Skinny Italian Cooking (Skinny Series)

Italian cuisine has long been one of America's favorites. But the rich cheeses, heavy oils, and well-marbled meats have traditionally placed Italian food at the high end of the fat and calorie scales. Is it possible to slim down these delicious dishes yet retain the full flavor and authentic tastes of Italian cookery? Happily, the answer is yes!
In this new collection, Glick and Baggett combine their 15 years' experience in designing rich-tasting yet low-fat recipes to capture all the abundance of Italian flavor while shifting the balance from high-fat ingredients to leaner, fresher foods and the wealth of reduced-fat products now available at supermarkets.
Skinny Italian Cooking covers the gamut from classic dishes and regional specialties to delicious appetizers, soups, pizzas, desserts, and - in its usual starring role - pasta, with a huge range of savory sauces. The recipes also have been modified to fit busy schedules: most can be prepared in 45 minutes or less, and many include timesaving microwave and food processor shortcuts.
Now you can go Italian without guilt, and serve hearty family meals, elegant party dishes and delightful fun foods that are as good for you as they are delicious to eat. Virtually all recipes conform to American Heart Association guidelines, not exceeding 30% of calories from fat. Nutritional data and diabetic exchanges follow each recipe.

This collection of Americanized Italian recipes offers some useful ideas for lowering fat, but many of Glick and Bagget's recipes seem misplaced in a cuisine that is already naturally healthy. Each recipe includes nutritional information, but serving sizes can be misleading (e.g., 1 3/4 cups of Hot Artichoke Spread yields 25 servings, which would make a serving fractionally over a tablespoon; at 80 calories and 2.4 grams of fat per serving, that's hardly a skinny dish). When the authors stick to fresh ingredients, there are some light and tasty results: Italian Garden Orzo Salad with peppers and herbs, Braised Turkey Stew, Milan Style (an ossobuco wannabe) and Tuna Steaks with Sweet-and-Sour Tomato Relish. Some of the recipes rely unnecessarily on prepared products, e.g. commercially seasoned stuffing mix rather than stale bread in Italian Bread Soup, and a Tiramisu made with cottage cheese, marshmallow cream, Neufchatel cheese and cream cheese.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.