Festivals of Lite Kosher Cookbook

A wide variety of recipes, encompassing everything from crisp salads to warm, flaky desserts. All of these recipes retain their original flavor and flair but are offered in a healthier format, with nutritional information on every dish.

Gail Ashkanazi-Hankin has made light and healthful Jewish cooking her personal specialty. She first showed how to make appealing lean dishes in The Passover Lite Kosher Cookbook. Now, she follows this work with a broader, everyday range in her Festivals of Lite Kosher Cookbook.

For this book, she collected nearly 250 recipes from all over the world, including Sephardic dishes from the Mediterranean tradition and Ashkenazic favorites from Eastern Europe. To slim them down, Ashkanazi-Hankin uses low-fat dairy products, cooking spray, defatted stock, and sensible, easy techniques. The results mostly contain from zero to four grams of fat.

Recipes are identified as dairy, meat, or pareve. Holidays for which they are especially appropriate are also indicated, and menus for holiday meals suggested. But you won't want to limit serving Roasted Turkey Tzimmes livened up with rosemary and red wine or North African Style Meatballs simmered with fresh tomatoes, green peas, and artichoke hearts atop couscous to just holiday meals.

Following the trend towards serving more meatless meals, there is a generous section of vegetarian entrées, including polenta-stuffed sweet red peppers and Mudjadara, a Syrian blend of lentils and rice warmly spiced with cumin and cardamom. Anyone fed up with too-sweet coleslaw will appreciate Ashkanazi-Hankin's version, which includes fennel, lime juice, cilantro, and dried mint, while all children will be mad for the American Spaghetti in a Bread Bowl, complete with meat sauce and veggies. In fact, regardless of whether you cook kosher, or even are Jewish, the unexpected dishes in this book are most appealing. --Dana Jacobi