Hungry Girl: 200 Under 200: 200 Recipes Under 200 Calories

Comment: OMG! This book is amazing!! I would recommend this book to everyone, even if you aren't trying to lose weight! The recipes are awesome!!!

Comment: i picked this book up at the library (thank heavens), as i'm looking for lower calorie alternatives for lunches and dinners. As i perused the book, i found the following flaws:

1) The recipes in this book are great if you're a stay-at-home blogger with no kids who doesn't have to go anywhere. If you actually have to leave the house to work, or if you have kids around, the recipes can be difficult to deal with. i take my lunch to work every day, and i don't always have access to a full kitchen to whip up one of the recipes in here, and i haven't a lot of them that would would work well as a take-and-go (i found mostly sandwich fillings and one type of salad, but i'm trying to find more interesting things than that!). i got this mostly for the mini-meal ideas, but hardly any of them can be easily made in advance and taken somewhere. My best friend has a three year old, and i can't see how she'd get any of this done with her toddler running around.

2) i'm also a semi-starving semi-graduate student, which means i'm on a bit of a budget. Tofu crumbles, Boca burgers, turkey bacon... these things are great and all, but they are a bit expensive. i can't pick these things up all the time. i also refuse to special order things like Vitatops, those soy noodle things, or any of the other special items she promotes consistently through this book that are expensive ($16 for 12 Vitatops?!?) and i don't even know if i'm going to like. Many others have mentioned this as well, and i have to wonder what she's getting out of all these promotions for all these products considering how much she pushes them constantly.

3) Others have also made mention of the lack of fresh items in here, and heavy reliance on processed, prepackaged items, and it is another of my caveats.

4) Others have also mentioned the organization issues and i also want to throw my semi-considerable weight behind that as well. i really don't want a chapter devoted to Fiber One, or Cool-Whip or Vitatops. i don't plan my food around "Oh man, i just HAVE to have some Fiber One today!!" i plan my food around "It's breakfast time, what do i want?" "i have some chicken, what should i do with it?" Also, the names are too cute and too long! "Slammin' Smoked Salmon n' Bacon B-fast Sandwich"? c'mon. That's a little much (although it is pretty darned tasty). And maybe it's just me, but the constant "Yay!"s at the end of each notation of where to find the pictures got a bit annoying.

5) It is awesome that so much is one serving, but it's a bit bothersome that to get there, you'll end up having half packages of Laughing Cow cheese, taco seasoning with a half a teaspoon out of it, etc. laying around all over.

6) Some of the recipes are almost identical, but still count as separate. There's a salad using broccoli slaw that a few pages earlier adds chicken. There's also a "beefy quesedilla" that uses soy crumbles and taco seasoning, cooked in a skillet. Later on, there's a "cheeseburger quesedilla" that uses soy burgers, no taco seasoning, and baked in the oven. They're just too similar to me to constitute separate entries. It would be better served to list them on the same page with "alternatives" or somesuch. It seems a cheating way to get to 200.

Things i did like:

1) i did like that so many of the items are one serving, which makes things great for us single type folks. (although see caveat #5 above)

2) It introduced me to Laughing Cow cheese and i have to say, that's some good stuff. And for as expensive as turkey bacon is, it is really good. i hadn't even considered any of these items before this book.

3) It gave me some ideas on substituting things for other things and making some better choices.

A few of the recipes are good, and i'll copy those out and put them in my recipe box. But then the book goes back to the library and i won't deal with it again.

Comment: I love Lisa Lillian's 200 under 200. I am participating in weight watchers and all her recipes work great! I serve my whole family these recipes and they love them! Way to go Lisa!!

Comment: A perfect book for a beginning "weight conscious" cook! I never realized or even KNEW about calorie counting or fat and fiber contents in my recipes. Now I read them more carefully--and have learned from these HG books, that DELICIOUS recipes do NOT have to be high in FAT and CALORIES!!! I will miss you, Paula Deen, but can't go that way EVER again!!! And I don't regret the health benefits that are the biggest PERK!!!!

Comment: These are wonderful recipes for when I want to treat myself without cooking all day! My husband is fairly limited in what he will eat....hate to cook two meals. When he is out for the evening I make one of these recipes for myself. Easy to fix and good!