Busy People's Down-Home Cooking without the Down-Home Fat

Busy People’s

Down-Home

Cooking Without the

Down-Home Fat

Dawn Hall

Rutledge Hill Press™

Nashville, Tennessee

A Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

www.ThomasNelson.com

I dedicate this book to my wonderful children

God has blessed me with.

I love and adore you immensely!

Copyright © 1997 & 2003 by Dawn Hall

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

The authors and publisher of this book assume no liability for, and are released by readers from, any injury or damage resulting from the strict adherence to, or deviation from, the directions and/or recipes herein.

Published by Rutledge Hill Press, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.,

P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee, 37214.

The quotes on pages 53, 56, 58, and 111 are from Life’s Little Instruction Book by H. Jackson Brown.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hall, Dawn.

   Busy people’s down-home cooking without the down-home fat / Dawn Hall.

      p. cm.

   ISBN1-4016-0104-9 (concealed wire-o)

   ISBN1-4016-0253-3 (Huntley St. edition)

  1. Quick and easy cookery. 2. Low-fat diet—Recipes. I. Title.

 TX833.5.H33 2004

 641.5'6384 dc22

2003019779

Printed in Canada

04 05 06 07 08 — 6 5 4 3 2

Foreword

There are few books that grab my attention faster than a cookbook. There’s just something about holding in your hands the makings of a delicious meal! Of all the cookbooks I’ve read (and there have been many!), none of them have piqued my interest as quickly or thoroughly as the cookbook you are holding, Down-Home Cooking Without the Down-Home Fat. Dawn Hall has put together an assortment of many of our family’s favourite dishes and then, in her down-to-earth and health-conscious way, revamped them. Finally, scrumptious home cooking without the unnecessary fat! And knowing Dawn’s inspiring story, which prompted the cookbook, makes the recipes that much more special.

So go to your kitchen, grab a mixing bowl, and prepare to be introduced to a whole new way of enjoying your very own Down-Home Cooking Without the Down-Home Fat. You’re in for a treat!

Enjoy!

—Ann Mainse

US to Metric Cooking Measure Conversion Table

Please note: Where recipes call for Butter Buds (an imitation, low calorie powder butter substitute available on only in the USA) a product that is available in Canada called Molly McButter can be substituted and is found in the diet section or spice aisles of grocery stores.

If a liquid form is needed simply stir 80 ml of Molly McButter until dissolved into 1 cup of water/230ml of water. (40 ml = 1 package of Butter Buds.) Remember 1 tsp of Butter Buds = 5 ml.

To make 1 cup of liquid Butter Buds use 80 ml of Molly McButter and stir it into the equivalent of 1 cup of water (230 ml. of water).

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Breakfasts

Appetizers, Breads & Spreads

Soups, Salads & Dressings

Side Dishes

Entrées

Desserts

Drinks

Index

A Special Note of Thanks

Avery special thank you to Tammi Hancock, the registered dietitian who not only did the nutritional analysis for all of the recipes but was also very instrumental in selecting the recipes. She’s a huge blessing!

I cannot give enough thanks to my faithful assistant, Karen Schwanbeck. She is like a grandmother to my family and goes far beyond the call of duty. She is a godsend and I am forever grateful to her.

To my literary agent, Coleen O’Shea, who just totally amazes me with how persistent, thorough, and consistent she is, thank you. I will always be extremely grateful to Jo Anna Lund for recommending Coleen to me, and I shall remain as equally grateful to Jo Anna as well for all she does on my behalf. They both really amaze me.

My loving and supportive family (who occasionally gets tired of being guinea pigs in trying my new recipe ideas) deserves recognition for being my greatest food critics as well as my most loyal fans. Their brutal honesty has many times pushed me to keep striving and changing a recipe until it is its best. I love and appreciate them with all of my heart.

To all the people—marketing, publicity, sales, layout, design, and so forth—who work so hard behind the scenes at Rutledge Hill Press, I deeply appreciate the many hats they have relieved me of having to wear. It is a huge relief, and my family thanks them too. I am proud to have my books published by them.

I am especially grateful to my editor, Geoff Stone, for his expertise in critiquing my work and to my publisher, Larry Stone, who graciously makes me feel a part of the Rutledge Hill Press team by keeping me in the loop.

The direction of Chuck Rekow, the cover artist, and Kyle Baugh, the photographer, was invaluable. They both brought out the best qualities of me in their pictures. I am fortunate to be working with such gifted artists.

Last but not least of all, thank you to the readers who keep asking me for more and more of my recipes. If I were writing cookbooks to just sell cookbooks, I would have stopped a long time ago. However, I believe God is using me in many of your lives as a cookbook lady to be a source of hope, strength, and encouragement to you. I know this by the countless letters and e-mails I receive. I believe this is my primary purpose in life, to share God’s love, and when the message comes from a cookbook lady rather than a preacher, it just seems less threatening. If you don’t already have a personal relationship with God I encourage you to look into the possibility. Nothing has given me greater peace, hope, or strength through the hard times than the knowledge of God’s love for me and His forgiveness of my mistakes. Thank you for letting me be an encouragement to you and for encouraging me.

Introduction

As long as I can remember I have loved creating recipes. When I was five years old I remember hiding in the garage from my mom because I was afraid I would get into trouble for mixing peanut butter and jelly together in a bowl. I was not one to help my mom cook while growing up. It seemed like cooking included too much cleaning.

Ever since the day my high school sweetheart, Tracy Hall, and I got married on June 29, 1984, I never made the same meal twice. On our first anniversary I asked Tracy what I could do to be a better spouse. He said, Make the same kind of meal at least twice this year. I love your cooking and all, but I get tired of being a guinea pig 365 days a year. He had a point.

Cancer and heart disease run in my family. My mom had a triple bypass at the age of fifty-three and has fought cancer since she was fifty-seven. My birth father died of cancer when he was sixty-three My dad’s dad died of a heart attack at fifty-two and my mom’s dad died of cancer after fighting it for years. To top it off I was born watching my weight.

When low-fat foods became more prevalent, my cooking became low-fat. I had everything to gain and nothing but unwanted body fat to lose by making the healthier switch. I was reducing my chances of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes by switching to a low-fat diet, plus I could consume more food since low-fat foods often have fewer calories. This made sense to me, so I made the switch. I was pleased with the results of being able to stay in my ideal weight zone without starving myself, yet it was still hard because my appetite exceeded my body’s needs.

In the late eighties I began teaching water aerobics and a Watching Our Weight (WOW) class—an accountability support group for overeaters and people wanting to lose excess body fat. I would take the leftovers from my dinner the night before to my WOW class. My students kept asking me for the recipes and encouraged me to write a cookbook.

I didn’t know how to type or use a computer, but I began writing the recipes down since my students wanted them. I decided that as long as I was writing them down I might as well save copies of my handwritten recipes along with the nutritional information. I did this for years without thinking I’d really ever publish a cookbook. Jokingly, I would tell Tracy, I’m writing a cookbook. By telling Tracy I was writing a cookbook I had a good excuse for all of the food I ruined while trying to create new low-fat recipes. I would literally dream about recipes. It seemed as if my obsession with food had been incorporated into my dreams and I was doomed for life.

My ultimate goal when creating a new recipe is to achieve what I call the wow factor. I strive for the wow factor because when I hear someone say, Wow! This is delicious! or Wow! This tastes too good to be low fat! then I know I have a winning recipe. I designed all of my recipes to be made with seven easy-to-find ingredients or less, be low in fat and high in flavor, and to be able to be prepared in thirty minutes or less, but look like it took all day to make.

I’m happiest when I create a winning recipe. For many years, I took for granted my gift for creating low-fat recipes. I would be a fool to take all of the credit for the success of my recipes. My talent is a gift from God, and I give Him all the praise and glory.

To make a long story short, my life was turned inside out and upside down in November of 1994. My loving husband was diagnosed with an aggressive brain cancer the day after his thirty- second birthday. One pound of malignant tumor was removed, which left him completely paralyzed on his entire left side, but the doctor was only able to remove about 90 percent of the cancer. Radiation did not reduce his remaining aggressive cancer cell count, and in the spring of 1995 our oncologist gave Tracy six to eight months to live.

Our insurance would not pay for Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s experimental treatment, which was responsible for healing numerous people’s cancer. So I gathered some of my recipes, without knowing a thing about publishing, and self-published my first cookbook in order to pay for the treatment. I worked hard to sell the cookbooks and eventually published two others. Tracy fought the brave and courageous fight against cancer for six and a half years, and the experimental treatment did make Tracy cancer free! Tracy lived thirteen times longer than the doctors estimated. At one point Tracy was strong enough to cycle thirty-two miles in a day!

Unfortunately, on May 5, 2001 Tracy died of a brain hemorrhage due to a fall and complications that were caused from radiation tumors that had grown inside his head. He did not die in vain; he died a hero. Since he was cancer free he was able to donate his skin, bones, organs, heart, and eyes to help others live and have a better quality of life.

It hasn’t been easy, but God has been so good! Part of my blessing is having Rutledge Hill Press take over the publishing of my cookbooks. Together we have improved the first books and come up with new ideas. We make a good team! This frees up more time for me to be a good mom and homemaker, to create new recipes, to write and to do inspirational speaking. I am so thankful!

The success of my cookbooks, Busy People’s Low-Fat Cookbook and Busy People’s Slow Cooker Cookbook, both published by Rutledge Hill Press in 2003, and this book is a God thing. I give God all the praise and glory. I would be a fool to think anything else.

This book is a combination of the recipes I first self published in Down-Home Cookin’ Without the Down-Home Fat and Second Serving of Busy People’s Low-Fat Recipes. The original book had too many long recipes with too many ingredients. The recipes in this book are fast and