Comfort Food Makeovers - Editors at America's Test Kitchen (Boek)

*****
You can find lightened versions of feel-good favorites like mac and cheese, fried chicken, and fudgy brownies anywhere you can find recipes: books, magazines, and all over the Internet. But be honest: Have you ever made one of these so-called makeovers more than once? At America s Test Kitchen, we test recipes over and over long after the other guys have thrown in the towel. Simply put, good enough doesn t cut it with us. In Comfort Food Makeovers, we redesigned the dishes you crave from the ground up, so you can enjoy them again and again. Popular restaurant dishes like loaded nachos and velvety cheesecake from the Factory (you know which one) have been reengineered, too. Fat has been cut in half or more and calories have been reduced by at least one-third in almost every recipe. But just because we trimmed the fat and calories doesn t mean we sacrificed good taste or resorted to teeny portions. How did we do it?
We started with the worst offender of high-fat cooking techniques: deep frying. To revamp mozzarella sticks, eggplant Parmesan, and fried shrimp, we nixed the fryer and turned to the oven instead. Dunking these foods in egg whites and coating them with panko and a thin sheen of vegetable oil spray before baking gave us the same golden, ultra-crisp exterior. Steaming egg rolls, then uncovering the pan so moisture could evaporate, made them light and crispy not heavy and greasy like takeout.
We also ramped up the flavor of our lightened dishes by turning to some well-chosen powerhouse ingredients. Trading ground turkey for the ground beef in our Bolognese sauce was an easy way to cut fat, but to boost its savory richness, we added dried porcini mushrooms, an anchovy, and a bit of pancetta. Rather than loading up our shrimp scampi with lots of butter like so many restaurants do, we reached for light cream cheese, which imparted a rich, silky texture but with far fewer calories.
Most light desserts are worth skipping. Not ours. Just a spoonful of chocolate syrup made our brownies super-fudgy but added surprisingly few calories and no fat. Honey Nut Cheerios (who knew?!) stood in for a portion of the nuts in our lighter, yet ultra-nutty, pecan bars. And special occasion desserts like tiramisù are no longer off-limits. Feel free to dig into our luscious lightened version we swapped out high-fat mascarpone for a lightly sweetened mix of light cottage cheese, yogurt, and cream cheese whipped together in a food processor.
With Comfort Food Makeovers, you ll be able to enjoy the dishes you love more often. We guarantee it.

I'm always looking for new ways to eat healthier and trim some calories and this book is FULL of recipes to do just that. I love that they put a nice selection of foods, and expanded "comfort foods" beyond Meatloaf or Mac & Cheese. This book has a recipe for 80 calorie Crab Rangoon, 100 calorie Egg Rolls, 350 Calorie Pizza, plus soups, dips, and fabulous desserts including NY Cheesecake and Red Velvet Cupcakes. There's a great section in the front that explains how they calculated the nutritional values of the recipes, how to measure things properly, and key equipment used to optimize results. I gave it 4 stars because some of the recipes don't have photos. Overall, its a great cookbook and I'm pleased with it. I pre-ordered from Amazon and it arrived a few days before its official release date, which is kind of fun.

I always look forward to cookbooks from America's Test Kitchen. Their exhaustive approach to recipe-building, tinkering each aspect one at a time, ensures that the end product is spot-on. Although I love many of their past cookbooks, it's no secret that some of their best comfort food recipes are laden with fat, calories, and sodium. This cookbook starts over from scratch to build healthier, cleaner versions of classic comfort foods.

The book begins with an introduction that includes tips to cut fat and calories from food, important staple ingredients for a healthier diet, and necessary kitchen tools or equipment. In traditional America's Test Kitchen style, each recipe contains an introductory paragraph or two that details the recipe-building process. These can be great ways to gain insight into the methods used to cut calories and fat from classic dishes, and many of the techniques can be employed to tweak your own favorite dishes. The rest of the book is laid out in the following sections:

Appetizers and Snacks
Salads, Sandwiches, and Pizza
The Soup Bowl
Classic Casseroles
Baked Not Fried
A Chicken in Every Pot
Favorites from Land and Sea
Pasta Night
On the Side
Breakfast and Brunch
Chocolate Desserts
Cookies and Bars
More Sweet Treats

I have tried several of these recipes thus far (Roasted Artichoke Dip, Creamy Tomato Soup, and Spaghetti Carbonara). Each of them has been delicious -- well-balanced flavors that don't taste like a bland "health food" version of the original. I also appreciate that the folks at ATK don't shy away from using stereotypical "unhealthy foods" (bacon, butter, etc.); they just cut back wherever possible and make substitutions when necessary. If a recipe calls for a bit of butter, it's because they felt that the flavor of the final dish would be compromised without it. But on the other hand, fat-laden ingredients are not thrown in to dishes just because "that's the way it's always been."

One of my reservations about the comfort food makeovers is that the authors focus heavily on calories, fat, and saturated fat but pay less attention to sodium. They do recommend using low-sodium soy sauce or low-sodium broth, but the nutritional facts following each recipe omit the sodium values. I would have preferred to see a greater emphasis on reducing calories, fat, and sodium, which would be a true comfort food makeover in my opinion.

A note for vegetarians: This is not intended to be a vegetarian cookbook, but there are many recipes that could easily be tweaked to fit a vegetarian diet. Meat is central in many of the entrees, but the pasta dishes, soups, and dessert recipes may be worth it. It would be much harder to tweak these recipes to fit a vegan or gluten-free diet.

Overall, I highly recommend this book from ATK. Each recipe is exhaustively researched and tested, and they truly taste like the comfort food originals. I have a feeling that this will be frequently pulled from my shelf for weeknight dinners. Enjoy!

I was very excited to receive my cookbook. I have quite a few America's Test Kitchen cookbooks already, and have had good results for everything I've cooked so far. Despite the fact that I'm a vegetarian I've always found lots of recipes I can use, and this cookbook is no exception. I really like the way they explain things at the begining of each recipe, it makes things a lot clearer.

It's really great to find a cookbook that has healthier ingredients without skimping on the taste. At the bottom of each recipe, it tells you how many calories before it has been made healthier, and then how many calories after. The pictures are really tempting. I've been searching for a nice CINNAMON ROLLS recipe, this book has it and shows the stages of making them, my mouth is watering! The PEANUT BUTTER PIE looks out of this world; I can't wait to try it. The CALORIES BEFORE, 720, after 360. GRAMS OF FAT BEFORE, 15, AFTER, 4. SATURATED FAT BEFORE, 17, after 8. The CARROT CAKE is another welcome addition, CALORIES BEFORE, 520, after 280. FAT BEFORE, 33, after 12. SATURATED FAT BEFORE 8, after 3.

I love MACARONI CHEESE, but don't eat it very often because of the fat. In this book the 'BAKED MACARONI & CHEESE' has 750 CALORIES BEFORE, after 470. GRAMS OF FAT BEFORE, 40, after 11. GRAMS OF SATURATED FAT BEFORE, 25, after 5, and looks very nice. Another recipe I can't wait to try is the 'THIN-CRUST CHEESE PIZZA' I love thin crispy pizza. BEFORE CALORIES are 460, after 350. GRAMS OF FAT BEFORE, 24, after 10. SATURATED FAT BEFORE,10, after 4.5. I have to watch my cholesterol, so fat is something I want to use less of.

Even though I'm a vegetarian, I can't help but admire the pictures of the recipes that I cannot eat, maybe I'll pass them on to my family.
'BROCCOLI & SAUSAGE CALZONES,'PHILLY CHEESESTEAK'S, 'CHICKEN POT PIE', 'CHICKEN PARMESAN WITH SPAGHETTI', 'CHICKEN KIEV',
'MEATLOAF', 'CHICKEN & DUMPLINGS', QUICHE LORRAINE', to name a few . I've recently started eating fish, you'll find some very nice recipes for SEAFOOD & FISH, SOUPS TOO. Everything in this book looks scrumptious,

I cannot wait to try the 'TWICE BAKED POTATOES', 'SCALLOPED POTATOES', 'MACARONI SALAD', 'CHEESY GARLIC BREAD'. 'BUTTERMILK BISCUITS' look great and have almost half the calories. Mmmm, 'GERMAN CHOCOLATE CAKE, delicious looking and 'CHOCOLATE CREAM PIE', also 'WARM CHOCOLATE FUDGE CAKES'. The 'CHOCOLATE MOUSSE' looks really interesting. The cookies and bars very tempting 'CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES, 'CHEESECAKE BARS', 'PECAN BARS', 'RASPBERRY STREUSEL BARS', LEMON SQUARES', 'KEY LIME BARS', 'BLONDIE'S', and OATMEAL FUDGE BARS'. My head is spinning! Near the end of the book there's a recipe for 'CREME BRULEE', 'BREAD PUDDING', and finally the very last (but not least) recipe, 'RICH & CREAMY BANANA PUDDING'. "Yum". Too many recipes to mention.

MY VERY FIRST RECIPE I just made from this book:- PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES. Instead of Canola oil, I used 'SMART BALANCE OIL' which is a blend of canola and olive oil and very healthy. They came out fantastic, so delicious, no one would ever suspect they've been made healthier. The recipe said they would have a caramel taste, and they do, even though there's none in! CALORIES BEFORE 190 after 130. GRAMS OF FAT BEFORE, 11 after 6. GRAMS SATURATED FAT BEFORE, 4 after 1.5.

http://www.amazon.com/Comfort-Makeovers-Editors-Americas-Kitchen/dp/193649342X/ref=lp_4919340011_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362831016&sr=1-1