Cookbook Review – 500 Low-Carb Recipes By Dana Carpender

Dana Carpender’s long-anticipated cookbook, 500 Low Carb Recipes is finally available. A lot of low carbohydrate dieters have been waiting for quite a while for this cookbook; it will not disappoint them!

500 Low Carb Recipes is actually Dana’s second book. Her first book, How I Gave Up My Low Fat Diet And Lost Forty Pounds! is a wonderful resource for low carbohydrate dieters of every persuasion. In it, Dana avoids advocating any particular low carbohydrate plan. Instead she describes the various low carbohydrate plans and explains in detail why low carbohydrate diet works and why it is a healthy eating style. How I Gave Up My Low Fat Diet And Lost Forty Pounds! is a book that should be in the library of everyone who followed a low carbohydrate lifestyle.

500 Low Carb Recipes is a fitting sequel to How I Gave Up My Low Fat Diet And Lost Forty Pounds! Like Dana’s first book, 500 Low Carb Recipes is exhaustively researched and answers virtually every question about low carbohydrate cooking that a new low carber could think to ask. Dana begins the book with a comprehensive list of low carbohydrate ingredients, not merely listing them, but providing detailed explanations concerning exactly what they are and how they are used. She also briefly reviews some of the low carbohydrate specialty products that are now available to low carbohydrate dieters.

Face it. The hardest part about maintaining a low carbohydrate lifestyle is that we get bored with what we are eating. We’ve come to depend on sugary, starchy convenience foods to add variety to our diets. Unfortunately, these unhealthy foods have not just added dubious variety to our menus, but inches to our waistlines. Most of us are not inventive cooks, though, and need a helpful hand to convert our culinary skills to a low carbohydrate lifestyle.

This is where 500 Low Carb Recipes is a lifesaver. Dana’s recipes are for the most part uncomplicated, and the resulting dishes are delicious. While I can’t say that I’ve had the time to try every single recipe in the book, I can personally vouch for Dana’s Heroin Wings. They’re addicting, hence the name. I’m also particularly fond of Gruyere Eggs, Dana’s Chili Egg Puff, and Omelet Cordon Bleu. (I’ve been on an egg kick lately.)

Many potential or new low carbers ask the question, “If I can’t have peas and corn, what vegetables are left?!?” 500 Low Carb Recipes answers that question. Even my vegetable-hating husband (who usually tries to slip his vegetables on the kids plates when they aren’t looking) loves Dana’s Cauliflower Kugel and Lemon Pepper Beans. And I had never tasted a turnip before beginning low carbing (my mother was force-fed turnips as a child during the Depression, and consequently never ever served them), but I love Dana’s recipe for Glazed Turnips. Yum!

One of the things I especially like about Dana’s recipes is that she explains how to make things that I would order in a restaurant or buy from an upscale deli but never think to make myself. One such recipe is Feta-Spinach Salmon Roast, about which Dana says, “I saw something like this being sold for outrageous amounts of money in the fish case at a local grocery store, and I thought, ‘I can do that!'” My son likes this dish so much he has made it for his girlfriend, and she loved it, too. And the whole family is partial to Orange Salmon Packets.

Dana’s recipes for beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and lamb are widely varied, running the gamut from Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding to Mu Shu Pork, to Ranchhouse Chicken – and everything in-between.

Now who can get bored with recipes like these?

Dana’s dessert recipes are exceptional. You don’t have to stray from a low carbohydrate lifestyle or feel deprived when you’re sampling Coconut Shortbread, Creamy Strawberry Popsicles, Gingered Melon, or Zucchini Carrot Cake. And for special occasions or holiday meals, nobody (low carber or not!) is going to turn down Pumpkin Pie with Pecan Praline Crust, Blackbottomed Mockahlua Cheesecake, or Maria’s Flan. (I took Dana’s Blackbottomed Mockahlua Cheesecake to a holiday party, but didn’t tell anyone it was sugar free. Not only did nobody notice, but it was the first dessert that was completely scarfed up by the thundering hoards.)

I like a well-organized cookbook, and 500 Low Carb Recipes didn’t disappoint me.
The index is comprehensive and explicit. When I’m looking for a recipe I can find it quickly. Dana organizes the recipes into these categories:

• Hors D’oeuvres, Snacks, and Party Nibbles
• Eggs and Dairy
• Breads, Muffins, Cereals, and Other Grainy Things
• Hot Vegetable Dishes
• Side Dish Salads
• Chicken and Turkey
• Fish
• Beef
• Pork and Lamb
• Main Dish Salads
• Soups
• Condiments, Seasonings, and Sauces
• Cookies, Cakes, and Other Sweets

All the recipes have accurate carbohydrate counts, although not all of the recipes are meant for Atkins Induction. As Dana explains it:

“If carbs are your problem, then they’re going to be your problem tomorrow, and next week, and next year, and when you’re old and gray. If you hope to keep your weight off, you cannot think in terms of going on a low-carb diet, losing your weight, and then going off your diet – you’ll gain back every ounce, just as sure as you’re born. You’ll also go back to blood-sugar swings, energy crashes, and nagging, insatiable hunger, not to mention all the health risks of hyperinsulinemia. In short, you are in this for life.”

“So if you are to have any hope of doing this forever – and at this writing I’ve been doing this for going on seven years – you’re going to need to enjoy what you eat. You’re going to need variety, flavor, color, and interest…”

“Because of this, I have included everything from very low-carb recipes suitable for folks in the early, very low-carb ‘induction’ stage of their diet, to ‘splurge’ dishes, which would probably make most of us gain weight if we ate them every day but which still have far fewer carbs than their ‘normal’ counterparts.”

I like and agree with this attitude. Diets don’t work. Lifestyle changes do, as long as they are sustainable. And 500 Low Carb Recipes makes a low carbohydrate lifestyle much easier to sustain. It’s a winner.

(My son thinks he’s taking my copy of 500 Low Carb Recipes off to college with him next year. Not a chance.)

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***Note: About 18 months ago I interviewed Dana Carpender for CarbSmart. If you’d like to read the resulting article, “Meet Dana Carpender.” you can access it via this link: meetdana.html