Quick & Easy Books

The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions from Public Radio's Award-Winning Food Show

Lynne Rossetto Kasper, Sally Swift

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Just when you thought the last thing the world needed was another book on weeknight cooking, along comes an entirely fresh take on the subject. As they do on their weekly show, host Lynne Rossetto Kasper and producer Sally Swift approach their topic with attitude and originality, making The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper one of the most engaging cookbooks of this or any other year.

As loyal listeners know, Lynne and Sally share an unrelenting curiosity about everything to do with food. Their show, The Splendid Table, looks at the role food plays in our lives—inspiring us, making us laugh, nourishing us, and opening us up to the world around us. Now they have compiled all the most trenchant tips, never-fail recipes, and everyday culinary know-how from the program in How to Eat Supper, a kitchen companion unlike any other.

This is no mere cookbook. Like the show, this book goes far beyond the recipe, introducing the people and stories that are shaping America’s changing sense of food. We don’t eat, shop, or cook as we used to. Our relationship with food has intensified, become more controversial, richer, more pleasurable, and sometimes more puzzling. How to Eat Supper gives voice to rarely heard perspectives on food—from the quirky to the political, from the grassroots to the scholarly, from the highbrow to the humble—and shows the essential role breaking bread together plays in our world.

How to Eat Supper takes you through a plethora of inviting recipes simple enough to ensure success even if you’ve never cooked before. And if you are experienced in the kitchen, you’ll find challenging new concepts and dishes to spark your imagination.

The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution

Alice Waters

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 50 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Do we really need more recipes for beef stew, polenta, and ratatouille? If they're the work of famed restaurateur and "food activist" Alice Waters, undoubtedly. In The Art of Simple Food, Waters offers 200-plus recipes for these and other simple but savory dishes, like Spicy Cauliflower Soup, Fava Bean Purée, and Braised Chicken Legs, as well as dessert formulas for the likes of Nectarine and Blueberry Crisp and Tangerine Ice. In addition, readers learn (or become reacquainted with) the Waters mantra: eat locally and sustainably; eat seasonally; shop at farmers markets. These are the rules by which she approaches food and cooking, and hopes we will too. Organized largely by techniques, the book is a kind of primer, designed to free readers from recipe reliance.

Some readers may look askance at advice that they search out sources for locally produced food, for example, given the everyday exigencies of shopping and getting meals on the table. Yet it is precisely the need to "remake" our relationship to food that, Waters contends, determines the ultimate success of all our cooking and dining, not to mention our health and that of the planet. This relatively small book has a large message, and good everyday recipes to back it up. --Arthur Boehm

Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food

Gordon Ramsay

Amazon Price: $23.10 List Price: $35.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Key Porter Books Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $19.33

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Fancy Food Fast 5 out of 5 stars.
44 of 44 people found this review helpful.

This shouldn't be your first -- or your only -- cooking book. It just ain't a comprehensive everyday kind of tome. But it is a great book for people that want to create high-end food that is fresh and modern -- and do it quickly. I've already cooked several of the recipes, including breakfast eggs, dinner lemon chicken and spiced pan-roasted apples/pears. All have been a real treat. Using fresh ingredients and quick cooking you end up with real tasty stuff. Many of the recipes have a long-ish list of ingredients, but none are very hard to prepare. You will impress anyone you are cooking for with this book.

Good stuff: Covers large range of meals, soup to seafood to meat to vegetable sides to amazing fruit desserts. Excellent photographs. Clear directions. Quality of the finished products. Lack of TV star chef fluff. Originality of the dishes. American kitchen measures. For cooking several of the recipes together as an integrated dinner he includes a really useful timeline listing what to do in what order to make the whole dinner. Brilliant!

Not perfect: Would like more of Gordon's wisdom in picking out the best fresh ingredients. Gordon is British and trained in France, so some things slipped through US editing, like using crème fraîche or Calvados. This is not a diet book.

Overall: Yum! Fancy dishes sure to delight. Cooked Fast. Tasting Fresh. All the better because they are real cooking. I'm off to make sautéed scallops with corn salsa followed by caramelized banana split. It will all be ready in 40 minutes, guessing half an hour the second time I do it . . .

Editorial Review:

Throw out the frozen dinners and takeout menus. Who better to show readers how to cook real food, real fast and make it really tasty than Gordon Ramsey, three-star chef and TV celebrity? Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food includes over 100 delicious recipes that are super-fast and easy to prepare. The book is divided into short sections: 15 feature fast recipes classified by group, such as starters, soups, fish, meat, pasta, working lunches, and desserts, and 15 more sections contain great menus for everyday and entertaining. Many of the dishes can be prepared and cooked in as little as 15 minutes, and none take longer than half an hour. The menus provided take 30-45 minutes from start to finish, each with a timing plan. There’s also advice on essential ingredients to keep in stock for speedy cooking, plus lots of great ideas for shortcuts.

The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook: 200 Delicious Recipes Ready in 30 Minutes or Less (The South Beach Diet)

Arthur Agatston

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 130 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Amazon Special Content: Download Three South Beach Diet Quick & Easy Recipes Now:

Who said South Beach and comfort food were mutually exclusive concepts? Click on the pictures below to download .pdf versions of some of the hearty entrees featured in Dr. Arthur Agasthon's The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook: 200 Delicious Recipes Ready in 30 Minutes or Less.

Black Bean & Goat Cheese Tostada Click here to download this recipe as a .pdf

Tempeh Dagwood Sandwich Click here to download this recipe as a .pdf

Turkey Parmesan Click here to download this recipe as a .pdf

More South Beach Titles:

The South Beach Diet (Now in paperback)

The South Beach Diet Cookbook

The South Beach Diet Good Fats/Good Carbs Guide (Revised)

Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats--A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners (A 30-Minute Meal Cookbook)

Rachael Ray

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 323 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Even your favorite dinner can lose its appeal when it’s in constant rotation, so mix it up! With her largest collection of recipes yet, Food Network’s indefatigable cook Rachael Ray guarantees you’ll be able to put something fresh and exciting on your dinner table every night for a full year... without a single repeat!

Based on the original 30-Minute Meal cooking classes that started it all, these recipes prove that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every night. Rachael offers dozens of recipes that, once mastered, can become entirely new dishes with just a few ingredient swaps. Learn how to make a Southwestern Pasta Bake and you’ll be able to make a Smoky Chipotle Chili Con Queso Mac the next time. Try your hand at Spring Chicken with Leeks and Peas and you’re all set to turn out a rib-sticking Rice and Chicken Stoup that looks and tastes like an entirely different dish.

As a best-selling cookbook author and host of three top-rated Food Network shows, Rachael Ray believes that both cooking and eating should be fun. Drawing from her own favorite dishes as well as those of her family, friends, and celebrities, she covers the flavor spectrum from Asian to Italian and dozens of delicious stops in between. Best of all, these flavor-packed dishes will satisfy your every craving and renew your taste for cooking. With so many delicious entrees to choose from you’ll never have an excuse for being in a cooking rut again.

How about a brand-new 30-minute dinner every night for an entire year?

Tired of making the same old same old, week after week after week?

With Rachael’s most varied and comprehensive collection of 30-minute recipes ever, you’ll have everyone at your table saying “Yummo!” all year long.

It’s amazing what a half hour can do for your tastebuds … 365 days a year!

Yum-o! The Family Cookbook

Rachael Ray

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

No one has helped more families find time to fit home-cooked meals into their daily routines than Rachael Ray. Now with the help of Yum-o!, the organization she founded to help kids and adults develop a healthier relationship to food and cooking, she has put together the ultimate family cookbook, which includes recipes that both kids and their parents will love cooking–and eating–together!

Rachael knows that every family wants to make the best possible food choices–and get the very most out of their food-budget dollars. The recipes here feature more whole grains, use less fat, and make the most of fresh fruits and vegetables so they are as good for you as they are delish, and they’re all quintessential Rachael–fun and creative.

You’ll also find notes on how to get even very young kids involved in the cooking process; great ideas for everything from breakfast to the lunchbox to dinner; wholesome snacks; and loads of new double-duty dinners that let you cook once, then eat twice or more.

With lots of full-color photos and tons of helpful tips for making mealtime the very best part of the day, Yum-o! is a must-have for every busy family.

Top 100 Baby Purees: 100 Quick and Easy Meals for a Healthy and Happy Baby

Annabel Karmel

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Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Parenting -> Babies & Toddlers
Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Parenting -> Health & Nutrition

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Babies grow more rapidly in their first year than at any other time in their lives, so how you feed your newborn will be one of the most important decisions you make for your new baby.

Making your own baby food is not only more economical than buying commercial brands, it also assures that your child consumes only the freshest, top-quality ingredients. British television personality and children's nutrition expert Annabel Karmel's essential collection of best-ever purees grants new parents their wish: one hundred quick and easy recipes that will make for a healthy and happy baby. From first tastes and weaning, right through to meals for older babies, all the recipes are suitable for children aged six months and older. And with all these fruit and vegetable favorites, and innovative fish, meat, and chicken purees, the dishes are so tasty you will want to eat them yourself!

In addition to easy and delicious recipes, Top 100 Baby Purees also includes information on:

• Weaning your baby and transitioning to solid foods
• Food allergies
• Time-saving food preparation tips
• Freezing and reheating your homemade baby food
• Tricks on finding the hidden nutrition in everyday foods

Featuring a preface by Dr. Michel Cohen, New York pediatrician and author of The New Basics: A-to-Z Baby & Child Care for the Modern Parent

Everyday Food: Great Food Fast

Martha Stewart Living Magazine

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 98 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Martha Stewart Touch on Back-to-Basics Dishes in a Superb Cookbook 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Truth be told, I really don't care much for the PBS series upon which this Martha Stewart Living cookbook is based, as a cast of robotic, interchangeable hosts push through a battery of recipes in a shared kitchen set-up. However, this 250-recipe cookbook focuses specifically on the often appetizing dishes they produce and the comparatively easy-to-follow recipes necessary to create them. As a result, it's a winner. Though not as definitive as The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, this one is fast becoming the one I use the most for fast dishes with a healthy orientation along with Ellie Krieger's The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life.

The first thing you notice is the first-class graphic quality commensurate with Martha Stewart's premium brand. Each recipe has a full-color photo of the meticulously presented dish and the general prep time which is rarely more than thirty minutes. But unlike Rachael Ray's belligerent mantra, it's only the prep time which follows that parameter as total cooking for some of the recipes can take well over an hour. The benefit is a more interesting variety of dishes than Ray could possibly make. I have to admit my favorite section is toward the end, the twenty pages that make up the Basics section (pages 345-363) - quick recipes for vinaigrettes, dry rubs, herb sauces and beginner's chicken, as well as the proven fool-proof techniques for perfect pasta, tomato sauce, polenta, risotto, chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

Among the main recipes divided rather arbitrarily into the four seasons, my favorites have been the simplest to make - the Garlic-Roasted Chicken Breasts (page 275), Thai-Style Steak Salad (page 50), Roasted Salmon with Lentils (page 228), many of the quick seasonal side dishes. For dessert, I have made the Strawberry Shortcakes and Lemon Custard Cakes to great acclaim. I have even been able to make great egg salad sandwiches by following their procedure for boiling eggs, far different from the years-ago information from my mother. My complaints with the book are relatively minor - a heavy reliance on heavy cream in some recipes where skim milk would likely be fine; nutritional information is relegated to an index rather than presented with the recipe; my preference for a ring-bound binder rather than a clothbound book for easier shopping and cooking. Otherwise, this is a great addition to any kitchen library.

Editorial Review:

Do gourmet the Martha way with an indispensable collection of familiar and healthy recipes reworked in innovative ways. Culled from America's favorite food Magazine, Everyday Food, each recipe is presented in the magazine's signature style with color photographs on every spread.

Nigella Express: 130 Recipes for Good Food, Fast

Nigella Lawson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Domestic Goddess is back, and this time it's instant. Nigella and her style of cooking have earned a special place in our lives, symbolizing all that is best, most pleasurable, most hands-on, and least fussy about good food. But that doesn't mean she wants us to spend hours in the kitchen, slaving over a hot stove.

Featuring fabulous fast foods, ingenious shortcuts, terrific time-saving ideas, effortless entertaining tips, and simple, scrumptious meals, Nigella Express is her solution to eating well when time is short. Here are mouthwatering meals, quick to prepare and easy to follow, that you can conjure up after a day in the office or on a busy weekend, for family or unexpected guests. This is food you can make as you hit the kitchen running, with vital advice on how to keep your pantry stocked, and your freezer and fridge stacked. When time is precious, you canít spend hours shopping, so you need to make life easier by being prepared. Not that these recipes are basic, though they are always simple, but it's important to make every ingredient earn its place, minimizing effort by maximizing taste.

Here too is great food that can be prepared quickly but cooked slowly in the oven, leaving you time to have a bath, a drink, talk to friends, or help the children with their homework, minimum stress for maximum enjoyment.

Nigella Express features a new generation of fast food, never basic, never dull, always doable, quick, and delicious.

Featuring recipes seen on Food Networkís Nigella Express series.

Praise for Nigella Lawson and her cookbooks:

Gluten-Free Quick & Easy: From Prep to Plate Without the Fuss - 200+ Recipes for People with Food Sensitivities

Carol Fenster

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Wheat-free-cooking expert Carol Fenster reveals her time-saving tips and techniques to help cooks put homemade meals on the table in a flash.

In Carol Fenster's gluten-free cooking classes, the most frequently asked question is "How can I get a meal on the table in the least amount of time?" So often, cooking gluten-free means spending hours in the kitchen-making everything from scratch. But now, Fenster reveals all her shortcuts, tips, and timesaving techniques from nearly twenty years as the gluten-free cooking authority. The Quick & Easy principles in this book will get cooks in and out of the kitchen with less fuss than ever before.

In Gluten-Free Quick & Easy, a hot meal makes it to the table without a complicated ingredient list or a lengthy wait. Fenster emphasizes the necessity of "planned-overs"-not "left-overs"- that creatively use elements of one meal in the preparation of another, whether it becomes an ingredient the next day, the next week, or the next month. Recipes for make-ahead baking mixes and techniques to shorten baking times means cooks stay on track. And her comprehensive menu plans and ideas help pull together a week's worth of meals with ease.

Fenster's simple but delicious recipes include favorites like hearty breads, pizzas, and pasta. In less time than ever before, gluten-free cooks can whip up homestyle entrŽes and side dishes, tasty breakfasts, and elegant desserts for every meal of the day, every day of the week.