Making diet-friendly food is harder than it seems

After a year of creating brand new recipes, the writer has learned a little humility.

By KATHY MANWEILER

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

They say time flies when you’re having fun.

And that’s true, because I can hardly believe that I’ve been writing my weekly Don’t Say Diet column for a year already.

When I started this project, I had no idea that a year later, newspapers across the country would be publishing my recipes.

I’ve heard from more than 1,000 Don’t Say Diet readers so far, and I want to thank you all for your kind words, criticism, cooking suggestions and recipes.

Many of you say that Don’t Say Diet recipes have helped you lose weight — congratulations! A few readers tell me they’ve dropped at least 30 pounds since they started cooking my recipes, and I’m thrilled by that news.

Keep sending in your favorite recipes! I’m always on the lookout for popular foods I can lighten up, and many of you have given me great ideas.

I’m looking forward to more cooking adventures in 2008 because I sure learned a lot this year. Today, I’d like to share some of the lessons that might help you in your own kitchen.

Lesson No. 1: Sneak in fiber.

In many cases, adding some high-fiber ingredients to a recipe makes the food healthier and more filling without changing the flavors that you love.

For example, diners can’t detect the oatmeal I slip into my bacon cheeseburger meatloaf.

And if you substitute white whole wheat flour for 1⁄4 of the all-purpose flour in most recipes, you can’t taste the difference at all. I do this with my grandmother’s buttermilk biscuits because I want to boost the nutrition, but I also want the biscuits to taste just the way I remember them.

Some of my other fiber-rich favorites to toss into recipes include Barilla Plus pasta, berries, corn tortillas, kidney beans and navy beans.

Lesson No. 2: Know when to throw in the towel.

Months ago, I had my heart set on coming up with a healthy homemade energy bar. I found a combination of ingredients I liked. The only sticking point was creating a low-sugar, reduced-fat syrup to hold it all in place.

“How hard could it be?” I thought to myself. Eight batches and one unbelievably sticky kitchen later, I knew the answer: Very, very hard.

I had tried many combinations of honey, brown sugar, butter, light butter, canola oil and Splenda brown sugar blend, and no light versions worked well enough to keep the energy bars together. The closest I came was an “energy popcorn ball,” but it wasn’t very diet-friendly.

After scrubbing my counters and floors four times to remove all the energy bar goo, I gave up on the idea for now. If I perfect it someday, I’ll keep you posted. But that’s one of at least six recipes this year that I couldn’t slim down to my standards. Sometimes, you have to know when to quit and just eat the original recipe in moderation.

Lesson No. 3: It’s not all or nothing.

Many diet plans recommend replacing all of the butter with applesauce whenever you bake and always using cottage cheese instead of sour cream or higher-fat cheeses. In my experience, those alterations are too drastic, but sometimes my taste buds let me get away with substituting about half of the higher-fat ingredients as long as I use a sieve to drain the moisture from the applesauce and cottage cheese first. This trick slashes fat and calories without dramatically changing the taste or texture of some dishes like oatmeal cookies and cheese enchiladas.

Lesson No. 4: Isn’t that sweet?

Reducing the amount of sugar in a recipe is a quick way to cut calories. When I was baking chocolate chip cookies, I learned a trick that I now use in lots of recipes. A little pure vanilla extract can stand in for about some of the sugar in many baked goods.

Don’t go overboard with this technique — most of the time I only cut 1⁄4 cup of sugar by adding about 1⁄4 teaspoon of vanilla. That may not sound like it makes much of a difference, but 1⁄4 cup of sugar has 194 calories and the vanilla has 3 calories.

In a few recipes, I can use less than a teaspoon of vanilla and reduce the sugar by 1⁄2 cup.

Here’s to your health, and I’ll see you in 2008!