Naturally Thin recipes: A Brief Review

Bethenny Frankel has definitely been put me in the cooking mood. She convinced me preparing meals 3 times a day for yourself is really the way to go-obvious right? In the past 2 days I made a total of 4 recipes that came out of her book. I'm always ambiguous about cook books and recipes-it's such an investment of time, energy, and money and you don't know if it's even going to turn out good. So I'm giving you this brief review of what I think of her food so far. By the way this isn't a cook book, but at the end of each chapter she includes a couple of relevant recipes.

The first one I tried out was goat cheese and sun-dried tomato chicken breast. It's basically a grilled chicken entree stuffed with parsley and goat cheese then sauteed in a soymilk and sun dried tomato sauce. Tastewise I give it 3.5/5, remember this is healthy food here. I'm sure if it was made in butter and cream it would taste so much better but wouldn't be nearly as beneficial.

Last night I tried out her zesty, cheesy healthy mac-n-cheese. She claims it's the best mac-n-cheese you'll ever try, and she may be right because I think I totally botched this one. It's made with whole wheat shells, 3 different cheeses, and butternut squash. It tasted really bland and I'm sure it's not meant to. I didn't put enough salt, pepper, and spices and I think I added too much bread crumbs. I mean it was edible, but I had to make sure I got all the cheesy pieces. I'm not even going to rate it because it wouldn't accurate.

Bethenny is pretty big on appetizers and sides over actual entrees. I am too, I like variety and would rather a little bit of everything over eating a main entree any day. The following is her pureed zucchini soup. This is a recovery food, meaning it's a natural way to flush excess water of your system and make you feel better. It was a bit of a pain because I had to use a blender for the onions and zucchini, but totally worth it. The recipe made a large quantity and soup is one of those things that still taste good as its leftover. I found this soup tasted rather flavorful and it made you feel good to eat too. Tastewise I give it 4/5. I had 4 bowls since I made it and still haven't gotten sick of it.
The following recipe is one that didn't come out of Naturally Thin, it was some health cooking show that I don't recall the name of. I just wanted to include the pictures of it because this was the best eggplant parmesan I ever made. I love variations of eggplant parmesan in restaurants but I've never been able to make a good one myself. This recipe involes dipping the eggplant in an olive oil, lemon juice, and chili peper mix before grilling them. To glue the tomato pieces to the eggplant I used a pesto sauce which also held the cheese on the tomato. It has a good bit of fat in it (although healthy fat) so I didn't eat more than one at time. Delicious, 4.5/5!

The last thing I made was this cool cucumber salad, also a recovery recipe. I'm adopting this as a regular snack I've already decided. I mixed together apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, a bit of honey, and dill and poured over sliced cucumbers. Then I chilled it before consuming. It tasted like it was really good for you however I would say it's not for everyone. The taste was too much to handle for my dad who spit it back out and my brother wouldn't get near it after smelling the vinegar. I thought it was great, 4/5!