The Perfect Portion Cookbook Review

A healthy lifestyle is always something that I'm striving towards. Admittedly, sometimes I'm working harder at it than others! On my best days, I exercise, make healthy food choices and substitutions, and feel great about myself. My goal is to have more good days than bad days so I was excited when I received an advanced copy of The Perfect Portion Cookbook which goes on sale to the public later this month. I can always use some new, easy recipes to add to my (admittedly limited) rotation.

The Perfect Portion Cookbook is written by NY Times best-selling cookbook author, Bob Warden and food and nutrition expert, Mona Dolgov (of Natick, MA!) and was just featured on the TODAY show and on The Doctors as a new way to think about portion control and nutrition. The featured recipes are all divisible by 100 so you can eat what you love and enjoy 100, 200 or 300 or 400 calorie portions.  Yummy recipes like French toast, chili, chicken pot pie, and lasagna swap out better-for-you ingredients that don’t sacrifice flavor and might even taste better than the originals!

I decided to try out the Ratatouille & Sausage Bake Recipe which includes eggplant, zucchini, squash, peppers, and more! This dish is roasted in the oven to give it a robust flavor and has chicken sausage in it to make it a complete meal. I loved that it was easy to put together and I could prepare it ahead of time while the kids were at school. That meant when it was dinner time I could just pop it in the oven and be done!

Voila!

So how the cookbook works is that it tells you exactly how to slice/portion the dish so that each serving is 100 calories. Here is the breakdown for the dish that I made:

The idea behind the cookbook isn't simply about counting calories though. It's about understanding portion control. It's being aware of what a true serving looks like that so that you can make decent size choices in the future. The end of the cookbook is also filled with useful charts and information ranging from sample menus to 100 calorie portion cheat sheets for fruits, veggies, and snacks. Did you know that 100 medium radishes has only 100 calories? If only I liked radishes! 

 

I'm excited to try out some more recipes (especially desserts!) from the cookbook. Interested in buying your own copy? The Perfect Portion cookbook launches Feb. 7th on QVC. You can get a special pre-order price by clicking HERE. You can also pre-order on Amazon by clicking HERE. 

 

*Disclosure: I received a free copy of the cookbook in order to facilitate this review. As always, all opinions are my own.