THE 1,500-Calorie-a-Day Cookbook

NANCY S. HUGHES

Copyright © 2009 by Nancy Hughes. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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To my husband, Greg, who understands the real me, pulls me in
when I get carried away, puts things into perspective, and then
helps me fly—to get carried away again, but with direction.

And to my children,

Will and Kelly and now Miss Molly Catherine, who pop in
for random tastings, total chaos, and tons of opinions—
welcomed opinions.

Annie, who finds the pure joy in good food and the "coziness"
of a good conversation—over that good food.

Taft, who still patiently comes by to "unblink" the flashing
clock and other such technology adjustments I don't have
time—nor bother—to deal with.

You've all found the deep passion that steers your heart in
each of your lives and in each of your professions—what true
accomplishments. (Of course, I take sole credit for showing
you the way.) I love you!

To Monica Davis, Robin Brinker, Liz Dixon, and Melanie Crane for all the long hours helping to "get it just right"; having mind-swirling conversations; and caring so much for the sake of the book, the sake of the recipe, and the sake of not having to test it one more time!

To Judy Wilcox, for letting me pick her "nutritionally genius" brain and helping me make simple sense out of it all!

To my editor, Sarah Pelz, for having a great thought, digging deep and popping up with an even greater idea, and working with me to make this book happen. Thanks, Sarah, for your collected, calm personality to match my collected but over-the-top, excitable personality. Teamwork at its best!

Thanks for helping to bring it together!

Our schedules are so crazy, and eating healthy is not always at the top of the priority list. We tend to let the healthy aspect slide a little, along with our quality of food. So our good intentions tend to slip through the cracks, along with our health. It can get away from us one bite at a time. By the same token, we can improve our quality of health one bite at a time!

With this book, it's actually enjoyable to stick to a healthy, low-calorie meal plan. Just because you're trying to lose weight or watch your calorie intake, it doesn't mean you have to sacrifice flavor, taste, variety, or the simple pleasures food can bring. Remember "snack time" growing up? It not only helped refuel us between meals but also was fun! But what we didn't realize was that it was also portion controlled—a couple of graham crackers and milk, an apple, or a handful of nuts, for example. And so it is with this book: grab a fast-fix snack in the middle of the morning and then again in the afternoon, just like you used to do. It's a fun and easy way to stay on track, as is the entire book.

The recipes in this book are designed to make it easy for you to eat healthy, satisfying food all day long and keep to 1,500 calories a day—without having to count calories or prepare
complicated meals. In these pages, you'll find 150 recipes for filling breakfasts; stick-to-the-ribs lunches and dinners; tasty snacks; and delicious, guilt-free desserts. Every day you get to choose three meals, two snacks, and one dessert. Breakfast, plus one snack, plus lunch, plus another snack, plus dinner, plus dessert—all for just 1,500 calories!

All breakfasts, lunches, and dinners are approximately 350 calories each. All snacks and desserts are approximately 150 calories each. So no matter what combination you choose from the various chapters, you'll come up with about 1,500 calories a day. If you cut out the dessert, it can be a 1,350-calorie day, but who wants to give up dessert? There's no need. This is not a diet plan, but rather a delicious way to take you through the day in a healthy way.

This book contains a month's worth of breakfasts, snacks and appetizers, lunches, dinners, and desserts that are calorie controlled to help you stay within weight-loss parameters while getting tons of flavor and nutritional benefits. And they're fast, really fast. Each recipe takes 30 minutes or less to make—and that's not just for one part of the meal, but for the entire meal. There's one main recipe for each meal and purposely simple sides to go along with it.

As in all of my books, all of the recipes are family-friendly but will also satisfy the savvy eaters in your life. You can find all of the ingredients in traditional supermarkets, so no extra grocery runs to specialty food shops are necessary. The ingredient lists are short to keep the shopping, prep, and cleanup time to a minimum. Using high-flavor ingredients, a variety of easy cooking techniques, and multi-ingredient items such as seasoning blends or salsa are just some of the secrets to these great-tasting quick-fixers.

An added bonus is that these recipes are interchangeable! Desserts can be snacks, snacks can be desserts, breakfasts can be lunches, lunches can be dinners. Many dinners can be frozen for other meals down the road or brown-bagged for lunches the next day. It all depends on your mood.

• Recipe and accompaniments:
  There's one written recipe for the main course in each meal and a list of recommended side dishes.
  
• Streamlined ingredient list:
  The lists of ingredients are purposefully kept short for ease in shopping, storing, prepping, and cleaning up. But while the recipes are short on ingredients, they're not short on flavor! If you're counting, they each have from six to eight ingredients, not counting salt, pepper, water, and optionals.
  
• Time-Shaver Tips and Cook's Notes:
  I've included helpful sidebars with quick info, such as healthy tips, shortcuts, and quick, general information to keep you "in the know."
  
• Total yield and serving sizes:
  To make it easier to know how much the recipe will make, I've provided both total yields and serving sizes. The majority of the recipes
  are designed to serve four, but most can easily be broken down to serve two or even one.
  
• Nutritional analysis:
  A full nutritional analysis is included per serving for the entire meal and for each component of the meal. (Meal-inclusive nutrition information follows the recipe title; many snacks and the desserts have only individual nutritional information because they do not include accompaniments.) This makes for easy side-swapping, so if you aren't in the mood for one accompaniment, you can easily change it for one you do want, while still being mindful of the calorie count.
  

These nutritional values were calculated by ESHA Research software or provided by food manufacturers in decimals, which were then rounded out to the nearest whole number. Calculations for an entire meal may appear to vary slightly from the nutritional analysis for individual meal components, but they are accurate based on these exact decimal values.

• Nutritional benefits:
  This feature is my personal favorite. These notes inform you when you're getting an extra boost of fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, or iron.
  

In my recipes, whenever a meal contains a good or an excellent source of any of the following nutritional benefits, it reads, "Good source of ..." or "Excellent source of ..."; this will help you stay better informed of what you are actually eating while you're enjoying it. These nutritional values are calculated for the
entire
meal (main recipe plus side dishes).