Hungry Girl 1-2-3: The Easiest, Most Delicious, Guilt-Free Recipes on the Planet [Paperback]

This is the third cookbook by Hungry Girl (Lisa Lillien) and in my opinion it is the best Hungry Girl cookbook. The Hungry Girl (HG) approach to cooking is to use mostly the low calorie ingredients ( fat-free ingredients and artificial sweeteners are used) to create recipes that are super low in calories and fat. HG also aims to have recipes that are high in fiber and high in protein that taste similar to the higher calorie equivalent. I personally would rather use products that are all natural (ie. real sugar vs. splenda) because I believe they taste better and I think they are healthier. The HG recipes are pretty easy to modify to be natural and are still low in calories.

I have had this book for 1 week and have made 4 recipes from it (peanut butter oatmeal softies, laughing cow light with egg beaters, laughing cow light with tofu shiritaki noodles, and the overstuffed peanut butter french toast) and I have thoroughly enjoyed all of these recipes. What makes this cookbook standout from the other HG cookbooks is that it has more recipes that are vegetable rich than the previous 2 books. As someone who eats allot of fruit vegetables this fits well with my current eating habits. What I really commend this book for is making quick and simple vegetable rich recipes which many people would find less intimidating than other approaches to health and wellness.

The reason why I gave this book only 4 stars is because I personally do not eat food that is full of chemicals (ie. fat-free cheese or splenda) and this book does use these types of ingredients to keep calorie counts low. I find it really simple to adapt these recipes to my health philosophy so this is really not that big of a hardship. What I really like about this book is the tone taken by Lisa Lillien, who writes as though she is a helpful best friend dispensing recipe advice (this book does not use big fancy cooking terms). This gives the book a really friendly light hearted fun tone which I feel makes cooking less intimidation then other cookbooks. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for an accessible easy approach to low calorie cooking.

If you plan to lose weight, you must get this book. The recipes are very easy to make. There is a lot of good information on how to lose weight by using the "point system" from Weight Watchers.

I have a baby and a 4-year-old. Both have different meal requirements so I don't have a lot of time to cook something healthy for myself. This lets me prepare a quick low-cal dinner in about 15 minutes. The recipes are tasty and filling. Excellent! My favorite is cake in a mug!