DAPHNE, Ala.— Nancy Hughes sits in her kitchen at a 100-year-old  wooden table from England. The room’s walls are adorned with framed artwork from some of her 11 published cookbooks; fresh fruit and vegetables rest in a red bowl on polished oak shelves.

Classical music fills the air because that’s what Hughes likes to cook to, although she says staffers at her home-based catering business can’t stand it and usually put on their iPods to tune it out.

Simmering on the stove are a succulent steak and sautéed vegetables—the makings for one of 150-plus recipes found in her new “1,500-Calorie-a-Day Cookbook.” The tome gives a step-by-step guide for healthy meals that take 30 minutes or less to prepare.

“The main reason I wrote this book is because we live crazy lives, we have crazy schedules,” Hughes says, sipping freshly ground coffee at the antique table. “We put our healthy eating habits aside.

“But you can regain those healthy habits.”

Hughes’ new book features creations ideal for those who spend most time ‘on the go.’

Recipes include: banana-peanut butter pie; beef tenderloin and sweet marsala mushrooms; featherlight chocolate-raspberry almond cupcakes; chipotle chicken-and-rice skillet casserole; pinto bean shepherd’s pie; seared pork tenderloin and horseradish-rosemary aioli; and salmon-topped cucumber rounds.

“These are recipes that take 30 minutes or less,” Hughes says. “Even if you have an hour, who wants to spend it in the kitchen, unless it’s a special occasion?

“These recipes are fancy enough for entertaining but simple enough for even the pickiest eaters.”

A Daphne Bulletin reporter sampled one of Hughes’ creations, sirloin steak with a bourbon reduction, sautéed green and red peppers and squash and a wedged sweet potato.

It was a complete meal, full with flavor, iron and potassium.

And that’s the point.

“1,500” is a guide to eating healthy meals that take little preparation and are designed for those who may want to trim their belly but don’t have time for ab crunches or jogs around the neighborhood. “They’re mainstream recipes that appeal to the entire family,” Hughes says.

“They’re quite easy and at the end of each recipe, I give a note on each dish’s source of minerals like iron or potassium.”

Hughes has created these dishes because they are ideal for her lifestyle, a sometimes hectic schedule of cooking, consulting and testing recipes for clients.

“My favorite part of cooking is creating,” says Hughes, who went to school for interior design and has taken the same basic functions of style, color, flavor and texture found in her former career choice and transferred them to her work in the kitchen.

Even with the success of her career—which includes developing recipes for Weight Watchers, the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, Betty Crocker and Better Homes And Gardens—Hughes remains grounded and can still laugh at herself.

“In the middle of the night, I’ll come up with an idea; I had a tape recorder at the side of the bed but I could never understand what I had said,” she chuckles.

“Then, I had a notebook but I couldn’t read my handwriting.”

These days, when inspiration arises, so does Hughes, who immediately heads to the kitchen to explore her imagination.

Home is where

the heart is

A typical day for Hughes begins at 8 a.m., when one of her staffers shows up at her house for the day’s shopping list and the company American Express card.

“They’ll go get items, come back and unload and then start prepping,” she said. “We’ll do anywhere from three to 17 recipes a day.”

Hughes relishes the in-home facet of her cooking business, afraid that if she moved into a restaurant her style would lose the family quality she enjoys so much.

“If I moved out of my home into a business setting, I’d lose the heart,” she said. “It would turn into an industry.

“I would lose my message—cooking for the family,” she added. “It would turn into too much of an operation.”

Her son, Will,  however, has taken after his mother, having opened his own catering-and-eatery on Main Street.

Pride swelled in Hughes’ smiling eyes as she spoke of Will’s decision to follow in his mother’s footsteps.

“Will said to me, during college, that he didn’t know what he wanted to do except something that made me as happy as you.”

Hughes’ daughter, Annie, 29, is a nurse anesthetist at the Children and Women’s Hospital in Mobile; her son, Taft, 24, is an event manager at the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta.

Hughes met her husband, Greg, a Mobile attorney, while studying at the Atlanta School of Interior Design; he, like her brother, was studying law at Emory University.

Hughes—born in Springfield, Ill.—lived in Mobile for eight years before moving to Daphne 22 years ago.

She worked in interior design for four years before starting her family.

“I was going to go back (to interior design) after the kids started school but that’s when my (cooking) career took off,” she says. “I never looked back.”

Her first book, “Four-course, 400-Calorie Meals,” was published in 1994. In addition to her own books, she has contributed to 45 other publications.

She was inspired to cook, having attempted to lose her “baby pounds,” after trying the Cambridge liquid diet. Hughes says she felt ridiculous drinking her dinner through a straw.

“I started tinkering and tried out cooking for my family. The more I tinkered, the more passionate I got about it,” she says.

The tinkering paid off as Hughes decided she could create healthy meals, and eventually, got her first book published.

“I learned the techniques of cooking lighter,” she said.

“After the first book got published, I just kept on writing.”

More on the “1,500 Calorie-a-Day Cookbook”:

www.Amazon.com.

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More on the author

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For more about Nancy Hughes, her services, where to buy her books and contact information, visit her Web site, www.nancyshughes.com.