Cook This, Not That! Skinny Comfort Foods: The No-Diet Weight Loss Solution

Chapter 2:

Breakfast

Banana-Mango Smoothie

Huevos Rancheros

Banana Pancakes

Mile-High Omelets

Vanilla-Bourbon French Toast

Shiitake, Spinach & Goat Cheese Scramble

Eggs in Purgatory

Spinach & Ham Quiche

Flaky Southern Biscuits

Steak & Eggs with Chimichurri

The Breakfast Sandwich Matrix

TACO

WRAP

MUFFIN

WHOLE-GRAIN SANDWICH

Chapter 3:

Appetizers

Roasted Wings with Blue Cheese Yogurt

Nachos with Chicken & Black Beans

Spinach-Artichoke Dip

Mexican Shrimp Cocktail

Cheese Fries

7-Layer Dip

Stuffed Dates

Crispy Quesadillas with Guacamole

Smoky Deviled Eggs

Chapter 4:

Soups & Salads

Mom's Chicken Noodle Soup

French Onion Soup

Spinach & Goat Cheese Salad with Apples & Warm Bacon Dressing

Italian Sausage Soup

Clam Chowder

Chinese Chicken Salad

Split Pea Soup

Asparagus with Fried Eggs and Prosciutto

Italian Meatball Soup

Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup

Chapter 5:

Burgers & Sandwiches

Bigger Better Mac

Croque Monsieur

Philly Cheesesteak

Buffalo Chicken & Blue Cheese Sandwich

Ultimate Club Sandwich with Super Mayo

Cowboy Burger

Roast Beef & Cheddar Sandwiches with Horseradish Mayo

Southwest Turkey Burger

Turkey Sloppy Joe

Swiss Burger with Red Wine Mushrooms

The Elvis

Chapter 6:

Pizzas & Pasta

Mac & Cheese

Spicy Hawaiian Pizza

Spinach-Artichoke Manicotti with Spicy Tomato Sauce

Fettuccine Alfredo

Spinach, Sausage & Pepper Pizza

Fettuccine with Turkey Bolognese

Spinach-&-Ham Mac & Cheese

Sausage Lasagna

Chapter 7:

Poultry

Sunday Roast Chicken

Provençal Chicken

Turkey Meat Loaf

Creamy Mushroom Chicken

Oven-Fried Chicken

90-Minute Roasted Turkey with Orange-Cranberry Relish

Chicken Parm

Chicken Potpie

Basque Chicken

Jambalaya

Chicken & Dumplings

The Slow Cooker Matrix

ASIAN SHORT RIBS

LAMB OSSOBUCO

COQ AU VIN (RED WINE CHICKEN)

PORK RAGU

Chapter 8:

Red Meat

Garlic-Rosemary Roast Beef

Smothered Pork Chops

Crockpot Chili

Bourbon-Glazed Ham with Peach Chutney

Classic Beef Stew

Smoky Ribs with Peach BBQ Sauce

Shepherd's Pie

Steaks with Red Wine Sauce

Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder

Carne Asada Burritos

Poor Man's Steak with Garlicky Gravy

Braised Brisket with Horseradish Cream

The Meatball Matrix

SPICY LAMB MEATBALLS

TUNA SATAY MEATBALLS

MANGO PORK MEATBALLS

MEATBALLS IN MUSHROOM GRAVY

Sauces

TOMATO SAUCE

MANGO CHUTNEY

MUSHROOM GRAVY

THAI PEANUT SAUCE

Chapter 9:

Seafood

Fish & Chips

Spanish Garlic Shrimp

Cornmeal Catfish with Tomato Gravy

Cioppino

Blackened Tilapia with Garlic-Lime Butter

Roast Salmon with Lentils

Shrimp & Grits

Grilled Swordfish with Caponata

Seared Scallops with White Beans & Spinach

Sole Meunière

Chapter 10:

Ethnic Foods

Chicken & Red Chile Enchiladas

Vegetable Fried Rice with a Fried Egg

Swedish Meatballs

Steak Frites with Compound Butter

Thai Chicken Curry

Pork Chile Verde

Beef with Broccoli

Sesame Noodles with Chicken

Lamb Tagine

Kung Pao Chicken

Chicken Tikka Masala

The Wok Matrix

CHILI GARLIC PORK

BLACK BEAN CHICKEN

BROCCOLI BEEF

VEGETARIAN FEAST

Chapter 11:

Vegetable Sides

Crispy Oven-Baked Fries

Green Bean Casserole

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Apple-Sausage Stuffing

Twice-Baked Potatoes

Yukon Gold & Sweet Potato Gratin

Stuffed Tomatoes

Garlic-Lemon Spinach

Potato Salad

Smoky Baked Beans

Grilled Mexican-Style Corn

Cole Slaw

Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli

Honey-Roasted Carrots

Smoked Paprika Potato Chips

Brussels & Bacon

Secret Weapons

Orange-Cranberry Relish

Chimichurri

Classic Barbecue Sauce

Pico de Gallo

Pesto

Magic Blackening Rub

Guacamole

Roasted Garlic

Tomato Sauce

Romesco

Chapter 11:

Desserts

Oatmeal–Chocolate Chip Cookies

Banana Pudding

Ricotta Cheesecake with Warm Blueberries

Fudgy Brownies

Key Lime Pie

Grilled Fruit Kebabs with Yogurt & Honey

Tiramisu

Apple Pie with Crunch Topping

Molten Chocolate Cake

Blueberry-Peach Cobbler

Grilled Banana Split

Remember how simple and comforting food used to be?

When you were a kid, there was nothing better than waking up to a thick slice of French toast, maple syrup and butter running over the edges, filling the kitchen with the smell of autumnal goodness.

Or coming home from school to a thick wedge of lasagna, the tangy sauce tickling your tongue and the melted mozzarella stringing little spider webs between your plate and fork.

Or taking a break from ice skating to linger over a mug of hot chocolate, its little marshmallows floating on top, keeping you warm on a cold winter’s day.

Of course, that was then. You were a kid. You didn’t know any better. Now you’re a grown-up, and when you hear French toast, lasagna, and hot chocolate, you think, Egads! Carbs! Saturated fats! Sugar! I can’t eat that!

Being a grown-up sucks, doesn’t it?

Well, this book is about to change all that. Eat This, Not That! Skinny Comfort Foods is like a high school reunion where only the kids you really liked show up. Steamed Broccoli? Couldn’t make it.

Tofu? Not invited. Lima Beans? Serving a 6-month prison term for DWIF—Dining Without Intoxicating Flavor. You won’t find any of those bullies and bums in here.

But Fettuccine with Turkey Bolognese, Molten Chocolate Cake, and those old jokers, Mac and Cheese? They’re all waiting for you inside. My goal is to get you reacquainted with your very best friends from child-hood—some close buddies that maybe you grew a little wary of over the years, but you never stopped missing, never stopped thinking about.

Sounds great, you’re thinking. But I’m a grown-up now, and I have grown-up concerns, like the refined carbs and the trans fats and the sugars and the glycemic index and…ahhhhh!

Well, yes, we are grown-ups now, and watching our weight is more important than ever before. That’s why Skinny Comfort Foods is here, to make all your favorites a lot less scary—and to help you lose weight, eat great, and start enjoying the company of some wonderful old friends.

Stop Stressing, Start Indulging

In reality, a lot of the foods we remember from childhood weren’t necessarily all that bad for us—at least, back when we were kids. What’s happened is that food processors and chain restaurants decided that the foods we already loved needed to be improved, and so starting in the ’70s and increasingly through the ’80s, they started improving them by adding new kinds of sugars and other chemicals, turning misdemeanor indulgences into nutritional felonies.

CONSIDER THIS: How much high fructose corn syrup did you eat today?

YOUR ANSWER: Uh, none?

CORRECT ANSWER: If you’re an average American, you ate 12 teaspoons’ worth. That would be just today. It was probably in the sauce you tossed with your spaghetti, the ketchup you spread on your burger (and the bun as well), the bread your turkey sandwich came on, and the iced tea you washed it down with.

But you don’t need to be downing a chemical cocktail of bad-for-you stuff every time you crave the comfort of your old food friends. And you don’t have to live on a diet of romaine lettuce and kidney beans to start dropping pounds and keep them off forever. In fact, you can run for comfort any time you want—and still lose 10, 20, 30 pounds or more. All you need are a few smart swaps, and a quiver of simple recipes. Once you know a handful of secrets, you’ll be indulging in all your favorite comfort foods, and watching the pounds disappear.

Before we get started, however, it’s worth answering one question: What exactly is comfort food?

The first thing you might think of is that creamy tomato soup Grandma made for you when you came in with a chill from building a snowman in the backyard; the mac and cheese Mom cooked up when you got the mumps in fourth grade; the chocolate brownie sundaes that you and your friends shared after you got dumped by that loser they all warned you about. Comfort food is about memories, right?

In part, yes. The taste of melting American cheese on your tongue, the smell of apple pie cooling on the counter, the sound of Mom clanking the pots and pans in the kitchen while Dad sits in the living room, cursing the Red Sox—they trigger our memories, and when we recall happier, more innocent times, we can’t help but feel more at peace. It’s the reason you can still hear Casey Kasem count down the hits on the ’70s stations every Sunday.

But there’s actually a science to comfort food, and to why we crave what we crave when we’re stressed or blue, that has nothing to do with Mom’s cooking or Dad’s scatological references to Fenway Park. Let me tell you what happens, in part, when we eat comfort foods, and the biological reason why your college room-mate’s tofu and lentil stew never quite satisfied those emotional needs.

The Science of Comfort Food

I don’t know about you, but I could pretty much use some comforting all the time. If it’s sweet, fatty, greasy, chewy, or just plain yummy, I’m ready to run into its arms.

That’s because, like you and everyone else living in the USA right now, I’m chronically stressed. I probably manage about 500 emails a day, several dozen phone calls, and a few dozen texts. Then there are the Tweets, the friend requests, and the myriad other social media coming at me with the intensity of a 4-year-old on a Butterfinger binge—and that’s before I even walk to my mailbox.

That stress triggers the release of several hormones, starting with two main ones, adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline you know—it’s the stuff that gets your heart racing and your blood pumping and your wallet opening for yet another stupid Saw movie. Nothing wrong with that: The occasional adrenaline rush is what makes life worth living, after all.

But the other hormone, cortisol, is the real problem. What it’s supposed to do is release fat and sugar into your bloodstream, so you can run away from the snarling sabertooth or the attacking alligator or the uncaged Kardashian or whatever other primitive man-eating predator is on your tail. But when stress becomes chronic—when the untamed tiger is replaced by a daily onslaught of rising bills, mindless tasks, and disheartening remarks from the boss—cortisol can actually signal your cells to store as much fat as possible and inhibit the body from releasing fat to burn as energy. What’s worse, that fat tends to accumulate in the abdominal region, because visceral fat, which resides behind the abdominal muscles, has more cortisol receptors than fat below the skin.

I know what you’re thinking: What does this have to do with Grandma’s creamy tomato soup?

Well, our hormonal reactions to stress help explain why we develop cravings for fried chicken, chocolate chip cookies, grilled cheese, chicken soup, apple pie, and the like whenever we’re feeling like we need a hug.

To qualify as comfort food, a meal needs to be easy to eat, and it needs to be high in fat. In a 2011 study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, University of Texas researchers exposed mice to a chronically high level of stress and discovered that their bodies manufactured an increased amount of the hunger hormone ghrelin. Not only that, but the frantic furry subjects also showed a corresponding increase in their preference for—and intake of—high-fat food.

So we not only crave comfort food when we’re sad, we are actually hormonally triggered to eat more of it! That’s one reason why, in a 2009 British study in the journal Obesity, adolescents who reported greater levels of stress had higher BMIs and greater waist circumferences compared to teens with less perceived stress.

And obesity and stress are a lethal one-two punch. You already know that carrying too many pounds can put you at risk for every disease under the sun. But check this out: In a study at the University of Western Ontario, researchers took hair follicles from 100 men, half of whom were recently hospi-talized for heart attacks. (Which is exactly what you want to have happen to you after you’ve just had a heart attack.) The upshot: The men who’d suffered a cardiac episode had higher cortisol levels in their hair—a direct link between stress and The Big One.

So the plan is obvious: Turn off the phone, shut down the computer, move into a cave, and never eat a slice of meat loaf again. Right?

Well, that’s one answer. But we think we have a better one.

Take Comfort—and Lose Weight!

We all deserve the right to make ourselves feel better. And the crazy thing is, chasing our blues with comfort foods is scientifically proven to work, at least in the short term.

In a somewhat bizarre study in 2011, participants had their stomachs filled with either saline solution or saturated fat. Then they were shown images of sad faces and made to listen to sad music. (Apparently, the researchers had a vast collection of Dan Fogelberg records.) Compared to the moods of those who had only salt water in their guts, the subjects who had a belly full of fat reported feeling less miserable. When we’re faced with negative circumstances, fatty foods literally comfort us.

But constantly filling your belly with fat—especially when stress-related cortisol is triggering your body to store more of that fat around your middle—isn’t exactly a great long-term strategy for feeling better. And when stress enters our lives, it not only plays havoc with our diets and our health, but it impacts the eating habits of those around us as well. In a 2012 study in the journal Social Science & Medicine, parents who had higher work-life stress levels were more likely to come home to a less healthful family food environment and a higher family intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and fast-food items.

So comfort foods are the ultimate catch-22: They help us manage stress and sadness, while they make us fat and unhealthy, causing us more stress and sadness.

But there’s an answer, and it’s in these pages: Skinny Comfort Food. If you could capture the rich, creamy goodness of your favorite feel-good foods, keep all the delicious flavor and that chewy, gooey mouthfeel, and yet dramatically reduce the calories, then you’d be able to indulge your cravings whenever you felt the desire.

And that’s our goal. My coauthor, New York Times best-selling food journalist and trained chef Matt Goulding, and I have dissected some of the most popular comfort foods on the market. And what we dis-covered is that many of them are loaded with extra fat and calories that aren’t at all necessary for tickling our taste buds or triggering those feel-good hormones.

For example:

• Let’s say a bad day at work has you craving a juicy cheeseburger. You could stop in at Ruby Tuesday for one of their Avocado Turkey Burgers (it’s turkey, how bad could it be?). But you’d be drowning your sorrows in 54 grams of fat, amongst the 908 calories you’d down—before you even ate the first french fry. But try our Southwest Turkey Burger recipe and save 438 calories and 28 grams of fat!

• Another stressful day with the kids turns a young parent’s mind to…chocolate cake. At Chili’s that cake will cost you 1,110 calories and 59 grams of fat. Turn to our Molten Chocolate Cake, however, and you’ll discover how to enjoy the same gooey, chocolaty awesomeness for just 320 calories.

• What’s a scary movie marathon without pizza to snack on? (Food that can’t be spilled is always the best choice for Wes Craven fans.) But order in a Pizza Hut Italian Sausage & Red Onion Pan Pizza, and it won’t be just the actors on the TV who are walking around like zombies. Just two slices will deliver 780 calories. Check out our Spinach, Sausage & Pepper Pizza, and learn how to make a pie that cuts those calories nearly in half.

What’s the upshot? You’ll have just saved yourself 1,548 calories by eating pizza, a cheeseburger, and chocolate cake. Just making those simple swaps twice a week could strip away 45 pounds in the next year!

So what do you say? Are you ready to start taking comfort in food again?

Terrific. Turn the page, and let’s get reacquainted with some old friends.

CUTTING CALORIES HAS A BIGGER IMPACT THAN BURNING CALORIES

In a meta-analysis of 33 clinical trials, Brazilian scientists determined that diet controls about 75 percent of weight loss. Working out helps, of course, but a smart eating plan will get you three-fourths of the way there without your ever having to break a sweat. (That’s the difference between six-pack and eight-pack abs!) Another study published by the Public Library of Science found that women who worked out with a trainer for 6 months lost no more weight than those who merely filled out health forms—in other words, those who started thinking about what they were eating. You can do that easily. As soon as you start cooking, you become instantly aware of everything on your plate.

FORCING YOURSELF INTO THE GYM INCREASES YOUR LIKELIHOOD OF INDULGING LATER

Some researchers have compared willpower to muscle—once you work it hard, it becomes weak. So by forcing yourself into the gym today—when you don’t really have the time—you’re setting yourself up to fail tomorrow when you’re confronted with milk shakes, french fries, and chimichangas. Unfortunately, it takes only one slip to negate an entire sweat session. Ever reward a trip to the gym with some food outside your normal eating regime? Sure, we all have. But the truth is, we’re probably better off sticking to home-cooked food and skipping the gym.

IT TAKES LESS TIME TO COOK IN THAN IT DOES TO WORK OUT

You can eat a 1,000-calorie fast-food burger in 5 minutes, but you’ll spend an hour or more burning it off at the gym. And that’s if you’re busting your butt. Now imagine that you decided instead to skip the burger and forgo the gym. You could head home and, in about 20 minutes, you could have a juicier, tastier, 350-calorie cheeseburger made with the finest ingredients and seasoned just the way you like it. Will the portion be smaller? Probably, but so what? Cornell University research shows that eating satisfaction is derived from the flavor intensity and visual impact of a meal, not necessarily the amount served. Plus, you’re left with extra cash in your wallet, you’ve saved 45 minutes, and you’ve burned more than 600 calories.

YOU CAN WORK EXERCISE INTO YOUR DAILY ROUTINE

Think of all the opportunities you have to be active throughout the day. Do you take advantage? Try taking the stairs over the elevator, walking across the office instead of sending an e-mail, or riding a bike instead of taking a cab. In essence, you can cheat your gym session. But food? There’s no cheating there; it’s only good when it’s made fresh. Researchers at the University of Minnesota determined that compared with cooking for yourself, consuming more restaurant and ready-made meals—think frozen dinners and carryout—could have a negative impact on your overall health. So food should come first, and dedicated gym time second.

GET COMFORTABLE IN YOUR KITCHEN. Get comfortable in the supermarket. Get comfortable wielding pots and pans, stocking your fridge and pantry, making smart decisions in the grocery aisles.

Nowadays, most of us are more comfortable shouting cheeseburger with fries into a squawk box from our car window than we are making a cheeseburger and fries in our own kitchens. Whereas once the fridge was the starting place for every meal, now it’s the ending place—a sad, chilly refuge for forgotten takeout leftovers slowly morphing into epic fungal art projects. Whereas once the kitchen was the very center of the home, nowadays it’s just a small patch of linoleum we have to venture into in order to get ice cubes.

It’s time to rethink the kitchen. Instead of a forbidding dungeon where things get beaten, shredded, and burned, it needs to become the safest room in the house. It needs to become your Bat Cave, your Cone of Silence, your base camp at the bottom of Everest—the place you can retreat to for safety, for comfort, to gather up the tools you need for your next great adventure.

Because that’s what a kitchen really should be: the base camp of life. Eating well, feeling nourished, and staying fit and healthy are hard jobs out there in the real world. Your kitchen is your green zone.

So in this chapter, we’ve created a complete inventory of all the tools and foods you’ll need to create the ultimate Skinny Kitchen. Most of them you’ll already have on hand. Others you’ll need to stock up on. But knowing you have the absolute best tools on hand will give you the confidence you need to whip up the many simple recipes in this book.

Ready to get comfortable?

The

Skinny

Pantry

The 50 best staples for building healthy, flavorful meals any time of the day.

Choosing between mayonnaises and canned tomatoes might seem like trivial stuff, but