There are cookbooks about sneaking healthy ingredients into food (mostly aimed at parents), like the Jessica Seinfeld book, and the Missy Chase Lapine one. Is that what you have in mind?

I think if you move more towards "ethnic" foods and away from Western European and North American standards you'll find things a lot healthier.
Mediterranian food is so good for you and so much fun to cook. A lot of asian foods are really healthy, too, in a traditional way (IE they may feature rice, but have a good balance and lots of veggies). I love making thai curries since it's just so neat to see a big bowl full of colors and think "woo, I did that!"

Even a lot of traditional Latin American foods are tasty and healthy- it was their importation to the US that added the thirty pounds of cheese.

Well, sort of. I think he eats well, meats, greens, veggies and all that. He loves to cook - it's just that when I look at what he's cooking it's always classic weight gain stuff, you know potato meat and heavy sauces. I'd love to sneak him a neat cookbook that he could play with, and not gain on. Better yet, a cookbook that is a diet version. He's happy to peel all sorts of veggies and fruits and spend hours making food, it's just that he keeps making calorie-bombs. He needs the opposite.

It's also quite deeply rooted, while I avoid certain things because I know they just add to your weight, he could make an entire meal out of it. Something that really breaks it down and goes "X = not very good". Everyone can have cream sauce, or potatoes, or avocado but not every day! Something that spells out the basics of fat/calories or whatevr in each item. It really bothers me when he's slaved for hours over the stove and every single item he has so carefully and lovingly made is something that is on my "don't eat, you'll get fat" list. I don't want to insult him but boy does he aim for the waist-gaining food.

Thanks kellydamnit, I got him a Korean cookbook to start with. I need to pull out the big guns. ;)

Youknow, something that really tells him that X is bad for you waist=heart and Y keeps you in better shape. We need to change his habits, and he needs to understand what is bad. I want my man to last for like 70-odd years yaknow.

Get him into making sushi (^_^).

Clams or mussels, steamed with garlic, shallots, thyme twigs, maybe some jalepeno or ginger.

Steamed means half boiled in chicken broth.

Eat the broth and seafood with good fresh bread, like a rustic baguette.

This thread is making me hungry.

The trick to healthy cooking is not buying the bad foods to begin with, at least, not in any large quantity. Instead of a large bag of potatoes, buy a small bag plus a cabbage and some carrots. Instead of a big bag of white rice, buy a small bag plus some barley and dried beans.

I obviously have not yet got the hang of that trick.

dabitch, when I'm trying to lose weight one tactic I try is to eat little portions of dishes that are high in calories. I'm faced with this because we eat at my inlaws a lot and she's always cooking Italian sausage or ziti or steak. It's not always easy to eat small portions, I know.

I had a phase where I was sauteeing everything in a couple tablespoons each of butter and olive oil. I thought I was Food Network chef or something. I cut back drastically on the amount of fat I use in cooking, or use just a little olive oil or nonstick cooking spray. I also don't use real butter on veggies, I do the Smart Balance with Flax oil no trans-fat stuff. There's nothing wrong with real butter but I save calories with using the Smart Balance Lite stuff. Do they even have this fake stuff in Sweden? I don't know.

Potatoes are okay. They might be okay to have everyday, not just a ton of them. I'll make quartered red potatoes with dill and a little olive oil and husband will go back to the stove for more. You can still have the meat he like to cook but grill it and have less. You're doing yourself a big favor if you get rid of as much fat as possible. Even if it means draining off some sauce or pressing a fatty piece of meat with a paper towel. Also, say no to white bread if you want the pounds to come off.

Eat as much fish as you can. Have a salad and a veg and you're set. Mark Bittman has a good book on fish. He also has a couple I don't have and want: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and The Best Recipes in the World.

If you really want to go nuts get a American Heart Association cookbook. That will tell him what's bad and what's good.

I swear by Cooking Light magazine. It's a food mag first, and a health mag second. The recipes are uniformly wonderful - and sophisticated, not those shortcut, pathetic recipes you find in Fitness and other magazines. They're adamant about using real ingredients with a lot of flavor, but sparingly, and where it really counts to make the dish taste good. The recipes are creative and truly delicious. There are a lot of standys that I cook all the time now that I started cooking because of this magazine. And each recipe has a complete nutritional breakdown, so you can see what you're getting in each portion. check it out.

If he doesn't have a gas grill, get him one if at all possible. And use olive oil to make the seasonings stick to the food. And use lots of garlic. (Which is pretty much what a lot of Mediterranean food is.)

One of my favorite parts of my job is processing the new cookbooks. Here are a few that have impressed me lately (this is a very incomplete list): Arabesque, Veganomicon, Gourmet Thai in Minutes, Neo Soul: Taking Soul Food to a Whole 'Nutha Level.

ITA with Miko about Cooking Light. They have sections on using butter. Just using it sparingly and for taste. I cook out of it all the time, and mr. g refuses to believe that the recipes are low in calories.

I love Cooking Light too. I used to subscribe.

nthing Cooking Light. Their recipes are all on their website too.

A cookbook I'm going to get soon is the Cook's Illustrated - The Best Light Recipe. I have their regular cookbook (The New Best Recipe) and it's awesome, and have purchased their 30-minute and grilling cookbooks for family to much acclaim.

Thanks guys, I'm taking down some interesting cooking light ideas from the site, if he fancies them I'm getting him a book. :)

Take a look at Super Natural Cooking by the author of the blog 101 Cookbooks. The book is focused on cooking with simple, fresh ingredients that have the quality of being both delicious and good for you. Think kale and the like. NOM NOM NOM.

Also, she's a fantastic photographer.