Cookbook Review (?)

Tonight I made macaroni and cheese for my daughter (cheater boxed kind) and soba for myself (cheater bagged kind), and that's not exciting at all. So I thought I'd take some time to talk about a cookbook and other such things. As much fun as it is to create things, and fail, I typically use a recipe to give me general guidance. One cookbook I have found especially handy lately has been "The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life" by Ellie Krieger. So far I have made two full meals (entree, sides, dessert) using this cookbook and everything came out very tasty, especially the Beef Tenderloin with Rosemary and Chocolate(!). Another huge plus to this book is that they lay out all the nutritional facts for every dish, and the dishes are healthy. Great for when you are trying to lose weight as I am now (hey soba only has 240 calories, don't judge me!). The directions are clear and easy to follow and I got the book as a gift, which I highly recommend. Like all cookbooks there are some things I will never attempt but there are dozens of dishes I look forward to trying. Therefore it gets my meaningless recommendation.

Speaking of losing weight, my true partner in crime has been the Lose It! application for the iPhone. You tell this handy FREE application your current weight, goal weight and how fast you want to lose it and it budgets your calories day by day. As you eat you enter all your food and it keeps track of your remaining calories for the day, as well as your weekly status. The application is also nice enough to credit your calories for any exercising you do and comes pre-programmed with tons of generic, name brand and restaurant food choices. To each is own, but this has truly worked for me, down about 12 pounds in 6 weeks. On the downside, there is no way to email yourself all the food you've eaten/your history and occasionally the calorie counts for brand name foods doesn't match the label of the food, but there is enough flexibility in the application to overcome the latter. Most importantly, it's free, if you want to lose weight and you have an iPhone you have nothing to lose. If you don't have an iPhone and you have $200 to lose... sorry wrong blog for cell phone advice.

More food creations this weekend, stay tuned.