Some Healthy Recipe Books or Recipes

M.,
I don't have any recipe books to advise you on but there are some good recipe sites that you can go to that offer low cal meals such as allrecipes.com and cooks.com also you can modify your favorite recipes as well to make them low cal. so that you wont be eating a grilled chicken breast and fruit for dinner every night.

Hi M.,

Cogratulations on your decision to switch to a healthier lifestyle! I would highly recomend the South Beach Diet book as well as the South Beach Diet Cookbook! It is truly a life style change and not just a diet. Unlike the Atkins diet, it separates the good carbs, cholesterols and fats from the bad ones. These books provide some delicious and simple recipes - it may seam a bit daunting at first, but I promise you will feel great, and probably lose some weight in the process as well.

Best of luck!

The kraft foods website www.kraftfoods.com has a ton of easy healthy recipes. I like to use the food and family magazine back issues that they have on there site. They are usually pretty simple (I am not much of a chef) and seem to be pretty healthy. I don't know that much about cholestoral, but they have several different types of chicken recipes but also different types of salads, beef recipes, fruit dishes, etc. You can also sign up to get the food and family magazine sent to your house. It's free and it comes 4 times a year. I got through college eating Mcdonalds, pizza and chinese. Now that I have a family to cook for I found I had little culinary skills. This website and magazine has been a huge help. They have cute fun recipes for kid friendly food too.

Hi, Jessica Seinfeld (Jerry's wife) was on Oprah yesterday and she has a new cookbook out. All she does is puree vegetables and add them to regular meals and it makes them almost fat free. She had all kinds of recipes (main dishes, sides, desserts, etc..). My family is also trying to eat healthier too and this is what we are going to try. On Oprah.com there are some of her recipes, you might want to check it out and see how you like it. Good Luck!!
A.

So, here is the ultimate recipe book for busy moms who need to make health conscious meals...Fix it and Forget it LIGHTLY.
You can get it at Walmart for about 15 dollars. They are all crockpot meals and my family loves alot of the them. My friend and I get together every Mon and Wed (soccer nights) and throw in a meal at around noon and it's ready when when we come home late from soccer practices. My friend always hated to cook and so she and her family ate out alot but since we've been doing some of these recipes they are soooo easy there is no excuse. Many of the recipes have only a few ingredients. I am trying to lose weight and the recipes are great because they are light and I can easily figure out what the points value is (Weight watchers uses points). I lost 8 lbs last week!!!! Of course I am exercising alot at the gym (I can bring my son and he loves to play in the play area) Anyway, last night we had beef stew. One of my favorite recipes so far is Pepsi Pot Roast. In the crockpot, throw in a pot roast (you don't have to brown it first) one packet of onion soup mix, one can of cream of mushroom soup (lowfat version) and 2 1/2 cans of Diet Coke. Cook it for 8 hours on low. The meat just falls apart and has a bit of a sweet taste to it. A crockpot is great...your husband will come home to a house that smells like you've been cooking all day!
And, you'll be making healthy meals too. Good Luck!

You can walk into any Weight Watchers and buy cookbooks that are designed around a healthy lifestyle. Each recipe is delicious, and all include nutritional information. You might also consider getting "Deceptively Delicious"...it was just featured on Oprah yesterday, and I am going to go find it myself.

Be sure to include activity in your lifestyle too. Since you are the designated "cook," maybe your husband can be the designated "activity director"?

Good luck!

Have you checked out Trader Joes? I too have made a lifestyle change & it seems many more are joing on the wagon as well. Like... Costco use to never have anything organic, but have been so pleased to find more & more organics coming in. I have always loved chicken & insist on salad joing the dinner table each night. There are so many yummy ways to make it. Try changing up your recipies, you can do a lot with a chicken brest. My all time favorite recipe book is: Better homes & garden. But really it's not the recipies so much as it is the shopping for the recipies, start off with organincs, use ground turkey instead of gound beef, or chicken or turkey sausages/hotdogs instead of beef or pork. In my house we have no pork..turkey sausage, turkey bacon, even got some of that itialian turkey sausage for my own toppings on (a flat bread) pizza. I just made turkey meatballs (so easy) & my kids (3 & 9) loved them! they said they were the best meatballs ever! lol so moist!

turkey meatballs
1 package ground turkey meat
1 egg
1 cup garlic bread crumbs
2 dashes garlic salt or powder
1/2 cup chopped onion

I'm a low fat/good health cook, but not sure if what I have will be good for a low cholestrol diet so...

here's a link to more recipies: http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,low_cholestrol_food...

not sure how well your son will enjoy these recipes, but all you can do is try. & know that changing what you have in your house & what's availabe for snacks you will be building a healthy lifestyle for your son as well. Wishing you the best!

This may or may not be of any help to you, but, I love going to the food network website! They have so many recipes on there and from time to time I venture to each chef/cooks' website and see what recipes they have online. HTH!!

Have you tried looking at allrecipes.com? They have an ingredient search where you put in "chicken breast" or something and it'll give you a list of recipes all reviewed by other people, so you know which ones are good. I do almost all my cooking from there. Better Homes and Gardens also has a good cookbook, I think it's called the New Dieter's Cookbook. It has some great recipes that are still really tasty. Once you get in the habit, it won't be too hard. Good luck

Hi there,
I know that the weight watchers website has some awesome recipes. You may not need to "diet" but they have some terrific ideas for lower fat substitutes that keep the flavor and crunch. You can also find some of their books online or in the store. Maybe you might have a friend that attends a local meeting that can pick something up for you. You might even find a local meeting and go to one to see some of the books that they have available. I did weight watchers after my son was born, but had to quit a few months ago. Not because I wanted to, but we are going to have another baby. This program was so awesome because it gave so many options. I hope that this helps and I wish you the best in your quest to make a change.
B.

There are cook books out there specifically for this issue. We ran into this problem and it saved me lots of time, you can also google stuff to make too...

Hi M.,

I use an awesome website: wwww.myonlinemeals.com

I think you can ask for specific diet needs too. The recipes are awesome and even if you order regular meal recipes, you can adapt them.

Also, I educate people on a safer, healthier products which include products for high cholestrol. If you would like more information, please e-mail me and I can get you more information.

Hope the recipe website helps.

Best to you,
M.
____@____.com
www.livetotalwellness.com/M.

Hi M.. I have a suggestion on your salads. Sams club sells lettuce and tomatoes alot cheaper for my family. I serve salads every night with my dinners. And this is the cheapest way to go is getting your items there for salad materials. they have red,orange,yellow peppers that goes great in it along with cucumbers, mushrooms if you like, green onions. I dont use crutons or bacon bits. Every once in a while i will make it different and put a few slices of avocado on it so its not the same thing over and over.
They also have the spray on salad dressing which i think is 1 calorie per spray? id have to go look again. Anyhow I hope this helps have a lovley week =)

I have a few simple suggestions:

Trade out regular pasta for whole wheat and spinach pastas, use olive oil rather than any other oil, substitute apple sauce for most of the sugar in sweet recipes, add different ingredients to green salads to make them interesting (baby corn, carrots, olives, beans, etc.), and plan your meals ahead of time so that you might search healthy alternatives for your ingredients. I do not have a particular healthy recipe book but you can look up healthy recipes on recipezaar . com or allrecipes . com. Good luck and think of this less as a hard task and more as a happy, healthy change!

To your health!

Hi M...
I have been stuggling with my weight for years now...have tried it all and have a limited budget as well. I just learned that I too have high colesterol and am trying to change my eating habbits as well. A couple things I can suggest for being budget concious and healthy..

~Don't even look into weight watchers..yes, it' a good program, but they make TONS of money off of you, EVERYTHING is overpriced and expensive. Instead look into TOPS..it is cheap ($5 a month) and they do the exact same thing as weight watchers...actually MORE! But it's non-profit, AWESOME! You can find local meetings at www.tops.org and you and your hubby can go together!

~If you are looking for recipe's, there is a great website called www.recipezaar.com . You can search for recipes that are low fat, and they have hundreds of thousads for free! YOu can also get WW recipes there without having to spend your life savings.

Hope that helps!!

K.

I have been where you are! My cholesterol was 240 and the doctor said lifestyle change or meds. I decided to eat all Japanese food all the time (mostly because my grandma is Japanese and I knew the food tasted good and was low in fat!) After only 1 month, my cholesterol was 177 and I am still doing this one year later :) Now, I don't suggest that everyone do what I did, that is between your family and your doctor. But here is my favorite recipe for you to try. (It is not a raw dish!)

SUKI-YAKI

PLACE A COUPLE HANDFULS RICE NOODLES (you can find these in the oriental section of most grocery stores) IN A BOWL WITH HOT WATER TO SOAK UNTIL THE END OF THE RECIPE. I USUALLY BREAK THESE NOODLES UP A BIT FOR EASIER HANDLING.

1 ONION SLICED UP ANY WAY YOU LIKE

PLACE INTO FRYING PAN WITH A FEW TABLESPOONS OF OIL (I USE OLIVE OIL BUT WHATEVER) AND BEGIN BROWNING.

ADD 1 CUP ANY KIND OF MEAT (I normally use chicken) YOU HAVE, COOKED OR UNCOOKED.

ADD 2 TABLESPOONS SUGAR WHILE MEAT AND ONIONS COOK.

ADD ¼ CUP SOY OR TAMARI SAUCE,(this is just wheat free soy sauce, again it is found in the oriental aisle of any grocery store) CONTINUE COOKING.

CHOP UP MEDIUM HEAD OF NAPA (CHINESE) CABBAGE (produce aisle of any grocery store). YOU CAN USE MORE OR LESS CABBAGE DEPENDING ON WHAT YOU LIKE. ADD TO THE POT A LITTLE AT A TIME AND COOK UNTIL DONE TO YOUR LIKING. IF IT BEGINS TO STICK AND NEEDS LIQUID, CONTINUE ON TO NEXT STEP.

ADD ½ CUP MIRIN (sweet rice cooking wine - oriental aisle)- CONTINUE COOKING FOR A COUPLE MINUTES.

ADD ¾ CUP SAKE (this is rice wine and is found in the wine section of most grocery stores) – CONTINUE COOKING FOR A COUPLE MINUTES.

ADD CUBED TOFU (I usually use firm), IF YOU LIKE

DRAIN AND ADD RICE NOODLES AND CONTINUE COOKING TILL NOODLES ARE DONE TO YOUR LIKING.

TIME TO EAT!

Good luck with whatever you decide :)

one of my favorite recipes is turkey meatball subs. you can get a whole bag of pre-made italian seasoned turkey meatballs (very yummy) for about $8. whole wheat hoagie rolls and canned diced tomatoes.
It takes about 5 minutes to put the whole thing together. the meatballs, if you buy them that way, are pre-cooked. so you just warm them in the microwave mixed with the canned tomatoes, i like to get the tomatoes with green chiles or onions for more flavor. cut the meatballs in half. Put them on the hoagie rolls and you have a meal. I like to serve mine with some mozzerella cheese and a little fruit on the side.
Also, a really awesome website for food tips and healthy recipes is www.foodfit.com

Boy do I know this juggling act, between eating healthy and yet being able to afford to eat every meal. lol There's one thing that is a fact and that is: it's expense to eat healthy. One thing that our family has done to help easy the cost, is that 7 out of the 10 of us are hunters. Venison and elk meat are very good for you. It might bear looking into. I know that in bigger cities, ie Olympia, they have farmer's markets that generally sell venison and elk meat. It's expense to get there, but it might bear giving it a try. Find out if you like it, and then decide if your family can and will hunt or if you need to get a hold of other hunters to help supplement your family. Good luck.

Check out the new cookbook Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. There are some great recipes for the whole family in there. She was just on Oprah promoting it. She uses purees for cooking. She said she takes one hour a week to prepare all the purees. Then she has them in the fridge for cooking throughout the week. Here is the website for her http://www.deceptivelydelicious.com/site/

Hope this helps:)