I have been intrigued by the cooking trainers for Nintendo DS and DSi that have hit the market in the past few months. So, when I was asked to review My Healthy Cooking Coach I had to say yes.
A little about the product:
My Healthy Cooking Coach—a recipe “game” released by Ubisoft that makes life in this fast paced world just a little easier. My Healthy Cooking Coach suits those of us constantly on-the-go. We want to make yummy nutritious meals for ourselves and our families but often time and money don’t permit. This application contains 260 healthy recipes, nutritional tips, a “virtual refrigerator” that help make use of the ingredients already in the cupboard and a budget tracker which can be set based on your own personal need.
When I first turned on the application, it took me about 30 minutes to set up my preferences. I liked that I was able to mark ingredients that we will and will not eat, we are all picky eaters in my house. Once the references are set you can browse the recipes, play in the virtual kitchen or get your daily recommended recipe. Even though I listed that no one on my house eats fish, we got several fish dishes as our daily recommended recipes. I am sure this is because we have a very limited amount of ingredients that we like and only a few of the 260 recipes met our picky requirements.
One of the recipes we tried was for Sweet and Sour Chicken. Once I chose the recipe I checked out the necessary ingredients and put those that I needed to purchase on the shopping list in the software. I did modify the recipe a bit 1) I used boneless skinless chicken breasts instead of drumsticks and 2) I opted not to coat the chicken in sesame seeds. Once I had purchased all of my ingredients I got to work.
I don’t claim to be a great cook but I felt the best way to show you how the software works was to video tape our dinner preparations.
The chicken was good. In the future I would make the sauce earlier in the day and use it as a marinade so the flavor would be able to permeate the chicken better. Three out of four of us liked the chicken and, much to my youngest son’s dismay, I will be making it again.
The application is very easy to work with and it has very good functionality. My Healthy Cooking Coach is made by Ubisoft and retails for $29.99
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