400 Best-Ever Recipes: Fat Free, Low Fat

I am on a fairly strict no-dairy, no-fat diet now that I've been having issues with my gall bladder.  I have had to take several old recipes and take out all of the good stuff and substitute fat-free or very low-fat wherever I can.  So when I saw the book, 400 Best-Ever Recipes: Fat Free, Low Fat, by Anne Sheasby, I was SO EXCITED.

There's a problem though.  And it seems to be a broken record from nearly ALL of my other cookbook reviews.  THE RECIPES ARE TOO FANCY!!!  I do NOT keep fennel, sunflower margarine, or ground lemon grass on hand!  I do not keep cooking wines around the house, just because I wouldn't use them often enough (and my husband doesn't like the idea of cooking wine... but then again, he doesn't like the idea of using curry, either!).  There was one recipe in the beginning of the book that called for THREE red peppers.  What kind of a budget would I have to have to make things like are in this book!

Okay, here are the good things.  PICTURES.  Beautiful PICTURES.  I am very visual, and love a good picture.  It looks to me like ALL of the dishes have at least one picture taken... and many of them have some in-between-step pictures included. 

If I had a larger food budget and a family who were interested in the more "fancy" foods, this book would be an AMAZING find.  Unfortunately, we're simple folk who need to reduce our fat intake and this book just isn't for us.  If YOU like fancier foods, you might want to take a more in-depth look.  I found a couple of soups that I copied down, but maybe you'll find much more. :)

Vicky Lansky's Kids Cooking

A cookbook review!  We had this one on our shelves.  My three-year-old was napping (on my bedroom floor!) and my five-year-old wanted to hang out.  So we pulled out some cookbooks that had the word "kids" in the title.  He settled on Vicky Lansky's Kids Cooking...  And we made some... cookies... that appear to be of the oatmeal variety.  I can't have any... because of health issues, I've had to swear off almost all fat, and almost all milk.  So when these cookies came out SWIMMING in butter (they were VERY easy to remove from the pan......), there was no way.

The book LOOKS like it would be fantastic.  There are a few pages up front with pictures of things kids could make, and it includes the page number.  Also, the words are easy-to-read.  Scotty did just fine reading through the instructions (except for the word, "margarine"), BUT.  And this is big.  It doesn't matter how good the book is for kids, or how many up front pictures there are if the one recipe we try comes out as greasy as this.  Gross.

So this cookbook is a NO-GO.  Especially since it's listed new on Amazon for some $36.  That must be somebody's idea of a joke. ;)