I don't but I tried a mac and cheese recipe of hers that tasted great but was really expensive to make! I wonder if a lot of her recipes are that expensive.
I have the original Hungry Girl cookbook ("recipes and survival strategies"), and I'm kind of tempted to buy 300 under 300 but also kind of hesitant. Hungry Girl has been fairly hit-and-miss for me in the past. She has some recipes and ideas that I absolutely love, especially most of her vegetables recipes (any recipe from her involving butternut squash I've made has been delish, and the "mashed cauliflower/potatoes" is yummy). I probably use her breakfast recipes the most. I love the pumpkin oatmeal and the "egg-in-a-mug" (except I use real eggs instead of the egg substitute she is always recommending). I've made some great soups and salads/coleslaws following her recipes and I like the foil packets idea. I appreciate that she includes a lot of vegetarian recipes involving soy-grounds or veggie burgers (and even the recipes that do use real ground beef or ground turkey I can use a vegetarian alternative instead). I also made the "low-fat" onion rings, except I used an organic bran cereal instead of Fibre One (Fibre One has HFCS so I don't eat it), and they were awesome.
And that brings me to what I dislike about Hungry Girl: despite having enjoyed some of her recipes, I almost constantly have to modify her recipes because I don't like or can't find the ingredients in them. It is indeed true that the majority of her recipes often involve a zillion different ingredients, involve products that are not available to me in my city (and I don't have the money to buy food online), or if they are available, are pricey, and overall rely very very heavily on processed, "low-fat", unnatural, chemical-laden foods. My eating philosophy is to eat whole, natural, local, ethical foods as much as possible, so the fact that so many of her recipes are always using "fat-free cheese", "fat-free mayo", "light buttery spread " doesn't work for me. I don't like fat-free products because they're full of chemicals and artificial stuff, plus they're often high in sugar or sodium to make up the removed fat. My personal feelings on foods like mayo, cheese and butter is that I'd way rather have the real, natural thing in moderate, appropriately-portioned amounts that I've worked into my calorie budget than have fake "plastic" cheese or mayo containing "modified corn starch" as a filler.
However, I realize that (and HG has said this herself many times), you're probably not supposed to be eating the recipes on a daily basis. They're more just intended as an occasional "healthier" substitute for full-fat junk foods and restaurant foods, although I think whether they're always healthier is debatable. Still, I have enjoyed many of her recipes and I have heard that her 300 books actually focuses a lot less on processed foods, so I kind of want to get it. Does anyone know if most of the book is focused on actual food and meals, rather than on drinks and dessert??? Her many drink recipes are useless to me because I don't drink my calories and I avoid artifical sweetners like the plague (can she make anything that doesn't involve crystal light?). Her dessert recipes don't interest me either since so many of them involve fat-free cool whip (nasty!), fat-free puddings, splenda, and other products that they don't have at my grocery stores (vitamuffins). If half of the book is desserts and drinks it's not going to be worth it for me..
I guess I'm the only one who LOVES hg! I have all the other books and I find them very useful for tons of different things... I have ordered the 300 under 300 book and it will be here Monday so I will let you know how I like it!
i dont have any books, but i did see a recipe on the Today show one morning. It was a muchroom pizza. The base was one of those huge mushrooms, i thought it was ingenious
I just bought that book. It references WW with several of its recipes. It gives you a reminder every few pages, "For the WW PointsPlus values of all the recipes in this book, check out hungry-girl.com/books. Yay!" I myself am no longer paying for WW but I know this would have been a useful tool! So far I'm really enjoying this book as it's helping me keep track of my calories and breaking them down so much easier per meal and snacks.
I have the book and I love it! I don't use her recipes every day, but 2-4 times a week we (my kids like to help in the kitchen) try something new. I bought one for my best friend and weight watcher buddy, and we try to cook cook different things and give each other the reviews on it. So far I have loved everything that I have tried, especially any of the recipes that are breaded in Fiber One cereal. Genius! Who knew salt, papper, onion powder and garlic powder could turn a not so tasty breakfast cereal into the perfect breading to mock a deep fried dish? LOL Even my kids are impressed with their "new" chicken nuggets.
My friend actually ordered us a couple copies of her 200 under 200 book that should be here Monday and I can't wait to try some of those too.
The only thing that I have trouble finding are the Tofu Shirataki Noodles, so a lot of time I will just make it with whole wheat noodles and figure out the points on the WW site. Yes, it changes the points, but it still keeps me from having a slump in the kitchen and resorting to take out!
I have the book and I love it! I don't use her recipes every day, but 2-4 times a week we (my kids like to help in the kitchen) try something new. I bought one for my best friend and weight watcher buddy, and we try to cook cook different things and give each other the reviews on it. So far I have loved everything that I have tried, especially any of the recipes that are breaded in Fiber One cereal. Genius! Who knew salt, papper, onion powder and garlic powder could turn a not so tasty breakfast cereal into the perfect breading to mock a deep fried dish? LOL Even my kids are impressed with their "new" chicken nuggets.
My friend actually ordered us a couple copies of her 200 under 200 book that should be here Monday and I can't wait to try some of those too.
The only thing that I have trouble finding are the Tofu Shirataki Noodles, so a lot of time I will just make it with whole wheat noodles and figure out the points on the WW site. Yes, it changes the points, but it still keeps me from having a slump in the kitchen and resorting to take out!
Good luck with those, I thought they were yuck! I really should try them again though, maybe I did it wrong
But when I bought them they were in the produce section in the cold case where the other tofu/wonton wrappers/ etc are.
Also, I made her onion rings breaded in F1 last night, YUM!
Edit: One more thing related to pasta stuff, I don't even use pasta most of the time, just a spaghetti squash. You can have a HUGE plate of "pasta" when it's only squash!!
I've got her 200 under 200 book and have made a few things out of it and receive her newsletter. Some things I like and some I don't. I make the mashed potato and cauliflower recipe all the time and after her talking about the shirataki noodles I found them in the tofu section of our store. I enjoyed the noodles with spaghetti sauce. The texture is a bit different than pasta so that might turn some people off but I didn't mind it. A lot of her recipes do use light or FF products and also sweetener which I don't use much, so while some of her recipes are good I don't make enough of them to want to buy another of her books.
Hi Michelle! Glad you could join us!
Corazonas, we found the tofu noodles and I am making them tonight for dinner. I will keep you posted as to how they turn out...
Hungry Girl
