A Slimmer You Cookbook, Regine Du Plessis

I have to confess that the first time I paged through A Slimmer You Cookbook I was not impressed. But it was during hard lock down and I thought that might have affected my perception. I decided to give it a second chance when life had returned to normal.

A Slimmer You Cookbook

Many people want to lose weight and are looking for the easiest way to do so. When it comes to weight-loss programmes, one of the excuses most frequently heard by dieticians is ‘I don’t know how to prepare the right meals’. This book provides a solution to that.

In  A Slimmer You Cookbook,  the author presents recipes for 1000 kJ meals to suit individual preferences, family circumstances and budgets. It demonstrates that by monitoring your portions, you can cook for a family, eat healthily, and enjoy a variety of foods, all while achieving your goal of losing weight. But eating correctly is not just about following a recipe or meal plan; we need to understand how what we eat affects our health. The introduction includes topics such as BMI and cholesterol, how to balance daily food intake with physical activity levels, the role of carbohydrates, proteins and fats in our diet, making the most of ‘free’ vegetables, and tips on how to interpret food labels.

Chapters are divided into:

• Breakfast
• Salads
• Soups
• Chicken
• Meat
• Fish
• Pasta

Recipes that caught my eye:

• Grilled Haloumi Salad with Walnuts and Mustard Dressing (p75)
• Chicken and Mushroom Soup (p88)
• Beef Goulash Soup (p92)
• Chicken Korma (p101)
• Chicken in Red Wine (p104)
• Beef and Mushroom Lasagne (p114)

My impressions:

This is an information rich book with comprehensive details on a lot of factors. If you are curious about the whys and wherefores to losing weight, this will be perfect for you. I would love to commit to losing 2 kilogrammes just to go back to my pre-wedding weight.But I could never weigh out each and every one of the ingredients that go into my meals. And this is what the book mainly focuses on. A lot of the meal ideas are for ingredients common to South Africa only. For the most part, the photographs are good.

My verdict:

On first glance it seems great that the recipes are geared for one person. This should make it easy to scale up. And recipes are also given for 5 and 10 people. But on closer inspection, the recipes for a single serving have 1 ml measurements – which is a bugbear of mine as the smallest size teaspoon is 0.625 mls and the next size up is 1.25mls. And as you can see, not many recipes caught my eye. So, my first impression seems to be a lasting one and this is not a book I can recommend, unless you are battling to lose weight and need all the help you can get, without consulting a dietician.

What I made:

I made the chicken and mushroom soup which really should be called mushroom and chicken soup, as mushrooms were the main ingredient. The recipe called for frozen mushrooms which I could not find at any of my local stores. The flavour was great – but it must be noted I used my own bone broth instead of a stock cube.

Publishing information:

Penguin Random House South Africa sent me this recipe book to review.

View the previous posts on August 26:

• 2019 – Singapore Stir Fry
• 2018 – Anatomy Of A Scandal
• 2015 – The Restaurant At Gabriëlskloof
• 2012 – Bruce Palling Answers Questions For The Blog
• 2011 – Roast Vegetables
• 2010 – Kabeljou with Caper Lemon Butter Sauce

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