The culinary preferences of Americans are as diverse as our population. Unfortunately, the way most of us enjoy our Mexican, Chinese and even Italian food is very Americanized – fried, greasy and cheesy. When we start thinking about all the things we have to “give up” to lose weight, our favorite internationally inspired dishes are the first to go. However, the newBiggest Loser Flavors of the World cookbookwill put all of your quesadillas, potato pancakes, and even tiramisu right back in your diet. Chef Devin Alexander is the recipe author for the new cookbook, as she has been for all of the Biggest Loser cookbooks (last year she released the Biggest Loser Desserts cookbook). Devin told us “We really dug deep to find ingredients that were really healthy.” She boasts about the book an all-natural cookbook. So, not only are the recipes all under 400 calories, they also use wholesome ingredients. She’s “all about decadence” and “figured out ways not to sacrifice flavor.” Biggest Loser Flavors of the World is a first-of-its-kind cookbook: it’s so all-natural Devin couldn’t even use evaporated cane juice or fructose and the recipes are lower in fat, calories, saturated-fat, cholesterol, etc. Best of all, it’s still really decadent.
Listen now to our interview with Devin. Her enthusiasm for the book is completely contagious. You’ll hear how she and her team worked to put together the recipes, the stringent parameters Biggest Loserhad her working within, and her list of favorite recipes from the book.
For many people, choosing to live a vegan lifestyle is emotionally and physically rewarding. However, sometimes it is difficult to come up with new and tempting vegan recipes. Sure, you could eat a green salad every night of the week, but your taste buds would get bored pretty quickly, not to mention that you probably would not be getting all of the vitamins and nutrients your body needs to function properly. So, what is a vegan to do?
The Vegan College Cookbook was created for college students who want to follow a vegan lifestyle while remaining within their budget and time constraints. In other words, these recipes are not going to take a long time to make and will leave your wallet smiling after your trip to the grocery store.
Whether you know Gwyneth Paltrow from Shakespeare in Love fame or as the budding songstress wife to Coldplay’s Chris Martin, this mother of two has plenty of other skills up her sleeve. The latest? Cooking.
In April, Paltrow will release My Father’s Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family and Togetherness, her first cookbook that will include a variety of healthy, quick, weeknight dinner recipes for families.
“In the last ten years or so, cooking has become my main ancillary passion in life,” Paltrow writes in the book. “The stove is the epicenter of my house — I am never far away from it and most of the time there is something atop it, simmering away for my family.”
Paltrow has made headlines in the past about her diet and exercise habits, from maintaining a macrobiotic diet to making controversial comments about exercise. Now, she is focusing on healthful foods and reducing the amount of sugar in her family’s diet.
From Real Housewives to comediennes to daytime talk show hosts, it seems like everyone who has had fifteen minutes in the limelight had written a cookbook. As someone with several shelves full of guides to bread baking, cheese making and more, I’m pleased that the next book to join the ranks is from rocker Sheryl Crow.
“It’s called, If It Makes You Healthy, which is sort of a take on [my song] ‘If It Makes You Happy,’” Crow explained Rachael Ray in December 2010. The book, which is a compilation of Crow’s favorite nutritious recipes, will hit stores in March 2011.
Why is a hit singer/songwriter stepping off the stage and into the kitchen? Since her breast cancer diagnosis five years ago, Crow has become interested in cooking. Specifically, she enjoys cooking healthy recipes that help boost immunity. Read Full Post >
When I first opened the new Biggest Loser Dessert Cookbook, I just kept thinking “I want it! I want it! I want it!”. When I told the book’s author, Chef Devin Alexander, she enthusiastically replied “You can have it! You can have it! You can have it!”. The author behind many other Biggest Loser cookbooks and several of her own, says it’s because this is the first cookbook of its kind. All the recipe ingredients are all-natural and unprocessed, not to mention low in calories, fat and with hardly any saturated fat.
Too good to be true? Maybe, but the good news is it’s true!
Devin spent the summer working on this top secret project at the request of Biggest Loser. They gave her some unheard of rules that would have left her with a dessert cookbook without any chocolate syrup or whipped cream, as examples. She told herself to revolutionize, and she did. The results include her own creations for a chocolate syrup (unsweetened cocoa powder and agave nectar), her own “Cut the Crap” Whipped Topping (egg whites and agave), as well as the one recipe in the book she is most proud of, “New”-Tella, a natural alternative to that “other” hazelnut spread that she says “is actually kind of good for you.”
Listen now as Devin talks to us about how these desserts can complement your diet, how she used a variety of ingredients to maintain the textures and flavors people love, and how substitutions can work in your home baking.
