Crave-Killing Recipes is a distinctive and inspiring cookbook. It is small: just 25 recipes. But those recipes, written by fitness expert Marie Blanchard, are designed to make a difference in your life. Ordinarily, the foods we love are fatty or sweet or both because our genes want that kind of food to store energy.
Some of us store too much energy.
Marie’s trick in this book is to fashion low-fat recipes that kill your craving for calories and that are quite, quite satisfying. How does she do that? Ingredients: a careful selection of complementary ingredients that provide excellent color, smell and taste. Satisfaction is yours just as soon as you start cooking.
Here’s a perfect example, The Dirty Bird Pocket:
It’s lean ground turkey, chili powder, onion, chili peppers, garlic, garlic powder, balsamic vinegar, mustard, tomatoes, salsa, habanero and baby mushrooms. It’s a mouthful. A mouthful that will deliver an armada of flavor and give you immediate satisfaction. Yes, it’s a “kitchen sink” recipe of sorts, and one that works.
Like all her recipes, Marie does give you some room to maneuver here. Instead of using pita bread to make pocket sandwiches, taco shells will work. You can change from balsamic to some other vinegar. Not a mushroom fan? How about some chopped scallions. The possibilities here are endless. The result is always going to be a complex recipe, with visual appeal and a myriad of flavors to fill your mouth with satisfaction.
What are some other ideas for you to enjoy? Well, consider:
Baked Sweet Potato Fries [no oil, no frying]
Energy Bombs [uncooked combos of oats, cinnamon, peanut butter honey, nuts and berries]
Haddock Fillets [baked in garlic powder and Italian dressing]
Gluten-Free Cauliflower-Crust Pizza
Maple Turkey Bacon Pancakes
Naked Burgers [no buns but meat augmented with green pepper, onion, mushrooms, parsley, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, garlic and balsamic vinegar!]
Quinoa Sushi Rolls
The recipes in Crave-Killing are overflowing with ingredients to make your mouth water. And, there is variation here with ideas from around the world. You won’t be bored by this book at all. You might want a cold beer or maybe some lemonade. The tastes are boundless.
This new book is spiral bound so you can lay it flat in your kitchen and easily follow along. Recipes often have several ingredients — but that investment pays off in more complex and satisfying flavor. The “How to Make?” instructions are delivered in single-sentence steps that you can navigate with easy. Nothing here is hard to master. Everything looks like high-end comfort food. Which it is.
And it’s healthy! Imagine that.