Stella’s Kitchen: Creative Cooking for Fun, Flavor, and a Lean, Strong Body

Yummy, Clean food for Healthy and “normal” eaters, December 9, 2003

By 

Maria L. Comstock “mcomstoc1″ (Seattle, wa United States) –

  

My husband and I have fought for years about what to eat. He is thin, can eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s a night without *visible* repercussions and loves meat and pasta and potatoes. I, on the other hand, have been competing in Ultimate Frisbee, I lift weights, run, teach aerobics and Spinning and have the lifestyle and genes that will always make it necessary to watch my diet and excercise.

Food has been a constant battle with my husband; he wants to make pasta and broccoli with olive oil (which all makes me sick and lazy) and I want a salad. I bought this cookbook, and now we’ve found peace. I don’t feel “gloppy” after eating these recipes and he feels satiated. He can cook and I trust that he won’t over-butter-and-starch me. (Normally, I feel a need to defend my diet and the kitchen). I can cook and he doesn’t feel like I’m starving him. It just feels balanced. He browsed through the book one day and said, ” I would eat anything in here” (BTW, he’s a picky eater) and I would too!

The recipes are simple- sometimes painfully so- and that is a reminder that you can still eat healthy food during busy times and spend *less* time than if you went to the nearest junk food outlet. There are no dessert recipes, but the smoothies taste like dessert!

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A Must-Have for Bodybuilders and Dieters Alike, March 6, 2003

Physically, the book is beautiful. The cover art and layout are very pleasing to the eye, and the charts and interior graphics are clear, helpful, and well-designed.

The book is also brimming with information that’s well worth the price of the book. Stella’s time-saving and money-saving tips are wonderful common-sense advice, and her sections on alternative names for cuts of beef and how to troubleshoot a protein shake contain a good deal of information I wish I had known back in grad school. Finally, any musclehead will appreciate the pages on how to flavor tuna out of the can and how to flavor boneless, skinless chicken breast for a quick, no fuss meal.

The most important part of a cookbook for athletes is the recipes, though. So far, I’ve made the tuna melt (quick, tasty, and wonderful with whole wheat pita bread), the cranberry-almond muffins (very tasty and filling, though some of the ingredients can be tough to track down), the high-protein fried rice (although I doubled the chicken to make it even higher-protein
fried rice), and a couple of the shakes. The results? Everything was tasty, everything was easy, and everything turned out well–not an easy thing for a guy who’s not exactly an experienced cook. If you’ve already gotten a copy, I’m sure you appreciate the book as the valuable resource it is. If you haven’t, I can’t recommend it strongly enough.

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