I just can't get excited about cooking meals that will very likely be grossly underseasoned and overcomplicated, nor can I move past their dubious definition of healthy. Thumbing through, I realized that a whole bunch of the recipes in this book are less healthy than what I normally cook on my own. I've actually gained two pounds in the ten days I've been cooking from it. I think it's because I keep resorting to snacks and cookies and things that I wouldn't normally eat just to squeeze decent food out of the book.
I already know that I don't want to keep Healthy Family Cookbook. My in-laws are coming into town for a week on Friday, and there's not a recipe in this book that I'm comfortable serving to company (though it might be funny to watch them pretending to like it). It doesn't seem right to torment my family with food that's mediocre, at best, just for the sake of faithfulness to the blog's mission of one month's devotion, especially when my mind's already made up.
So, my next book, starting tomorrow, will be Giada At Home: Family Recipes From Italy and California. There are a whole bunch of summer-seasonal recipes in here, so I'm looking forward to it. I considered pairing it with Everyday Italian, because I'm afraid that book is too pasta-centric for me to include in this project, but that didn't seem fair to this book.
I feel guilty even bringing Healthy Family Cookbook to Good Will and pawning it off on some unsuspecting family. Especially since I wrote notes in it. Eek! Oh well, out with it. I banish thee, HFC.
yeah good riddance to those crummy recipes!
ReplyDeleteMeh, maybe someone out there needs bland food recipes, like Homer Simpson when he became a uber-taster after his old tastebuds were burned off leaving ultra-sensitive ones in their place. Good call!
ReplyDeleteHA! Don't feel bad ditching the book at Goodwill. One man's trash is another's treasures. I'm with you tho, I like my food easy AND flavorful. Sorry the book was a flop. Hope you like the new one!
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