Hungry Girl Flop

So I have tried a few Hungry Girl recipes.  Some, the ones with basic/put-together ingredients turned out great, while others, the pancakes, tasted horrendous and were nearly impossible to eat.  Anyone else have this problem?

I think all of them are pretty terrible-tasting.  It's pretty much an endorsement site for ridiculously low-calorie itmes with artificial sweeteners in it.  Plus it's kind of hard to make the recipes they make anyway because they only make 1 serving of things for recipes that should be made in larger servings, so that it's harder to do things like unstick 2" uber thin pancakes from the pan, etc.

I bought the Hungry Girl cookbook and have to admit there are VERY FEW recipes I care to try.  Too many weird ingredients (weird for me, anyway).  The one recipe I did try was pretty good.  The "fudge" made with the brownie mix, pumpkin, and a swirl of peanut butter.  Believe it or not, it was not bad.  I doubt I'll make any of the others, though.

I have a problem with the recipes that require some kind of breading, because she always uses crushed/ground Fiber 1 cereal.  I've had the stuff, which is okay as a cereal, but I'm grossed out at the thought of using it to coat onion rings or chicken.  Per a recipe, I used it as a pie crust, and that didn't turn out too well either.

And some of the "recipes" are just compilations of layered stuff that I would never buy, like rice cakes, sugar free pudding, and fat free sugar free Cool Whip.

That's not to say that some of her ideas aren't good - the butternut squash fries are good, as are the pumpkin brownies.

I have learned some good things from HG, such as butternut squash fries, and that egg in a mug thing (honestly, I never would have thought to make scrambled eggs in a mug in the microwave, but it's kinda cool), but I don't even want to try most of those recipes.  I don't think some of them could even be considered food...

Your best bet is to stick with the basic recipes, as you mentioned in your OP.  Those aren't too bad.  The more complex recipes are wonderful proof that a little bit of the real thing is much more satisfying than a huge quantity of a low-cal version.

I believe it makes MUCH more sense to cook for healthy flavor rather than merely as low cal as possible with a million artificial sweeteners and weird substitutes. Plus diets are so much easier to stick to when they don't feel like diets, but like you get to eat actual food. So many of hungry girls ideas are ridiculous not to mention expensive, like she makes parfaits with TWO jello cups, like, how much would that cost if you ate one every day? And all the laughing cow wedges used for EVERYTHING...no thanks!

I have to say, those pancakes were the worst...they didn't even really look like pancakes:(...not to mention the cookies.

I haven't tried them, but there are a ton of good healthy pancake recipes. You can make low-cal pancakes that aren't bad and have a bit of protein, so I wonder how bad this recipe must have been to get such terrible results...