The 4-Ingredient Diabetes Cookbook

Simple, quick and delicious recipes Using just four ingredients or less, plus helpful “Cook’s Tips” and nutritionals with each recipe. American Diabetes Association, 2007

This book is for people with diabetes – or those who want to eat healthier – but who don’t want to live in the kitchen.  Inside, you’ll find 150 delicious recipes, all made with four ingredients or less!  (in case you’re checking up on me, salt, pepper, water and cooking spray don’t count as ingredients, and I counted the zest and juice of the same fruit as one ingredient.)  Some of these recipes even call for three or only two ingredients, and still taste scrumptious.  When you stop and think about what this actually means and how it can affect your lifestyle – and your workload – you may never want to cook any other way again.  Using fewer ingredients means fewer items in your grocery cart, less time in the grocery line, fewer items to unload and put away when you get home, less time to prepare the dish, and – my personal favorite – fewer pots and pant to clean!  You’ll actually have time to do…well, anything else you want, because you won’t be stuck in the kitchen (or in the grocery store) all of the time.

I consider myself a lazy cook.  I’m always looking for that shorter cut, that quicker way, that anything to help me avoid work.  But at the same time, I want every bit of effort I do make to count.  When my editor and I were discussing the prospect of writing this much-needed-book, he looked me straight in the eye and said, (150 recipes, Nancy, you’re sure you can create 150 recipes that use only 4 ingredients, meet our nutritional standards, and still taste great?”  I knew it would be a challenge – even though I’ve been developing quick and healthy recipes for over 25 years – but I wanted to introduce a new approach to people whose lives may already be burdened with numbers, counting, and chores.  I wanted to show people how to discover that simpler is better, and faster can be more delicious, when every ingredient really counts.

The secret, I found, is not the number of ingredients, but rather the different types of ingredients and the various techniques included in the recipes.  For example, by using highly flavored ingredients and convenience foods that contain several ingredients in one product such as picante sauce and herb blends, I can shorten the ingredient list drastically without compromising on flavor.  As for effective techniques, something as simple as searing or reducing ingredients (that is cooking them down to a more concentrated form over high heat) is an extremely easy, fast way to get intense flavor without adding extra ingredients, fat, or time.

If you keep the meal prep simple but the great flavor’s still there, you’ll find yourself returning to the same healthy recipes over and over again.  That’s my whole point in writing this book: to help people with diabetes stay on a healthy track all of the time, bringing them delicious flavors and fresh new ideas that will last them a lifetime.  My no-hassle approach is just that…easy and approachable, so that everyone can have the “I can do THAT” attitude.

And the whole reason I published with the American Diabetes Association is that together, we’ve done the work for you.  You can trust that ALL these recipes are good for you and taste delicious, too.  We’ve given you all the numbers to help you monitor your intake of fat, sodium, and cart.  You don’t have to worry if the recipes are “okay” for you.  You can enjoy great-tasting, quick, and simple meals without the math swirling in your head all the time…and with a fraction of the work!

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