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    Top Secret Recipes Lite!: A Cookbook
    Top Secret Recipes Lite!: A Cookbook
    Top Secret Recipes Lite!: A Cookbook
    Ebook336 pages2 hours

    Top Secret Recipes Lite!: A Cookbook

    By Todd Wilbur

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    #1 bestselling Top Secret Recipes series with more than 4 million books sold! 

    With health-consciousness sweeping America, many of us feel we can no longer indulge in the tasty but guilt-inducing foods we grew up with. Todd Wilbur, who made a name for himself by allowing us to clone treats such as Oreos™and Outback Steakhouse® Blooming Onions™in our own kitchens, now gives us back our cherished foods with reduced fat and calories. Not only does Wilbur enable us to produce lite versions of Cinnabon® Cinnamon Rolls and Twinkies™, he shows us how to duplicate our favorite Snackwell™ and Healthy Choice™products. Top Secret Recipes—Lite! includes recipes for 75 new dishes, complete with Wilbur's helpful diagrams, which call for ingredients easily found at the local supermarket. The newest addition to the Top Secret Recipe franchise is sure to make us not only happier, but healthier.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Publishing Group
    Release dateNov 1, 1998
    ISBN9781101153864
    Top Secret Recipes Lite!: A Cookbook
    Author

    Todd Wilbur

    Todd Wilbur is the top-selling QVC cookbook author who’s been cloning recipes since the 1980’s. He’s the author of nine top secret recipes books. He’s toured extensively for his books, appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Today, and Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, among others. He lives in Las Vegas with his family.

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      Book preview

      Top Secret Recipes Lite! - Todd Wilbur

      INTRODUCTION

      Before I begin, let me assure you that my love for the gooey, greasy, cheesy, sugary sloppy, slippery, creamy, saucy, and chocolaty famous American convenience foods cloned in previous Top Secret Recipes books has not diminished in the least. I’m still in ecstasy when sinking my teeth into a hot double-stacked burger slathered in secret sauce, or when chomping down hard into a chocolate bar loaded with caramel, nougat, and a fistful of nuts.

      I don’t care who you are, or how healthy you claim to eat, or how much you boast you never divert your car in a rush through a fast-food drive-thru joint for a quickie, It’s a sure bet that you have at least one favorite, sinfully delicious food that you often crave, that’s high in fat and calories. I’m talking about the kind of food that gives you an ecstatic rush as you eat it, and practically gets you high from the oral gratification. I’m talking about the type of grub that washes over your tastebuds in that all-too-short belly-stuffing journey, making you close your eyes for just a moment while you chew to let out a little mmmm. It’s the euphoric palatal experience that ends much too soon. And it’s the experience that’s quickly followed by the post-nosh guilt, as you realize the pants are a bit more snug today, and will be a lot more snug tomorrow.

      Sure, I still enjoy eating America’s favorite brand-name foods, and I still dig cloning them at home, just as much as ever. But I also realize that no matter how good the stuff tastes, these higher-fat foods can’t be on the menu every day if I want to maintain a 6-foot-tall, 180-pound frame. Sure, if I gave in to my cravings, I’d be eating huge portions of Olive Garden Tiramisu, Taco Bell Mexican Pizza, KFC Cole Slaw, and Big Mac after Big Mac (I’ll have fries with that, please). And I could eat Hooters Buffalo Wings every day of the year and not get sick of them ... until around Thanksgiving. Okay, make that Christmas.

      But I don’t pig out wildly on these foods because I know that, while these products are delicious and popular, some of them contain significant amounts of fat. And we’ve all been informed by the scads of nutritionists and dieticians on anti-fat crusades that if we want to stay fit, we’re going to have to turn away from the greasy goodies and start looking in the direction of low-fat alternatives. I’ve heard it, you’ve heard it; and as much as I don’t want to hear it anymore, I know I will, and so will you. And the real bummer is, it’s all true.

      This news was even more of a bummer in the early days of the move away from foods higher in fat. Back then, smart, tasty alternatives were hard to come by. Food manufacturers were coming out with products that tasted only slightly better than potting soil. Maybe that’s why when we hear the words low-fat or fat-free today, while we know it’s the right thing to choose, a part of us is thinking yech!

      But the good news is that in the last several years, fat-reduced foods have been much improved. There are many more better-tasting staple products such as mayonnaise, cheese, sour cream, and butter-flavored additives available than ever before. With these products and the skillful use of thickeners, starches, and fruit purees, it’s now easier to enjoy foods that taste as though they’re pumped with fat, when the nutrition facts say otherwise. The tricks we’re learning to remove the fat from our meals and snacks, both in the food production plants and in the home kitchens, are quickly turning the yechs into yums.

      As I was creating the previous Top Secret Recipes books, I began to devise simple ways to use lower-fat ingredients and special cooking techniques that would eliminate much of the fat, yet retain the flavor of the original product. This was a casual exercise, for my own meals, and I was at first only moderately effective. But as I explored and experimented further over the years, and started to use the many new fat-free ingredients that were becoming available, I found that it was possible to eliminate at least 50 percent of the fat in most cloned convenience foods, with minimal effort and standard ingredients. The big surprise was that in many cases I could get the fat down much lower than that—as low as 15 to 20 percent of the original product.

      Isn’t it amazing that only twenty-five years ago we could eat the same higher-fat foods available today without feeling that we had done something horribly wrong. Today we still have the same classic burgers, famous fried food, top-selling candy bars, snack cakes, and cookies that have been around for years; and these items are as popular as ever But in this last decade of the millennium we are continuously force-fed information about what is good and bad for our bodies. How often have you heard that we should eat no more than 2200 calories a day and that we should limit our fat intake to around 60 grams? Sure we hear it, and we know it. But that information doesn’t keep us from loving our favorite junk foods. It just makes us feel much worse when we cave in.

      Food manufacturers are aware of our dilemma, and they realize that creating products that address our nutritional concerns and that satisfy our strongest, most insatiable cravings, is a quick trip down mega-profits street. Millions and millions of dollars have been spent on reduced-fat product development, and for conversion of previously higher-fat products to trendy lower-fat versions. Just look for the green packages. Not only can these healthier alternatives be found in growing numbers in supermarket aisles, but also fast-food outlets and restaurant chains have been making lower-fat choices available. It’s the latest food craze, and the cost to the consumer is usually high. Ironically, many times the lower-fat or light versions of a product are more expensive or smaller in size (or both) than the higher-fat counterpart.

      And as these food companies with their healthy alternatives are wrestling for shelf space and customers, scores of cookbook authors have jumped into the fray. Low-fat cookbooks have been some of the most popular books sold in recent years, with some scoring high on bestseller lists. Many of these books have some great ideas and delicious recipes (and some definitely don’t), but not one gives us recipes for the type of food for which we really want homemade reduced-fat versions. I’m talking about the kind of food that sales figures show is the most popular food—convenience food, fast food, and junk food. America’s favorite foods.

      If you are discouraged to find that supermarkets are filled with record numbers of overly expensive and not-so-fresh low-fat products; or if you have wished for reduced-fat versions of your favorite brand-name foods; or if you have yearned for a low-fat cookbook that actually provides recipes to make dishes at home that taste good rather than tasting low-fat, then I’m hoping to make your day.

      This book will show you how to make low-fat and fat-free food at home that will taste just like these reduced-fat products you find in restaurants and supermarkets, at a fraction of the cost. At the same time, this book will show you how to cook reduced-fat food at home that tastes as good as the popular brands that’re usually higher in fat.

      TWO, TWO, TWO BOOKS IN ONE

      What you have here is like two books in one. The first section is a collection of recipes that taste like existing low-fat and fat-free products. These are famous products such as Nabisco Snack-Well’s Cookies, Weight Watchers Éclairs, Hostess Lights Twinkies, Kellogg’s Low-Fat Pop-Tarts, and Gardenburger Veggie Patties. These products are created by the manufacturers as lower-fat versions of their existing higher-fat products, or as an entirely new line of products created solely for the fat-conscious eaters. Some of these products, such as Einstein Bros. Bagels, are just naturally low in fat, without much attention drawn to that fact.

      When creating these clone recipes for the products in the first half of the book, I’ve made every attempt to keep fat gram numbers the same as the real item. This was not always easy. In fact, it was. rarely easy, and next to the boxes, cans, and bottles of ingredients on the kitchen counter could always be found a well-stained calculator, ready to spew running fat totals.

      With the recipes in the first half of the book, you can now recreate your favorite low-fat and fat-free foods with everyday ingredients. This gives you the opportunity to enjoy a product that may not be available where you live, and, in most cases, you will find that creating the product at home from scratch saves a significant amount of money, versus buying the real thing. Plus fresh food is always better than the packaged stuff, which may, contain preservatives.

      The second section is the fat-reduction extravaganza. This part of the book is filled with recipes to clone items that don’t exist as lower-fat or fat-free food. I call these recipes TSR Lite Conversions, and it is here where you will find recipes to recreate America’s favorite brand-name foods, but with significantly reduced numbers in the fat column. Every recipe reduces the fat grams by at least 50 percent when compared to the original product—and in many cases, by significantly more than that.

      The recipes in this section make it possible for you to get lower-fat versions of products that would otherwise be impossible to enjoy. With these recipes you can now have a cinnamon roll that tastes like Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls with only 4 grams of fat, while the actual product contains 24 grams of fat. You can savor the flavor of Boston Market’s Creamed Spinach for just one-fourth the fat grams (6g fat) of the original (24g fat). You can eat two clone hamburgers (13g fat each) with the same taste of a Big Mac, but still not consume as much fat as just one of the real burgers (31 g fat).

      Here are some other examples of the incredible fat savings when compared to the original:

      003004

      There are even several TSR conversions that cut out all the fat. With these recipes you can now enjoy fat-free versions of Olive Garden’s Italian Salad Dressing, Boston Market Butternut Squash, and Red Lobster Tartar Sauce. And even though KFC’s famous cole slaw contains more than 10 grams of fat per serving, you now have a TSR conversion to recreate a fat-free clone—and it’s made with only five ingredients!

      THE TOP SECRET TRICKS

      As I created the recipes in previous Top Secret Recipes books, I gave priority to one very important guideline: All ingredients for the recipes must be available in the local supermarket. This is often difficult, as manufacturers love to pack their ingredients list with additives, flavorings, stabilizers, and preservatives with long names that consumers like you and me will never be able to track down at the neighborhood Safeway. We must then find substitutes for the commercial components, while dismissing preservatives entirely, since our homemade versions won’t be sitting on the shelves for weeks at a time. I would hope.

      Adhering to this rule presented a bigger challenge than ever when creating these reduced-fat recipes. That’s because in the low-fat and fat-free food manufacturing world, companies use obscure gums and thickeners and modified starches to replace the missing fat in their products. These additional ingredients are necessary to give a product the textural qualities of fat. Although carrageenan, xanthan gum, cellulose gel, and carob bean gum are missing from supermarket aisles, we do have access to many products that can stand in nicely. The trick is in determining the best ingredient for each situation. Lots of time is logged over a stovetop and mixing bowl figuring out if a recipe works better with pectin or gelatin or cornstarch or arrowroot, or other available thickeners and additives that may help to give the finished product a pleasant texture.

      A baked product may be best with some fruit puree mixed in. Raisin or prune or banana purees lend a nice flavor to cakes and brownies and cookies, and they help a snack retain moisture and give it a pleasant, chewy consistency Unsweetened applesauce can make magic happen. And sweetened condensed skim milk works great with its sweet fat-free gooeyness.

      In creamy sauces

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