Skinny Italian Cooking

the long version

This collection of Americanized Italian recipes offers some useful ideas for lowering fat, but many of Glick and Bagget's recipes seem misplaced in a cuisine that is already naturally healthy. Each recipe includes nutritional information, but serving sizes can be misleading (e.g., 1 3/4 cups of Hot Artichoke Spread yields 25 servings, which would make a serving fractionally over a tablespoon; at 80 calories and 2.4 grams of fat per serving, that's hardly a skinny dish). When the authors stick to fresh ingredients, there are some light and tasty results: Italian Garden Orzo Salad with peppers and herbs, Braised Turkey Stew, Milan Style (an ossobuco wannabe) and Tuna Steaks with Sweet-and-Sour Tomato Relish. Some of the recipes rely unnecessarily on prepared products, e.g. commercially seasoned stuffing mix rather than stale bread in Italian Bread Soup, and a Tiramisu made with cottage cheese, marshmallow cream, Neufchatel cheese and cream cheese.