Cookbooks can help you stay healthy

Want to know one of the best ways to stay fit and save money? Make your own meals at home. You can make sure you have fresh, healthy ingredients as well as control sodium, sugar and fats. Plus, it’s just fun.

But we all know this; the problem usually is motivation — how do we get ideas for what to make and have the expertise to come up with something interesting day after day?

Having a cookbook or two around will facilitate your time in the kitchen.

Here are some of the cookbooks out right now that have gotten us hovering over the stove lately.

Easy Keto in 30 Minutes by Urvashi Pitre. Keto is one of the hotter health trends in recent years — a diet that focuses on controlling carbs in favor of proteins and “good” fats. If you’ve never fully understood how keto works, though, Pitre does an excellent job of explaining the fundamentals, and also isn’t overly hardcore — there’s always room to accommodate your own tastes and even cheat a little. In addition, the recipes that we’ve tried taste great, including a riced cauliflower “mac” and cheese with bacon and jalapenos, and a luscious take on creamed spinach.

Antoni in the Kitchen by Antoni Porowski. The “food gay” from the new Queer Eye isn’t just nice to look at and helpful to hopeless straights, he has some great ideas about cooking, which you can find in this cookbook chock full of good recipes and attractive photos.

— Arnold Wayne Jones