I feel like a master chef!  

I've created more new dishes from my kitchen in the last few days than in the last few years.  I'm the 'test cooker' for Diana's new recipe book filled with Powerfoods.  That means I get an advance copy and see if I can easily follow all the directions and come up with great tasting meals.

The key words here are easy and practical. I've done my own cooking for a long time but I don't tend to use cookbooks because they are so fussy and particular. I find that I can go to all kinds of work getting the ingredients for just a single recipe and not use it a lot, therefore wasting the ingredients and my time. Because of this, I end up eating a limited set of meals I know I can make well and fast.  It HAS to be simple, easy and useful.

It's great therefore to learn new possibilities and master new skills – and that is what this book was intended to do.  It gives a new person starting into a healthy way of eating the basic knowledge and skills to get on a healthy diet. One that was easy to prepare. 

Diana has carefully planned out every possible meal for more than two weeks.  It includes a shopping list of easily available food items that will be used several times thought the program, special getting ready sessions that allow a person to prepare several aspects of the weekly routine ahead of time,  and then the actual recipes themselves with plenty of nutritional and cooking tips included.

The reason I like this book and think it would be great for others is:

• Gives a new person an easy simple start to eating and cooking healthfully – so they don't get discouraged or overcome.

• Shopping lists filled with Powerfoods can be bought almost exclusively at the local grocery store so that a person is not spending a lot of time buying unknown (read weird) stuff that they are not sure of.

• Many of the meals are simple meals that a person has already experienced or heard about. They are included because they are already in a healthy category or they have been slightly adjusted to make them more healthy

• Carefully planned out the meals for maximum efficiency have been created by Diana. For example she plans you to make extra rice for your evening meal because she has a menu that uses that rice for the next day's salad or a dessert. This kind of efficiently saves both TIME and MONEY.

• Book is filled with nutrition tips and preparation tips.

• The meals taste great. Do I need to say more?

• Once a person has mastered these meals – there will be more advanced planners to keep it all interesting and more refining in terms of balancing the body.

Using this cookbook has even made my daughter more polite!  My just-past-teenage daughter Asha usually kind of ignores or avoids my cooking whenever she can.

Just last night for example I had asked her if she wanted to eat with me but she said she was in too much of a hurry and was going to eat with her friends.  As soon as she tasted the peanut sauce  I had just prepared from the book though, suddenly she had lots of time to hang around the stove and dip steamed vegetables into the sauce with her fingers … and eat up a large portion of my meal!  This kind of thing has happened several times since I started on the book. I'm sure she was just being polite. The only other explanation would be that these meals actually TASTE better than my own regular fantastic meals …..but that is impossible of course. Yes it's most certain that her personality has changed.  It's amazing

The only problem with being the 'test cooker'  is that I am no longer  the 'test taster' for these meals which I used to be.  Diana would cook the meals herself and I got to feast with the only requirement that I give her feedback.  That was one of the better jobs in my life!   Oh Well…..I look forward to the next book – the one with the more advanced recipes – with a little more gourmet quality integrated in – and more tasting!  I'm also looking forward to the rest of THIS book – since Diana only gave me the first week.

This nutrition/recipe book is not yet available.   We are working on it and  will let you know.

P.S.  Those of you who know me (Randy) know that the picture is a joke.  I'm not that scary!

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