Classy and Opinionated Lifestyle Mom Blog
Eating a balanced diet is hard. Ensuring that you’re getting all the vitamins and minerals your body needs while consuming the right amounts of protein, carbs, and fats can be a real challenge, especially for picky eaters. * Complimentary Products Received for Review. Better Body …
Have you seen the Peter Rabbit movie? Although I have yet to see the movie, I have been drinking the tea. What? Peter Rabbit tea? Yes! In conjunction with the new movie, The Republic of Tea is offering a special limited edition tea, Peter’s Garden …
Helen Martinson struggled with obesity for most of her adult life, and suffered the adverse consequences to her health due to her excess weight. Over the years, she tried countless diets but the weight always came back. Finally, she resorted to bariatric surgery for a lap band, and when that brought on a slew of health problems, she switched it out for a gastric sleeve. Since her top weight, she has lost about 140 pounds—and more importantly, she’s kept that weight off!
* Complimentary Book Received for Review.
Through her years of battling obesity, Helen discovered a way of eating that not only is healthful and helps her maintain her healthy weight but also tastes great. Her plan relies on high-protein recipes that are low in calories, carbs, and fat, all while being big on flavor. Cookin’ Skinny is a collection of Helen’s best recipes so the rest of us can benefit from her experience.
I like this cookbook. It’s a sweet little book with cute illustrations and unfussy pictures of several of the recipes. Cookin’ Skinny isn’t one of those oversized coffee-table books with highly stylized glossy photos. Instead, its emphasis is on the recipes, all designed to be part of an overall weight-loss plan.
The recipes cover just about every category you’d want, broken into convenient chapters. Here’s a sampling of what you’ll find in Cookin’ Skinny:
* Breakfast Dishes: Blueberry Pancakes; Florentine Eggs
* Lunch Dishes: Chicken Sandwich Mediterranean-Style; Turkey Fajitas
* Soups and Salads: Chicken Gumbo; Tuna Salad with Crunchy Cabbage; Creamy Dill Ranch Dressing
* Supper Dishes: Crispy Fish Sticks; Stuffed Beef Tenderloin
* Side Dishes: “Faux” Fried Rice; Spicy Eggplant
* Sweets for the Sweet: Blueberry-and-Peach Crisp; Meringue Cookies
* Fun Foods: Cacciatore Meatballs; Mini Taco Salads
Every recipe includes a nutritional breakdown with all the information you might need. In some cases where the recipes have options, there’s nutritional data about the options, too, a nice feature not found in many cookbooks.
Since Helen’s focus is protein-rich foods, she has included a very helpful section in which she explains how and why a high-protein diet can lead to healthful weight loss. She also has an extensive listing of protein sources, along with the serving size and number of calories and grams of protein for each.
One of my favorite things about Cookin’ Skinny is that the author included before-and-after photos of herself, with a twist: Her “after” picture is at the front of the book, but her “before” picture is at the very end of the book because, as she puts it, “I have put that part of my struggle behind me.” Makes sense to me!
To learn more about Helen Martinson, visit her website. While there, check out the excerpt from Cookin’ Skinny, which includes the recipe for her Apple-and-Blueberry Cottage-Cheese Parfait!
Title: Cookin’ Skinny
Author: Helen Martinson
Paperback: 130 pages
ISBN-10: 148346878X
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Disclaimer: A. Bailey received complimentary products for review purposes & feature on The Classy Chics blog. No monetary compensation was received. A. Bailey’s thoughts, opinions and words are 100% her own. Your thoughts may differ.
Diabetes is serious. I know just how serious, having been my diabetic mother’s caregiver for the last years of her life. Understanding the importance of maintaining healthy weight and glucose levels is the foundation of controlling diabetes. That can be overwhelming, but fortunately, the American …
Every once in a while, a cookbook comes along that’s a joy in many ways—beautifully photographed, well written and researched, interesting stories, appealing recipes, good design, even high-quality paper. Fresh Tastes from a Well-Seasoned Kitchen by Lee Clayton Roper is one of these special cookbooks. …
Saturday, January 20th, is National Cheese Lover’s Day. Celebrate with an amazing grilled cheese sandwich and your favorite beer.
The Grilled Cheese & Beer Cookbook is spiced with wit and a passion for all things grilled cheese and beer, with easy-to-follow instructions that make it perfect for any skill level. It contains over 50 one-of-a-kind grilled cheese sandwich recipes, perfectly paired with craft beers designed to draw out the full flavor of each ingredient.
The Grilled Cheese & Beer Cookbook is the perfect book for the cheese lover in all of us. Check out some recipe names from The Grilled Cheese & Beer Cookbook: Bacon Me Crazy, Muenster Mash, Dragon Ball Cheese, Revenge of the Swiss, Not Your Dad’s Fried Bologna, and many, many more!
You can check out Bailey’s review on the Grilled Cheese & Beer Cookbook right here on the blog.
Johnny Apple Cheese Recipe
2 slices whole grain bread
4 slices Adirondack cheddar cheese
1 granny smith apple
3 strips of bacon
Grease one side of each slice of bread and place in a pan on medium heat, greased side down. Place the cheddar on the bread so that all of the bread is covered. Thinly slice the granny smith apple and place it on one slice of bread so the cheese and bread are completely covered. Add bacon strips to the other slice of bread and cheese. Once the cheese is melted, put the sandwich together and tada! You are all set.
Beer Pairing: This one has a lot to work with for something so simple. A good European-style lager will do well to complement the sharpness of the cheddar and the smoky flavor from the bacon. Heineken and Grolsch would both do fine, but for those looking to accentuate the apple, why not try it with a cider? Although not beer, anyone trying this on a warm sunny day shouldn’t shy away from a nice Angry Orchard or Naked Flock to hit the notes a beer wouldn’t.
Ménage à Cinq Recipe
3 slices of sourdough bread
2 slices of cheddar cheese
1 slice mozzarella cheese
1 slice of Muenster cheese
1 slice pepper jack cheese
1 slice provolone cheese
1/4 avocado
Grease one side of each slice of bread and place in a pan on medium heat, greased side down. Cover all three slices with cheese (in no particular order). Once the cheese is melted, put avocado on two slices. Slap it together and enjoy!
Beer Pairing: This is our ode to one of our favorite show, The League. Except, instead of it being Andre’s swanky wine bar, it’s a delicious sandwich paired with a light refreshing lager—one with some punch behind it. Otter Creek’s Citra Mantra is a pretty good bet if you can find it. If not, the guys on the show always prefer Stella Artois or Bud Light. Old post office boxes are a pretty sweet idea for a bar, though. Right?
Both recipes are from Grilled Cheese & Beer, Hatherleigh Press, © 2016. Reprinted with permission.
About the Authors: Kevin VanBlarcum is a brewer at Keegan Ales in Kingston, NY. After graduating from the University at Albany, he began pursuing a career in the brewing industry. Born and raised in the Catskill Mountains, Kevin currently resides in Pine Hill, New York. James Edward “Eddie” Davis has honed his skills as a chef from Brooklyn, NY to the Catskills. Eddie fell in love with the culinary arts and began to hone his skills at a local favorite, The Caboose. Grilled Cheese & Beer is available at Amazon, or you can probably find it at your local bookstore. Kevin and Eddie have a Facebook page for the book you’ll enjoy checking out, too.
* This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, we may or may not receive a small commission which helps to support this site. Thank you!
Giveaway: One lucky winner is going to win the Grilled Cheese & Beer Cookbook from the publisher, Hatherleigh Press. Good Luck!
Giveaway Details: This giveaway is open to residents of the US ONLY age 18 and over. Please read our Terms of Service & Disclaimer Policy before entering. This giveaway will close on February 14th, 2018 at 11:59 pm EST time. No purchase necessary to enter or win.
Disclaimer: A. Bailey received a complimentary product for review purposes & feature on The Classy Chics blog. No monetary compensation was received. A. Bailey’s thoughts, opinions and words are 100% her own. Your thoughts may differ. Please read the blog’s terms of service policy before entering any giveaways. The Classy Chics are NOT responsible for prize fulfillment or shipping of any items won from this blog.
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