The "healthy cookie" is the holy grail for many sweet lovers. A tasty treat with minimal fat and calories, and ingredients that are actually good for you -- who wouldn't want that?

May as well try to grab smoke.

Here are your options: Use butter, sugar and/or egg substitutes, but carefully so you don't end up with baked cardboard. You'll get a lighter cookie, but it'll still be empty calories -- just fewer of them.

Or, go with a cookie made with something basically healthy, such as oatmeal, with some of the fat and sugar replaced by fruit. This cookie would have redeeming nutritional value, but those fruit sugars still pack calories.

Rather than a truly healthy cookie, it's more realistic to aim for a less unhealthy cookie. Not that it's a useless pursuit. Good cookies are worth their weight in pure happiness, after all, so we may as well give it a shot.

It was Daisee Mau who brought all of this to mind, when she asked for some traditional cookie recipes doctored to be lighter, now that the holiday baking season is approaching.

"I would love to make healthier, lower calorie versions of shortbread, Chinese Almond Cookies, and especially Russian Tea Cookies," she wrote.

Notice she said "healthier," not "healthy." The mark of a realist.

Fortuitously, there's a new cookbook on the market, "Hawai'i Light and Healthy," by Diana Helfand, the "Heart-y Chef" columnist for MidWeek. The cookbook offers a few slimmed-down cookie suggestions. Helfand's no-bake Holiday Spirit Balls are something like Russian Tea Cookies, but made with vanilla wafers.

Helfand doesn't use sugar substitutes in her sweets, but she does use Smart Balance, a replacement for butter that contains no cholesterol and none of those evil trans fats that turned so many of us away from margarine.

She says just about any cookie recipe can be lightened up by trading Smart Balance spread for an equal amount of butter. This works for any recipe that calls for creaming the butter. "I've gotten very good results," she said. When a recipe calls for melted butter, she suggests substituting half the butter with Smart Balance.

Smart Balance has 9 grams of fat per tablespoon, compared to 11 grams for butter. Saturated fat is 2.5 grams for Smart Balance, compared to 7 grams for butter. (A light version is available, but it is not recommended for baking.) Find it in most supermarkets next to the margarine and in large tubs at Sam's Club.

For recipes that call for oil, Helfand suggests fruit purees such as applesauce or prune puree to replace half the fat. This works especially well in quick breads, she said.

For those who would like to cut sugar carbs more than fat, the latest addition to the low-cal toolbox is Splenda, a sugar substitute that can be measured one-to-one in baking.

It's a good alternative for those who can't have sugar, but there are caveats. Splenda doesn't caramelize the way sugar does, so your cookies won't turn golden brown. The manufacturer suggests topping cookies with cooking oil spray just before baking to get some browning. A bit of beaten egg brushed on top also helps.

Splenda should not be used to replace brown sugar, as it cannot match the flavor and texture. When Splenda is creamed, the result won't be as smooth as with sugar, and when an egg is added, it will separate. You can still proceed with your recipe. Eating healthy doesn't have to mean bland and boring. That's the idea behind WCC lecturer Diana Helfand's new cookbook.

Released this month, "Hawai'i Light and Healthy" is a collection of 100 low fat, low cholesterol recipes.

Helfand has written the "Heart-Y Chef" column in MidWeek for eight years, offering practical, healthy recipes for readers.

Her first cookbook was published in 1995 when she was a columnist for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

"I get so many nice letters from readers who have tried my recipes," said Helfand. It was these responses that inspired her to publish another cookbook.

"I decided to go ahead and take the best 100 recipes of the past eight years," Helfand added.

"I try to do comfort food that people can appreciate not only because it's low in fat and cholesterol, but because it tastes good."

Helfand said she makes up most of the recipes herself.

"I've been cooking since I was 12 years old. I grew up around food," she said. "I can look at a pantry or in a food store and say, 'Hey, this might be good with that."

Because of her experience, Helfand can also alter other people's recipes to lower fat.

Apart from being healthy, another focus of Helfand's cookbook is simplicity.

"It's more of a practical cookbook rather than an advanced one that only chefs can understand," she explained. "Cooking should be fun and enjoyable."

"Hawai'i Light and Healthy" can be purchased at major Hawai'i bookstores as well as besspress.com and amazon.com.
Over the past several months I've been setting aside books that I thought would be good gifts for the holidays. Things to tuck into a Christmas stocking or bring along when visiting during the holidays. I was completely shocked when I pulled them out and discovered that all the books I had set aside were from just one publisher, Bess Press.

There are kids' gifts, things for the cook and things for the thinker. What's more, at least one of the kid books could be for a grown-up. Any of the adult titles could be for a man or a woman or for a young adult or teenager with appropriate interests.

For the cooks

There are island-style cookbooks by the dozen coming out of every corner of Hawai'i every year. There have been so many new ones this year that anyone from outside the state would think we Hawai'i people have nothing to do but cook.

Pupus… Plus by Sachi Fukuda is pretty much what the title promises, so long as we understand the accent is on the "plus." There's a can-do simplicity to the recipes and prep instructions. I especially fell in love with the curried mahi mahi with the quick prep and 45-minute baking time that left me free to make the rest of dinner.

Hawai'i Light and Healthy by Diana Helfand is all recipes from MidWeek's "Heart-Y Chef" column. The recipes are easy, the recommendations that come with each are encouraging, and you could feed a family good, healthy food-a different meal each day-for way more than a month using this one book. That includes desserts and snacks, too. Trust me, no one will ever suspect you're cooking healthy...

...There you go. All your thoughtful shopping for smallish gifts that will be long-appreciated is planned. One-stop shopping at www.besspress.com or, very likely, Borders. Enjoy!
Diana Helfand has taught nutrition in the Food Service and Hospitality Education Program at Kapiolani Community College and hosted the "Heart-y Chef" cooking show on KHON for five years. Her column "Heart-y Cooking" was a regular feature in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin for nine years, and she currently writes the weekly "Heart-y Chef" column of "MidWeek". In Hawai'i Light and Healthy, Helfand draws upon her many years of culinary experience and expertise to compile recipes (each of which includes approximate nutrition information per serving) that showcases what a Hawaii perspective has to offer the health conscious and adventurous family kitchen cook. From Chinese Chicken Salad a la Heart-y Chef; Easy Fish Stew; Candied Acorn Squash; and Banana-Chocolate Chip-Macadamia Bread; to Maple Fruit Crumble; Grilled Spice Salmon; Veggie Penne with Pine Nuts; and Stuffed Zucchini Boats, Hawaii Light and Healthy is an ideal addition to any personal cookbook collection and features a spiral binding allowing the book to lay flat upon the kitchen counter while in use.