Christmas & Holiday Entertaining Recipe Cookbook Easy Low Fat & Low Cholesterol Over 100 Festive, Heart-Healthy Recipes for a Stress-free Celebration!: Health, Nutrition & Dieting Recipes Collection

By Milly White

Over 100 Low-Fat & Low-Cholesterol Recipes

In these pages you’ll find everything you need to make your low-fat, low cholesterol diet Christmas or Holiday Celebration a success including:

Suggested Menus under 2500 calories and 15g of saturated fat that take you all the way from breakfast right the way through to the main meal with all the trimmings including dessert and even allow for supper and snacks,

The Twelve Days of Christmas Cookie Jar including Pfeffernüsse, Chocolate Chip & Hazelnut Oat Cookies and Gingerbread Men,

Make Ahead Treats to Gift (or Keep)! Recipes including Luxurious Low-Fat Christmas Mincemeat, Richly Fruited Christmas Pudding and Matured Traditional Christmas Cake,

Christmas Cakes, Bakes & Sweet Treats Recipes including Streusel Topped Low Fat Mince Pies, Christmas Angel Food Cake and Christmas Tea Loaf,

Party Snacks, Nibbles & Canapés Recipes including Christmas Spice Popcorn Mix, Pistachio & Cranberry Figs and Whole Quails Eggs with Hazelnut Dukkah,

Festive Breakfast Recipes including Santa Special Green Smoothie, Cranberry, Cherry & Hazelnut Christmas Granola and Mince Pie Overnight Oats,

Christmas Day Dinner & all the Trimmings Recipes including Roast Stuffed Turkey Breast Cushion, Chestnut, Pork & Cranberry Apple Stuffing (Dressing) and Brown Bread Sauce

Super Sides Recipes including Maple Roasted Beetroot Wedges, Streusel Topped Sweet Potato Casserole and Citrus Glazed Nutty Chantenay Carrots & Sprouts

Festive Desserts, Puddings & Sweet Sauces Recipes including Mulled Wine Poached Pears, Pumpkin Pie and "Berry Christmas” Pavlova

Lovely Leftovers Recipes including Spiced Roasted Pumpkin Soup, Turkey Palaver and Christmas Bread & Butter Pudding.

Christmas and holidays such as Thanksgiving are a time for joyous celebrations with those we love and care for. A time to eat, drink and be merry with family and friends. It’s a season for traditions, for happily-remembered flavours, a feast for your senses with tantalising tastes and mouth-watering aromas. However, it’s also a time when it's all too easy to slide into a pattern of over-eating, even with the best intentions. A hearty, abundant table is part and parcel of all festive celebration meals, but with a little bit of planning and home-cooking, it can also be a heart-healthy, crowd-pleasing table too! And this is no time for those who are watching their diet to have fore-go the fun or eat separately from everyone else – it’s completely unnecessary. For example, all my heart-healthy Christmas Mains recipes are under 450 calories with less than 4.5g of saturated fat per serving. With this cookbook, I’ve created fabulous, flavoursome low-fat, low-cholesterol dishes that can be shared, enjoyed and savoured by everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Viva eBooks
• Release date: Nov 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781540181305

Book preview

Part 1: Eat, Drink & Be Merry with Low-Fat Festive Feasting

Why a Low-Fat, Low Cholesterol Christmas & Holidays Cookbook?

For me (and I’m sure for you too), Christmas and holidays such as Thanksgiving are a time for joyous celebrations with those we love and care for. A time to eat, drink and be merry with family and friends. It’s a season for traditions, for happily-remembered flavours, a feast for your senses with tantalising tastes and mouth-watering aromas. However, it’s also a time when it's all too easy to slide into a pattern of over-eating, even with the best intentions. A hearty, abundant table is part and parcel of all festive celebration meals, but with a little bit of planning and home-cooking, it can also be a heart-healthy, crowd-pleasing table too! And this is no time for those who are watching their diet to have forego the fun and eat separately from everyone else – it’s completely unnecessary – my aim is always to create fabulous, flavoursome dishes that can be shared, enjoyed and savoured by everyone.

Whether you are looking for a low-fat version of a traditional time-honoured favourite or perhaps you want a change and variety, with something new, fun, delicious and different? In this cookbook, you’ll find everything you need here to make it a perfect heart-healthy holiday celebration for everyone, the cook included! In these pages you’ll find everything you need to make your low-fat, low cholesterol Christmas or Thanksgiving a success including:

suggested menus under 2500 calories and 15g of saturated fat that take you all the way from breakfast right the way through to the main meal with all the trimmings including dessert and even allow for supper and snacks,

ideas how to get ahead with tips on shopping, cooking and freezing well in advance of the big day,

shopping lists both to get-ahead and so-you-don’t-forget,

edible gifts to share the low-fat joy,

more than 100 crowd-pleasing recipes to suit all tastes and occasions, from traditional festive classics to modern twists on holiday flavours, plus ideas on what to do with leftovers.

Healthy Eating During the Holidays

How to Celebrate the Season (Without Going Off the Rails)

A healthy balanced diet is a fundamental part of managing raised cholesterol, and this means eating a diet rich in fruit, vegetables, wholegrain cereals and one that is low in saturated fat and salt. However, during the holiday period, food temptation can be tricky. It can appear that the world is working against your good intentions, making it much harder to make wise food choices. Just look around you in the food stores and shops, all of which are packed with foods described as:

Luxurious

Indulgent

Decadent

Rich

Sumptuous

All of these descriptions are usually a code-word for dishes that are the least heart-healthy option, packed full of high-fat ingredients.

Help is on hand, though! The low-fat, low-cholesterol recipes included in this cookbook make Christmas & Holiday Entertaining so easy and delicious with no compromise on taste or flavour. Quite the opposite, they feature healthy natural whole-foods ingredients (often with the addition of specific cholesterol-busting ingredients and foods that actively help lower cholesterol) too.

The dishes in this cookbook are lower in calories, lower in fat and, most importantly, lower in saturated fat than the traditional versions without relying on artificial flavour enhancers, stabilisers or artificial sweeteners. For example, all my heart-healthy Christmas Mains recipes are under 450 calories with less than 4.5g of saturated fat per serving!

Occasional Treats & Perfect Portions

It would be wrong to think that you should eat as though it’s Christmas or Thanksgiving every single day of the year, even with all of the delicious recipes in this cookbook. However, I am not suggesting that, my intentions with this book are to help provide healthier, lower-fat alternatives to traditional holiday foods so that you and your family can fully enjoy the celebrations without guilt or anxiety. A number of the recipes here, especially the sweeter ones, are occasional treats for high days and holidays.

Portion control is also a crucial element to achieving a healthy balance when it comes to eating more indulgently. In the Western world over the last 50 years or so, we have become increasingly accustomed to larger and larger servings, much more than we actually need. You will see throughout this book, that I sometimes recommend cooking the recipes as individual portion sizes or in such a way that it is easy to divide into the required number of servings. This is because it can be just too easy (or require a cast-iron willpower not) to serve up a much larger portion than the recipe’s serving size allows for. However, because the recipes I’ve developed are packed full of natural flavours and true-to-memory tastes and textures, the recommended portion-sizes will leave you and your guests feeling fully satisfied and indulged.

Seasonal Low Fat Low Cholesterol Holiday Super-Foods

At this time of year, it may seem that the holiday season is just about high-fat, unhealthy dishes. However, many of the traditional ingredients for Christmas & Thanksgiving regularly feature in diet recommendations to help lower cholesterol. Let’s take a quick look at some of these seasonal superfoods that can help make the holidays really super!

Vegetables

All vegetables are low in saturated fat so eating more helps to keep overall saturated fat intake low. They are also a valuable source of cholesterol-lowering soluble dietary fibres. Seasonal vegetables include pumpkin, squash, carrot and sweet potato, packed with heart-healthy antioxidants such as Vitamin C and beta-carotene. Winter cruciferous vegetables such as Brussels sprouts are a fabulous source of folic acid as well as vitamin C too.

On your celebratory table, make your vegetable sides the co-star of the show (not just the mains), offering a wide selection of healthy, vibrant and colourful vegetable choices to fill up festive plates.

Vegetables can also help boost the healthier ingredients in sweet treats too, just take a look at my Richly Fruited Christmas Pudding, as an example!

Fruits

Fruits are also high in cholesterol-lowering soluble fibres and low in saturated fat so eating more helps to keep overall saturated fat intake low. Cranberries are probably the most traditional festive fruit of the season and cranberries have also been found to be specifically helpful in raising levels of (good) HDL cholesterol and lowering levels of high (bad) LDL cholesterol.

Nuts & Seeds

What could be more seasonal than the roasted chestnut? Other festive, seasonal nuts include pecans, walnuts and almonds, along with seeds such as pumpkin and flax. Nuts and seeds are a rich source of fibre, heart-healthy unsaturated fats, vegetable protein, vitamin E, magnesium, potassium and natural plant sterols. However, always make sure that you choose unsalted options.

Foods rich in unsaturated fats

Whilst it is essential for good health and lowering cholesterol to keep our daily saturated fat intake below 20g (women) and 30g (men), it is equally essential to replace this saturated fat with modest amounts of unsaturated fats. These can be found in oily fish, avocado and oils sourced from corn, rapeseed, olives, sunflower seeds and other vegetable, nut and seed oils. They are also present in the vegetable spreads made from those oils.

Foods rich in beta-glucan

Beta glucan is a soluble dietary fibre found naturally in some foods and research has shown that it has a cholesterol lowering effect. In addition, soluble fibre is also known to help slow down the absorption of sugars from our diet, which means that beta-glucan can also help to control blood sugar levels. Oats are one of the top natural sources of beta-glucan and my recipes will show that you can enjoy oats beyond the breakfast table, just take a look at my Lovely Leftovers recipe for Lemon, Sage & Seed Warm Granola Sprinkle!

In the chapter on How to Use This Cookbook, you’ll find a section on Recipe Dietary Symbols. This provides an at-a-glance key to whether a recipe features some of these key heart-healthy superfoods.

Planning Ahead for a Healthier Festive Table

If you’re like me, then planning ahead for the Christmas period is actually one of the joys of the holiday. I love to plan what I’m going to make, I love to start the preparations early with made-ahead, home-cooked chutneys, pickles, cakes and puddings. I write menus, which I tweak and refine, and think about how I’m going to dress the table this year. This shouldn’t be a shock, though, as I love cooking so much that I write cookery books! I do recognise though that not everyone feels the same way and just the thought of so much pre-planning feels them with horror.

I’d like to counter this with the argument that this is an occasion when planning in advance will lead to a stress-free, happier, tastier and much, much Healthier Festive Table.

Stores Ignore Healthier Festive Options

I think it’s probably to easier to hunt down the Christmas goose that laid a golden egg than to easily find low-fat, healthier versions of all your Christmas favourites! I have researched the Christmas Food brochures of the main grocery stores and not one of them has a lighter or healthier section. In fact, they seem to go out of their way to make even naturally healthy options as unhealthy as possible! For example, turkey breast is usually a fabulous low-fat meat but not so much so after it has been salt-brined and smothered in a butter-baste? Or potatoes, naturally saturated fat-free but not when doused in goose fat? And there are many, many more examples, I’m sure you can think of more than a few!

Instead, with a little pre-planning, you can easily produce your own delicious and healthy versions of all these festive treats. Please don’t be daunted by this or think that you will be chained to the kitchen for weeks on end, that’s not my intention at all. But if you follow my plan, you can get ahead of the game on some quiet weekends in November and/or December. Get the family involved too, as making ahead also offers the opportunity to create some wonderful Christmas memories and family traditions. I have the fondest memories of stirring the Christmas pudding with my dear Nan, helping her tie the string around the pudding basin and the wonderful smell that filled the house whilst the puddings were cooking! Or the time my Mother had broken her wrist in the week before Christmas and we all piled into the kitchen to help. I can remember those times so clearly and with such fondness, so use this time to create your own happy family memories.

Planning, Getting Organised & Shopping Ahead

As a starting point, I recommend that you sit down on a quiet evening, and look through the recipes in this cookbook, to work out what you would like to serve on the main feasting days of the holiday period. Whilst it would be impractical to list every single ingredient in all the recipes in this book, I have put together some useful lists of ingredients that frequently occur (which you can add to and cross-off as required). Don’t be alarmed – you will not need all of these ingredients! These lists are meant to be an aide-mémoire to help in getting organised, not to worry you that you will need to spend a fortune on new ingredients! You will find these lists at the end of the book.

Next, take stock of what’s already in your cupboards, pantry and freezer. You’ll want to check that any ingredient will still be in-date by. Cross off the items that you already own or don’t need for the recipes you’ve chosen, then start to shop for any that you need in the weeks up to Christmas, ticking them off as you go.

Although the stores are usually very well stocked in the run-up to the holiday season, some ingredients are more widely available in some countries but not so widely available in others. For example, pumpkin purée is not so easy to track down in the UK whereas ground spice mix is not so common in the US. To that end, my first recipe chapter is dedicated to providing simple recipes for pantry staples that, even in the age of the Internet, are not so easy to find where you live.

Maturing vs Making Ahead

Wherever feasible, I have included advice in a recipe as to how much of it can be prepared in advance along with storage instructions such as freezing. Primarily, this advice is provided for convenience, to give you the chance to stock your freezer with ready prepared stuffing/dressing, sauces, sides and mains, cakes, desserts and canapés. The choice is entirely yours as to whether you prepare any such dishes in advance. I like to do so as it spreads out both the cost and the workload, leaving me with much less to do on the key holiday dates.

However, there are some recipes whereby forward preparation is not just about convenience. In these recipes, the maturing process is a key element in building the flavour of the final dish. To that end, the second recipe chapter of this book is dedicated to recipes that are all the better for being made in advance.

Kitchenware & Ingredients for the Festive Season

I thought it would be helpful to pull together my suggestions on the kitchenware that I find most useful at this time of year. I certainly didn’t go out and buy this all at once, rather it’s been built up over the years. Also, other than the Christmas cookie cutters, this equipment is (as they say) for life not just for Christmas and you should find you can use it all year around. Please take a look at my suggestions, but they are just that, ideas that are hopefully helpful, they are not compulsory to be able to effectively cook from this recipe cookbook:

Fat Separator/Gravy Skimming Jug

The pan juices from your festive main are a flavour-packed powerhouse for fantastic gravy. However, they are usually also full of fat! A heat-resistant fat separating jug enables the fat-free and flavoursome juices to settle at the bottom whilst the unhealthy fat rises to the top. The position of the spout enables you to pour the fat-free juices into your gravy or sauce without adding the unwanted fats.

Slow Cooker or Crock-Pot

Slow-cooking is a wonderfully convenient, economical and healthy way to cook all the year around. It can transform tough, cheaper cuts of meat into melt-in-the-mouth tenderness through the long, slow, cooking process. At Christmas, when your stove-top and oven are crammed to capacity, here’s just some of the ways that I find a slow-cooker particularly useful:

for the long, slow and gentle initially cooking of Christmas Pudding and to re-warm it for serving on Christmas Day

to have a hot meal ready and waiting after a day at the Sales or after a trip to the theatre

to keep gravy or a hot sauce such as bread sauce warm before serving

to keep a hot dip warm on a buffet table.

12-hole Mini Muffin Tin

Perfect for portion-controlled sweet and savoury baked canapés such as mini cakes, tarts and muffins.

20cm/8" Square Cake Tin

The advantage of a square Christmas Cake (from a square cake tin!) is that it is much easier to slice into portions. This shape cake tin can also double as a tin for any baked squares bar/cake such as granola bars, which again are much easier to accurately control portion sizes.

Ovenproof Individual Ramekins

Round, oval or square, these should have a capacity of around 150ml-200ml (²/3–¾ cup). These are useful for portions of pâté and individual meatloaves, soufflés, crumbles, crisps and baked desserts.

Festive Cookie Cutters

As well as the obvious (cutting out cookie shapes), these cutters can also be used to create pastry shapes to top pies, fondant icing shapes to decorate cupcakes and to cut out bread shapes for savoury canapés.

Meat Thermometer

Cook safely and take the guesswork out of cooking meat and poultry with a meat thermometer which will allow you to be confident that your roast has reached the correct and safe internal temperature before serving.

Heat-proof Full-Sized and Individual Pudding Basins

To my mind, there is nothing more Christmassy than a plump, perfect Christmas pudding at the end of Christmas dinner. Select one that is suitable for steaming in a pan, slow-cooker or microwave, and can be stored in the freezer too. Individual pudding basins make for cute and adorable mini sticky toffee, steamed or summer puddings, both at Christmas and throughout the year.

Food Processor

A food processor is a really useful addition to