CONFESSIONS OF A LO-CARB COOK
Introduction to Fabulous Lo-Carb Cuisine

    I've had a love affair with cooking since I was tall enough to reach the controls on the stove. There's nothing more satisfying to me than putting together a mouthwatering combination of flavors--then watching family and friends enjoy my culinary creations--Cheesecake, Shrimp Bisque, Strawberry Tarts, Barbecued Spare Ribs, Tangy Pot Roast with Vegetables.
    But cooking isn't all fun. It's also serious business. Once I realized I had total responsibility for the food my family ate, I knew I wanted to cook dishes that were good for them as well as good tasting.
    For years, I was an advocate of low fat cooking. But recently I've changed my mind. It's been a long time since I've been able to lose any weight on a low fat diet. And even as I strictly controlled our fat intake, I watched my cholesterol and my blood pressure go up, along with my husband's cholesterol and triglycerides.
    When my sister-in-law and a good friend began urging me to try lo-carb cooking, I resisted at first. Then I decided to give it a try.
    With the approval of both our doctors, my husband and I have been restricting our carbohydrate intake for over a year now. We've both lost about 20 pounds and kept it off. What's more, his triglycerides went from 350 to 60--an astonishing improvement. My blood pressure is now back to normal. And we've also improved our HDL/LDL ratio significantly, although I know that part of the shift is due to our exercise schedule. (We both try to do 30 minutes of aerobics 4 or 5 days a week, and I also lift weights at the local athletic club twice a week.)
    If you're reading this book, you've probably decided that lo-carb is the way for you to go. You may be interested in this eating plan because you want to lose weight. Or you may find it works for you over the long haul as a way to control both your weight and your cholesterol. One thing I love about this way of cooking is that if I do put on a pound or two, I can drop them almost instantly by cutting back on carbs.
    There are many lo-carb diets, of course. Atkins, Protein Power, Sugar Busters, the Schwarzbein Principle. I've kept them all in mind when designing my recipes.
    Critics have called a lo-carb diet boring. It certainly cuts out many familiar components of the American diet: pasta, rice, potatoes, bread, muffins, pastries. But that doesn't mean it's no fun.
    You may have to look the other way when you see a banana muffin, but you sure can tuck into all the steak with bearnaise sauce, lobster, prime ribs, and beef stroganoff you want.
    Frankly I don't think it takes a degree from the Culinary Institute of America to make lo-carb food that tastes good. How can you miss when your diet includes unlimited quantities of butter, bacon, cream, cheese, olive oil, steak, eggs, meat, fish and poultry?
    The problem comes with variety. Even filet mignon will make your eyes glaze over if you have it every day. To keep a lo-carb eating plan interesting, you need lots of tasty appetizers, snacks, salads, vegetable dishes, main dishes and desserts.
    That's where Fabulous Lo-Carb Cuisine comes in. I've been designing recipes for special diets for almost 20 years, and when I turned my thoughts to lo-carb cooking, I started coming up with a whole host of wonderful dishes: from Barbecued Spare Ribs and Middle Eastern Chicken to sinfully rich coffee Ice Cream and Mocha Pie. With this book, I haven't tried to create a compendium with tons of recipes-- some of which I'd inevitably liked better than others. Instead, I set my sights on producing a smaller book filled with great-tasting, easy to prepare dishes I can cook on a daily basis.
    One of my approaches was to find ways to make the foods I like to eat. Take pizza, for example. You might think it's impossible to make a lo-carb pizza. But I've figured out a way to do it. Another of my recipe conversions is Kung Pao Chicken. Made the standard way, it's quite high in carbs. But I've been able to modify the traditional Szechuan recipe so it's perfect for our diet.
    If I can't convert a dish, I think about some other way to achieve results I like. I probably won't be eating roast chicken with stuffing any time soon. But I can use the same flavor combination in a chicken salad or on chicken wings, for example.
    I also love lasagna, and I've made one with thin sheets of phyllo dough instead of noodles. In addition, I've taken the time to develop sauces, dressings, and butters that will enhance other foods. Flavored butters are great on meat, fish, and vegetables. And my lo-carb versions of traditional favorites like cocktail sauce, and barbecue sauce are mainstays in my kitchen.
    Desserts are important to staying on any eating plan. The good news is that there are many that are easy to make and so low in carbs that you can have them whenever you want.
    Cheesecake is a natural, since you don't even have to vary the recipe much. Then there's my wonderful Fruit Pizza with a Marzipan Crust. And the ice cream I can whip up in half an hour is another standard around my house.
    Incidentally, there are some lo-carb diets that forbid any use of white flour. Making a distinction between "good" carbs and "bad" carbs reminds me of the health food advocates in the 60's and 70's who bragged that they didn't use any sugar. Instead they sweetened their tea and baked goods with honey and concentrated apple juice--both excellent sources of sugar.
    I put avoiding white flour in the same category. True, it's got a lot of carbs. But if I need a tablespoon of flour to thicken my shrimp bisque, I use it. And if I can utilize a thin phyllo leaf to make a great main dish or a dessert, I'll use this, too.
    You may already know that as far as lo-carb cooking is concerned, the sweetener problem has been solved by the Johnson and Johnson company, with Splenda. It's made from sugar--only with some changes in the molecular structure, which reduces the calorie and carbohydrate content to almost zero.
    I've used Splenda in all of my desserts and many of my other dishes. Although it doesn't behave exactly like sugar in every recipe, it's close enough to make a great substitute in most cases.

    There are several important things I want to tell you about my recipes. I test them until I'm satisfied with the results and satisfied that someone else can easily follow my directions. So I usually start by developing a dish--then have one of my professional cooks test it in my home kitchen to make sure everything works the way it should. Along the way, I pass out samples to friends and family and get their opinion on the results.
    Generally, I prefer to cook fresh ingredients. But if there's a convenience food that will simplify a dish--I use it. One of my most useful finds, for example, is flavored canned tomato sauce. Since it's already got the spices incorporated, you don't have to add a lot of seasonings.
    Another real convenience is frozen pepper and onion stir fry--which saves the time of cutting the vegetables up. And instead of fooling with garlic cloves, I buy it already chopped.
    For the most part, I've used ingredients that you can get at the grocery store. But you might have to visit a specialty shop for a few things like rice wine vinegar or hot oil, for my Kung Pao Chicken, for example. I also check the labels on products and use the ones with the lowest carb grams. If you get into the habit of reading labels, you'll find that some seemingly similar products are quite different in carb content, often due to the amount of added sugar.
    When designing my recipes, I've kept in mind today's busy lifestyles. All of my dishes are easy to prepare, and I've tried to minimize the number of ingredients and also streamline directions.

    Recipe yield is an extremely important issue in a cookbook that makes nutritional claims. I've seen cookbooks that manipulate nutritional results by  providing ridiculously small serving sizes.
    I've tried to be realistic about servings, basing them on what my family and friends would actually eat at one sitting.  If I think a pie really serves 8, for example, I'm not going to make it look as if it has fewer carbs by telling you it makes 12 tiny servings.
    On the other hand, there are some dishes where the portions are larger than would traditionally be expected. In savory recipes, I might be using a pound of meat or more to serve 2 people. That's because a lo-carb dinner entree will probably be heavy on meat and light on vegetables.  I'm not going to tell you a recipe with 4 pounds of meat serves 12. In a lo-carb diet it should only serve 7 or 8.  So, if you're assessing the carbs in my recipes and those in other books, please take the serving sizes into consideration—so you won't be comparing apples with oranges, as they say.
    With sauces, dressings, and butters, I give you the total amount (1 cup, for example) then suggest a serving size.
    If there's a range of servings, say 4-6, the analysis will be based on the lower number--to give you as realistic a nutritional picture as possible.
    All of my recipes have been nutritionally analyzed by a registered dietitian. Although I own the software to do this analysis myself and often do a quick check of a dish to see if I need to alter it for carb content, I know from past experience that working with a nutrition professional ensures accuracy.
    Remember, when you check the nutritional content at the end of each recipe, that the effective amount of carbs in each dish is the amount of carbs minus the amount of fiber, since fiber is carbohydrate that is not absorbed by the body. For example, my Kung Pao Chicken has 10.6 grams of carbohydrate. But since it has 3.6 grams of dietary fiber, only 7 grams (i.e., 10.6 minus 3.6) are absorbed.
    Another important point is that for herbs and spices, the USDA nutritional database almost exclusively lists nutritional values for ground herbs. In this cookbook, I have used many dried herb leaves such as thyme, basil, and tarragon.  In recipes where these herb leaves are used, the nutritional analysis will be slightly higher in carbs than the actual dish.  This is because ground herbs are more dense and thus have more carbs than a like quantity of herb leaves.  For example, a teaspoon of ground basil has 0.9 grams of carbs.  My guess is that a teaspoon of dried basil leaves has about half the carb grams.  However, there is no way to know for sure, since they're not listed in small quantities on any database that I have discovered.
    But the bottom line is, of course, taste. So dip into my book. I think I've come up with over 100 choice recipes--dishes that enhance the eating pleasure of my family and friends. Frozen Strawberry Pie, Southwestern Quiche, Cream of Tomato Soup, Portobello Slices, Parsley-Lemon Butter, Almond Chicken Salad, Pizza. Foods you'll love to eat, and foods that make it easy to stay on a lo-carb diet.