Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I really, really wanted to like this book, partly because of Hungry Girl's easy, breezy style. I had been forewarned by one of the recipes that appeared on the HG website (for mock French onion soup) that I never made again, but since I am always searching for good low-points WW recipes, I thought I'd give the book a try. So far, I've made a handful of the recipes, all of which have resulted in varying degrees of disappointment as is most often the case when making mock foods. For instance, the mock chocolate peanut butter fudge (a potentially promising combination of brownie mix, canned pumpkin and peanut butter) counts on a tiny bit of peanut butter to mask what turns out to be the much too prominent taste of pumpkin. I admit that one small piece was quite filling, but at the price of sitting in my stomach for hours like a rock. Even the non-mock recipes, like the "Yummy, Yummy Eggplant Goo," are largely poorer versions of better recipes that are just as low in fat and calories as the HG version. The cutesy recipe titles are somewhat grating (which would have been easily overlooked if the recipes were good) and the author's descriptions of the finished products won't measure up unless you have fairly dull taste buds and an overactive imagination. If you just want to stuff yourself with mock and/or fiber-filled recipes and don't really care what the food tastes like, then this is your book. My bet is that most people will try a few of the recipes before deciding that it is better to have occasional smaller portions of real food.