The New Family Cookbook for People with Diabetes was produced by the American Diabetes Association and the American Dietetic Association, so you know these recipes are going to be good for everyone. It's a pretty enough book with good internal layout and more than 400 recipes spread across 13 chapters. Each recipe comes with full nutrient information and exchange values given per serving. In recipes that use high sodium, the sodium count is in bold and marked with black arrow. The introduction provides a good explanation of how to use this book as well as a general overview of the food pyramid. The appendix supplies a bunch of exchange lists for meal planning and there are two indexes. Two. One for recipes and one more general. You have no idea how much a good index pleases me and to have two of them ... well, I might be in love.


Yes, yes. But what does it taste like? Pretty good. Only two recipes of the seven I attempted yielded disappointing results. The potato soup (page 106) was very watery and bland. It's a high sodium dish and yet I thought it could use more salt. Thickening the soup with a little cornstarch and refrigerating it overnight helped some, but the soup still lacked the creamy-potato-y-chive-y goodness I was seeking. The pumpkin soup (page 107) was less disappointing. It had a better consistency and, while a little bland, was easily doctored by adding extra gloves and ginger.

The other five dishes were perfect: We had "New Potato and Green Bean Salad" with grilled marinated steak for dinner one night and it stole the show. The vegetables were perfectly cooked, the dijon-cider vinaigrette gave everything a wonderful tang and counterbalanced the crumbled blue cheese quite nicely.

"Stuffed Peppers with Ground Lamb" (page 214) was a wonderful autumn supper. The recipe isn't much different from my mother's tried-and-true, but the use of lamb instead of beef gives the dish a whole new edge. I served the peppers with mashed potatoes, garlicky green beans, and extra tomato sauce ... it was a complete nostalgia meal. All I needed to were a pair of footie pajamas and I could have been eight years old and eating Saturday night supper at my mother's table.

"Heartland Stuffed Peppers" (page 268) use turkey instead of beef and rice as well as corn kernels in the filling. They are much spicier the lamb peppers and made me think of pizza (could be the mozzarella cheese). Made with an assortment of red and yellow peppers, they are very colorful on the plate and make a mouth happy. At this rate, I may never go back to my mother's recipe.

I admit the low fat fried chicken recipe from Cook's Illustrated's Best Light Recipe is tastier, but "Low Fat Oven-Fried Chicken" (page 260) is faster and easier to prepare. More healthful, too. It makes a good simple supper when paired with a nice garden salad and some fresh corn on the cob.

A bowl of "Spinach with Bacon and Mushrooms" (page 337) would make a nice bed for grilled salmon (minus the bacon) or a simple dinner if paired with some hearty bread and a dash or two of hot pepper sauce. If you like bacon as much as I do, you will probably want to double up it as two crumbled slices is a little skimpy. This dish goes together very quickly and all the flavors combine most deliciously in the pan. This recipe makes 4 side dish servings -- about 2 main dish -- and is on my repeat list.

"Moussaka with Lamb" (page 218) is my favorite recipe out of this collection. It's everything I want in a moussaka and 100% eggplant free. It is a bit time consuming to prepare, but well worth the effort. The servings are very generous and could easily be stretched to serve 6 rather than 4. I would recommend using Greek yogurt, if available, for the extra tang it gives the faux béchamel. Truly, I would make this every week -- it is that good.

The New Family Cookbook for People with Diabetes is one of my favorite cookbooks and, one of these days, I intend to get my hot hands on a copy of my own. It is that good. ( )