March 2007 Cookbook Giveaway

Since half the month has almost gone by already, I'm going to go ahead and offer this cookbook this month. It's The New Holly Clegg Trim & Terrific Cookbook. I'm only hesistant because this cookbook is new-to-me and the jury is still out. I had one recipe I really enjoyed, Sweet-and-Spicy Chicken Strips. I also enjoyed the Cheesy Broccoli Soup but it needed more cheese (something that is even mentioned in the recipe lead-in, I noticed later). There was a so-so cake that I'll talk about in a future post.

I originally chose this cookbook because most of us are trying to eat lighter these days. This cookbook ranked number three on a WebMD top ten list of healthy cookbooks in 2006, as decided by a dietician. I noticed some discrepancies between a few of the photos and recipes and I got the feeling that some recipes may have been altered to keep the nutritional numbers down but that's just my personal theory.

Most of the recipes are things we've all seen before, lightened up. There are plenty of recipes that seem appropriate for company but this generally isn't a fancy (i.e. 'gourmet') cookbook. Many of the cake recipes start with a boxed cake mix. She used many reduced-fat versus fat-free products which is always a good sign for me (seeing a bit of both) because that usually means the cookbook author wasn't just concerned with keeping things 'light', and didn't compromise flavor.

It's a hardcover, spiral-bound cookbook with plenty of photographs. I plan on trying more recipes from this book shortly so if you're not sure if you want this yet, hold on until the end of the month. You can also see a sampling of the recipes from this book here on Holly Clegg's site.

Funnily enough, one of the recipes that has a wonky picture in the book, the Taco Rice Salad, is on that page. She mentions in the lead-in there that she likes to add black beans and corn but that information was left out of the book lead-in, although the black beans and corn are in the picture in the book, not the one on her website. I wonder who was in charge of quality control on this book.

This is how it works - just leave a comment on this post. I just need an e-mail address (if your profile links to an e-mail, you don't need to type it out, I'll find it). Entry is open until the last day of the month. First chance I get after that, I'll draw the winner. Then I'll contact the winner for a mailing address and then I mail the book! I'll pay the shipping, of course. I'll open this to everyone - in or out of the U.S. It may have to go by the least expensive method if an international reader wins. Last month's winner was from Canada and I was very pleased to find out that it isn't ridiculously expensive to send a book to Canada. It was actually cheaper to send that book to Canada than it was to ship the last one (same size book) to Washington state (and I never did hear if that book arrived - I hope it did!)

*******************The winner was Mommy Prof.*****************