You CAN trust a skinny cook ;-)

Phew, well that’s good to know! Have any of you seen Cook Yourself Thin? It’s a cooking show hosted by 3 lovely ‘skinny’ gals all about healthy cooking. I think I’ve seen every episode, and there’s only repeats on now, but I loved watching how they turned every day food, like lasagna, pizza, cakes and more in to healthier meals.  Allison Fishman is one of the hosts and she recently released a cook book ‘You Can Trust A Skinny Cook’.

You Can Trust A Skinny Cook was created with the home cook in mind. Before making the cut, each recipe had to pass the following tests:

1.Are the ingredients in this recipe easy to find?

2. Is the recipe easy to make?

3. Will you have fun when you make this at home?

4. Will you be proud of what you made? (will your friends and family lick their plates?)

5. Does it taste good?  Really good?

The one thing I struggle with when I get a new cook book is “what shall I try to cook first?” Instead of stressing about what to make (especially for this review) I decided to just enjoy the cook book and browse it slowly, read the recipes, and of course linger over all the mouth-watering photos.

 

At the beginning of each recipe, Allison writes a little personal ‘blurb’ (for want of a better word), I think it’s like getting a  letter from your girlfriend, telling you why they loved the recipe, or what happened the first time they made it.  That’s why I’ve been enjoying browsing this book so much.

 

There’s other pages too scattered throughout the book that read like an even longer letter. Seriously it makes me wanna pick up my pen (or type on my keyboard!) and send a good ole fashioned snail mail letter to my friends :-)

but, back to the recipes…. I loved the look of this one, roasted beet salad with goat cheese and walnuts. I just picked my beets from the garden this week, but I didn’t have any goat cheese in. I still roasted the beets (something I’d never thought to do, as I always like mine pickled!) and they were delicious. I am so getting the rest of the ingredients to make this next week, (and unfortunately I’ll have to buy beets cos I have none left in the garden).

  I decided I’d try a cookie recipe this week.  Cherry Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies. I have to be honest, just a choc chip cookie doesn’t really do it for me . . . well ok, they’re good fresh out of the oven, but my favorite cookies usually always have oats in them. I would prefer an oatmeal and raisin cookie over a chocolate one any day. I love the chewiness of them, and the oats make them much more satisfying.   This recipe had everything I loved about a cookie in it.

The only thing I didn’t have on hand was dried cherries, so I used dried cranberries instead.

Let me tell you, these cookies were DELICIOUS! Seriously delicious. Allison’s goal in adding chocolate chips and cherries was to make these so satisfying, one would be enough. I have to say, they were so good it was VERY HARD not to have more than one! Each cookie had 100 calories in it. They were soft and chewy and warm and  . . .did I say delicious?! 

I have to say though, by the next day the cookies were rather crispy, not chewy at all. I don’t think I over baked them because I baked them for 5 minutes less than the recipe said. But I also have to say, that as a crispy oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, it is still seriously delicious:-)

There’s so many more great looking recipes in this book. I can’t wait to try more.

 

** I received a review copy of this book from Wiley publishing in exchange for an honest review. All opinions and thoughts are 100% mine **