The 4-Ingredient Diabetes Cookbook: Simple, Quick, and Delicious Recipes Using Just Four Ingredients or Less

Hughes, author of cookbooks health-minded (The 1200-Calory-A-Day Menu Cookbook) and otherwise (The New Chili Cuisine) pulls off a challenging trick in her latest, devising more than 100 tasty recipes with only four ingredients that also satisfy the American Diabetes Association's dietary guidelines. When limiting ingredients, the first casualty is depth of flavor, but Hughes employs a variety of tricks to correct this, like lemon zest in Greek Chicken with Lemon or onion soup mix in Homestyle Double-Onion Roast; elsewhere, packaged chili spice mix meets varying degrees of success. Bacon-Onion Potato Salad, which relies on reduced-fat Ranch dressing, is a rare miss, but the hits more than make up: Seared Chicken with Spicy Chipotle Cream Sauce, Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Cinnamon and Bourbon'd Filet Mignon-its rich sauce made with a deglaze of strong coffee-all beg for a turn. Nutritional and exchange information is supplied for each dish, and Hughes thoughtfully rounds out the book with useful all-purpose tips, like using low-carb vegetables to boost the volume of starchy dishes, adding instant coffee to deepen chocolate flavors and substituting equal amounts of cauliflower for potatoes. Those on a restricted diet will appreciate this wide range of simple dishes, as well as tips and tricks for enhancing everyday staples.