When faced with her husband having Type 2 diabetes, and her own struggles with weight, Deepa Thomas discovered that by cutting back on rice and bread and other carbohydrates she was able to help her husband and herself lose weight and feel great. She reinvented her take on classic Indian cooking by avoiding carbs but keeping the vivid flavors alive. Best of all, her new book, "Deepa's Secrets: Slow Carb New Indian Cuisine" ($24.99, Skyhorse Publishing), offers new insight to Indian cooking.

This cookbook includes health tips, basic recipes like ginger garlic paste, and an in-depth introduction on her journey to good health. There is a Kitchen Essential chapter that includes spices, sauces and pickles; and you'll find plenty of plush photographs interspersed throughout the more than 70-recipe cookbook, along with menu plans, kitchen wisdom and scientific commentary. I particularly like the step-by-step instructions, ingredient substitutions and shortcuts that she offers the reader.

The following salad recipe screams summer. I particularly love the addition of sliced plums to a classic tomato avocado salad. The dressing includes toasted cumin (you can just use ground cumin) along with sweet honey, spicy jalapeno chlie, astringent lime juice and some ground garlic. These flavors combine to brighten this simple, yet colorful salad. Consider serving this for a light luncheon.

Tasty tips

--Look for chaat masala at any good spice store, on the internet or in an Indian market.

--Ginger garlic paste can be refrigerated and used for other recipes.

Avocado, Tomato and Plum Salad

Serves 4

For the dressing:

1/2 teaspoon ginger garlic paste (see following recipe)

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