cover image Weight Watchers' Favorite Homestyle Recipes: 250 Prize-Winning Recipes from Weight Watchers Members and Staff

Weight Watchers' Favorite Homestyle Recipes: 250 Prize-Winning Recipes from Weight Watchers Members and Staff

Weight Watchers. Dutton Books, $23 (320pp) ISBN 978-0-453-01029-0

This newest Weight Watchers cookbook may interest an even broader audience than the association's already burgeoning ranks of members. Culled from the personal files of loyal program fans and staff members, recipes include a wide variety of fun, tasty and filling foods, from an elegant salmon with black beans to a creamy celery and garlic soup, and alluring desserts like ginger pears and homemade ice cream. Their accuracy, though, is questionable. While nutritional information--as well as Weight Watcher program data--is provided for each recipe, portions are inconsistent, and rarely are sizes provided by ounce. A cheese lover's white pizza, created from a 10-ounce refrigerated pizza crust, is portioned into six servings; on the following page, ``Peter Piper's'' (pepper-strewn) pizza (which also requires the base of a 10-ounce refrigerated pizza crust) is doled into eight servings. Moreover, ``weight watchers'' who don't attend the program--but expect low-calorie, healthy recipes--must be forewarned. In one example, an easy skillet supper, which is ostensibly portioned for one, calls for six whole eggs, provides 344 mg of cholesterol and nearly half of its calories from fat. Photos not seen by PW. (Jan.)