African, Thai, Mexican, and American comfort food and the results would not be out of place in the finest restaurants. Yet for all their sophistication the recipes are unintimidating and easy to follow for the average home cook. In addition, you will learn many clever tricks for mimicking the foods you miss, from using oven-roasted eggplant slices in "lasagna" and "pizza" to superb cauliflower "potato salad" and divine blue-cheese flavored turnip "potatoes au gratin." Then there are the desserts. Yum. This cookbook is so good that I would use it even if I didn't eat low-carb. But as it is, I've lost 11 pounds in two weeks eating "dinner party" food that took little more time than broiling a piece of fish and making a salad. One of the best cookbooks in my collection of 50+.














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exquisite, well developed recipes

I love this cookbook! I know 5 stars is the highest rating. Here's why it has earned all 5:

1) It's exactly what it claims to be: a low carb cookbook. Yes, some of the recipes are high fat, but it never claims to be a lowfat cookbook or a cookbook that works with any particular diet regimen like Atkins or The Zone or Sugarbusters or whatnot. It's wonderfully low-carb.

2) Like a good cookbook should have, it includes a beginning section explaining where the recipes came from or how they came to be developed. The author is a foodie, so she took many of her favorite recipes or favorite restaurant foods and found techniques to make them low-carb. This section plus the section on special ingredients is the first 50 pages. The rest is recipes.

3) Another good cookbook requirement: special ingredients are identified at the beginning of the chapter, with descriptions of how to shop for each one and there is a section indicating how to get them by mail order or the web in the back. Perfect for me because some of the ingredients were things I didn't know about or at least had never purchased before.

4) Recipes are divided by section: starters, main dishes, side dishes, veggie dishes, desserts, etc. Some cookbooks go only by ingredient, which is confusing to me. I'd rather select a main dish and a vegetable dish rather than try to determine if the veggie dish is supposed to be a main course.

5) Each recipe indicates the yield. Something not enough cookbooks do. I want to know if I'm making something for 2 or 8 or 10 people so that I can adjust the recipe as needed (by half or double) for my intended number of diners.

6) Each recipe is well written. There is no wondering when to start each part of it. The instructions are step by step in order by time and most often the time between each step is indicated. Love that!

7) The recipes are gourmet! Most of the low-carb cookbooks I have are SO BORING. Steamed chicken breast this, cottage cheese that. Not so in this lovely find. Here are some of the recipes: Thai style beef curry, Broccoli with toasted pine nuts, Baked chard with chiles, Spanish cream, Leg of lamb with a tapenade crust....

8) If this were a new cookbook, the only ding would be that it uses the sweetener that comes in pink or blue packets rather then Splenda, which is a relative newcomer to the grocery store. Since this book isn't exactly new, I can't fault it for not using an ingredient that probably wasn't on the shelf at the time. For each pink or blue packet, you can substitute about 1.5 teaspoons of Splenda or sucralose and come out with similar results.

9) For newbies to cooking, there are suggested menus at the end of the book - making it easier to decide what main dishes to pair with which vegetables and\or sides, etc. This type of planning is something that can be learned but takes time. It's nice that the author included this section for people that need a litle extra help.


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Low Carb, But High Fat

When I ordered this book, I was expecting something along the line of high protein, low carb meals with no more than 9-15 grams of fat per serving. I was disappointed to find that a majority of what the book was recommending was 28+ grams of fat per serving. I commend anyone that has lost 60 pounds on a diet, as I have lost over 100 pounds myself, but if you are wanting to look like a model from a fitness magazine, I don't think you will achieve such results on this particular diet. It does, however have some neat suggestions that you could modify to a lower fat version, and could be a very good diet plan if your doctor has told you that carbs are causing medical problems for you.

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