Quick & Easy Books - Page 29

Best American Side Dishes (Best Recipe)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Cooks today are looking for more creative ways to prepare side servings of vegetables, rice or grains. They still want the basics like how to make fluffy white rice and mashed potatoes, but they also want to know how to make really good risotto or perhaps a fresh-flavoured dip for crudites. With "Best American Side Dishes", the editors of "Cook's Illustrated" provide more than 500 recipes for dishes to round off every kind of meal - from weeknight suppers to special celebrations. Packed with more than 250 illustrations, "Best American Side Dishes" shows you step-by step how to prepare vegetables for crudites, clean salad greens, and cut potatoes for frying. Ingredient tastings and equipment testings rate extra-virgin olive oil, mayonnaise, paring knives, salad spinners, and more, so you know just what brands to buy (and which to avoid). Whether you're looking for just the right combination of appetizers to serve before a special meal or easy sides dishes to serve with midweek suppers, "Best American Side Dishes" is here to lend a hand with all the recipes and know-how you've come to expect from the editors at "Cook's Illustrated".

Solo Suppers: Simple Delicious Meals to Cook for Yourself

Joyce Goldstein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

I like it, but it's NOT for everyone 3 out of 5 stars.
103 of 107 people found this review helpful.

I'm sort of baffled as to how to review this cookbook, because I think it's great for her intended audience, but the marketing is a bit misleading. Someone who is looking for truly SIMPLE meals to make for one person may be a bit dissappointed. So I'll just sum up my impressions of it so far.

First of all, it's a beautiful book. Nicely laid out, gorgeous photographs, personal antecdotes - it's just the sort of book I love browsing through when I'm feeling excited about cooking. I like the stylistic layout of the recipes, with the ingredients in a separate column on the side, and it's printed on thick, quality paper. It's a high quality paperback, perfect for laying flat on the counter.

Her attitude throughout is kind of gratingly pretentious at times. It's as if she expects the readers to look at her as some kind of culinary snob, so she deliberately makes comments to diffuse it, but the comments are sort of more pretentious than just snobbiness. For example, discussing eating polenta straight from the pot with a spoon: "... I make no apologies for my childish eating habits." Or, discussing microwave cooking - "... I will confess I have reheated coffee a few times. I am no longer a total culinary snob." Besides blatent examples like that, her tone and choice of words throughout are sort of exclusionary. I find it amusing and charming, but I'm sure other people will be put off by it.

In her introduction, she plainly says that this is not another book of quick meals for singles. Alot of the dishes in this book are rather lengthy and complicated. Her persian meatball soup, for example, requires mixing and rolling 30 tiny meatballs, soaking and precooking 2 different dried grains, and has 20 ingredients - all for 1-2 servings. On top of that, it's a yogurt based soup, which I found very difficult to not curdle and ruin. Is it good? I'm not sure, because I've tried it twice, investing hours each time, and haven't been successful. My mom saw the recipe and laughed - she's started calling this my "snooty single person cookbook."

Alot of the flavors she likes are strange. Lots of exotic herbs and ethnic spices, (cinnamon in the meatballs was a little strange). The recipes also seem pretty high in fat and cholesterol. Here's my favorite quote of the whole book (about spaghetti alla carbonara): "Yes, I realize that this is a high cholesterol special, but I don't care. I only eat this pasta twice a year. The rest of the time I am a model of Mediterranean dietary restraint." Haha. I guess she doesn't eat the other recipes in the book that call for several eggs, butter, cheese and heavy cream.

But if you can get past the pretentiousness, the apparent unhealthiness, and the complicated nature of some recipes, - most of them are REALLY good. The poached salmon is SO delicious that it's my new favorite way to eat salmon. All of the egg dishes are great, so are some of the soups.

I consider myself somewhat of an amatuer gourmet. I enjoy grocery shopping and reading cookbooks and trying new recipes, and most nights it is just me for dinner. I like this book because the food is good, and reading it makes me want to become a true gourmet. I think that I'm probably close to her target audience.

Editorial Review:

Most recipes serve four to six people, leaving the solo cook in a predicament. Enter acclaimed cookbook author Joyce Goldstein and her stellar repertoire of meals that are fun for one. From hearty recipes like Spicy Tortilla and Lime Soup and Tuscan Style Rib-Eye Steak with Rosemary and Garlic, to dressed-up salads and seasonal fruit gratins, each dish is designed to serve one in style. Essential tips and techniques offer valuable advice on smart shopping for one and stocking the pantry. Numerous recipe variations take advantage of seasonal ingredients, while an array of sauces can turn that salmon fillet or lamb steak into a gourmet feast. When the good company is your own, Solo Suppers is the way to go.

4 Ingredient Cookbook

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

4 Ingredient Cookbook 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I love it ! Now that there are just the two of us at home, this makes meals so much easier. I always seem to have the right ingredients on hand when I go to do these recipes. Makes me wonder what took me so long to buy this book.

horrible, highly processed dishes 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I should have known that there is catch in preparing dishes with only four ingredients--use highly processed canned goods. Yuck!!! I've prepared five dishes and all of them were inedible. My kids would not touch them. All the dishes smell like they came out of a truly horrible, hole in the wall diner. The dishes are quick and easy but gourmet???? There is nothing sophisticated about these dishes.

If you like preparing dishes in a flash and you like the taste of canned goods, then this is the cookbook for you. If you want a little more sophistication in your meals, you need to use fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh herbs, etc. If you like food that taste like it has been sitting at a diner for a week, then this cookbook is excellent. Do your heart and body and palate a favor and stay away from this cookbook.

Fresh Food Fast: Delicious, Seasonal Vegetarian Meals in Under an Hour

Peter Berley

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

From award-winning chef Peter Berley: mouthwatering seasonal vegetarian menus that can be created in under an hour

Sophisticated, home-cooked vegetarian meals without the fuss. Is that too much to ask? Absolutely not.

True to his roots as a restaurant chef, cooking teacher, and family man, award-winning vegetarian chef Peter Berley has a passion for meals that taste incredible, salute the seasons, and are easy to prepare in under an hour. In Fresh Food Fast, he provides forty-eight meals -- twelve for each season -- including recipes, a shopping list, an equipment list, and a game plan that takes you step-by-step through the menu.

Included are substantial, satisfying meals that will bring pleasure to vegetarians and omnivores alike:

Spring
bibb lettuce and radish salad with crème fraîche citronette braised spring vegetables with grits, poached eggs, and chives

summer
spicy corn frittata with tomatoes and scallions cucumber salad

fall
pasta with spicy cauliflower, chickpeas, and cherry tomatoes pan-grilled radicchio salad with honey- balsamic glaze over frisée

winter
balsamic-roasted seitan with cipollini onions garlic mashed potatoes and parsnips

Berley also provides delectable dessert recipes for each season, including spring's Warm Honey Lemon Curd over Strawberries, summer's Blueberry-Nectarine Crisp, fall's Roasted Grapes with Red Wine, and winter's Caramelized Bananas with Blood Orange and Pistachio.

In a world where fast food is generally prepackaged and second-rate, Peter Berley teaches us how we can live without compromise and enjoy fresh, wholesome meals any night of the week as we connect with family and friends.

The Nols Cookery

Sukey Richard, Donna Orr

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

KEY for expedition planning 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This book is all you will ever need (and you WILL need it) to plan long trips. I find that planning food rations for long trips is one of the biggest logistical challenges. Not only can the planning be difficult, it can also be difficult to figure out which foods will keep your body energized and healthy over long periods of time (i.e. not Ramen). When you are on a high altitude expedition or on a long-distance backpacking trip this is very important. This book tells you which ingredients to bring along, how to break up food during the day (i.e. 10% of your food should be breakfast food, 25% should be lunch food, etc.) and which foods work well for each category. Included in the book are two worksheets which you can photocopy and use for each trip. The worksheets are basically formulas - you plug in the number of people in your group, the number of days you will be travelling, the quantity of food you want to take each day (the book also makes good reccomendations about how many pounds of food you should eat each day) - and then the book tells you how many pounds of breakfast foods, dinner foods, etc you will need for the entire trip. Once you have all of the basic ingredients, the book also has a great recipe section which tells you how to put together all of your ingredients into tasty meals. The book is small enough that you can take it with you on your trips (maybe 6 inches by 8 inches?). If you're really nitpicky you can cut the "cookbook" section out of the book and leave the rest at home to save weight. I'm glad that I finally got around to writing a good review for this book, and someday I need to get around to writing a thank-you letter to Claudia Pearson for writing it.

Editorial Review:

50 drawings 5 x 8 More than 150 recipes and variations are presented in this revised and updated NOLS classic. Features sections on nutrition, meal planning, packaging, equipment, open-fire cooking and maintenance.

Rice Cooker Meals: Fast Home Cooking for Busy People

Neal Bertrand

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

Editorial Review:

Rice Cooker Meals: Fast Home Cooking for Busy People contains 60 quick and easy meals you can make in a rice cooker, most in 30 minutes or less. Enjoy delicious, multicultural recipes that are less expensive and healthier than fast food. Includes Mexican, Italian, Tex-Mex and Cajun recipes! And one-pot cooking means less mess to clean up! You'll see how easy it is to cook jambalayas, seafood dishes, pastas, "casseroles", soups, rice side dishes, and various vegetable recipes including potatoes, cabbage, and sweet potatoes. "IN A RICE COOKER?" Yes, they're all cooked in a rice cooker. Here are a few recipes from the book: Easy Chili, Mexican Rice, Tex-Mex Pasta, Shrimp Jambalaya, Cabbage Casserole, Cajun Pepper Steak, Chicken Fried Rice, Rice & Shrimp Pilaf, Chicken & Sausage Gumbo, Chicken Fajita Stuffed Potato, Black-eyed Pea & Sausage Soup, Candied Yams with Marshmallows, Easy Smothered Potatoes & Sausage, and Black-eyed Pea & Sausage Jambalaya. The cookbook also has two indexes so the recipes are easier to find: indexed by chapter and indexed in alphabetical order. It has numerous testimonials from good cooks affiliated with the LSU AgCenter Homemaker Clubs. They tested the recipes and gave their honest opinions. It includes short articles about time-saving tips on food preparation, how a rice cooker knows when the food is cooked, how to teach children to safely cook with a rice cooker, how to brown meat in a rice cooker, plus many more.

Natural Meals In Minutes - High-Fiber, Low-Fat Meatless Storage Meals-in 30 Minutes or Less!

Rita Bingham

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Best I've Found, so far! 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

I don't have enough space in this forum to express my total appreciation for this book. I've had it for over a year and I've barely used a fraction of it's valuable ideas. The ones I have used, I've used over and over again! I'm sitting here right now thinking of making some bread. I can either grind the grain by hand or use the recomended grinder I discovered from the book! I'm pretty much all set! A Must Read!

Editorial Review:

Natural Meals In Minutes. An excellent cookbook of over 300 fast, simple, food storage recipes using grains, legumes, and sprouting seeds, in addition to fresh fruits and vegetables. Whether you're preparing for Y2K or other natural or man-made disasters, this book will show you how to make great basic meals from healthful, wholesome ingredients. Learn how to cook whole grains in only 3 minutes, cheeses and puddings in only 3 minutes, and complete meatless meals in 30 minutes or less!

This book contains delicious, low-fat, "heart-healthy" meals in these three easy-to-follow sections:
Introduction to Natural Foods - using whole grains and dried legumes (beans, peas and lentils).
Sprouting - techniques and tasty recipes for every meal of the day.
Powdered Milk - 3-Minute Powdered Milk Cheeses, Yogurt, and other milk favorites.

Breakfasts, Lunches, Dinners, Snacks and Desserts the whole family will love!

Lickety-Split Diabetic Meals: Save Time, Eat Smart, Lose Weight

Zonya Foco

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

Editorial Review:

America's Nutrition Leader wants to help people win the war on diabetes

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Zonya has reworked the recipes and tips from her Lickety-Split Meals cookbook to create Lickety-Split Diabetic Meals (published by American Diabetes Association) to help those with diabetes in their quest for a healthier, happier life. All the recipes meet ADA's guidelines for nutrition and taste, and include the ADA's Choose Your Foods Exchange/Choices list. Inspiring readers with the �Power of One Good Habit,� Zonya Foco teaches a commonsense approach to healthy eating that serves up smart nutrition and leaves time for family, fitness, and fun.. With over 179 recipes, Lickety-Split Diabetic Meals shows you how to cook 15-30 minute meals, 5 minute meals, and-yes!-even meals in less than one minute. Each recipe page faces a healthy tip to help readers save time, exercise better, eat right, or better manage their diabetes. This is a unique book for people with diabetes-part cookbook, part meal planner, and part self-management guide. .

Once-A-Month Cooking: A Proven System for Spending Less Time in the Kitchen and Enjoying Delicious, Homemade Meals Everyday

Mary Beth Lagerborg, Mimi Wilson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 80 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

One-a-Month Cooking 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

This is a very practical guide for big-batch cooking. I learned a lot of helpful techniques and the recipes were practical and intice my trying them. It gave lots of guides for shopping and organizing your cooking day.

Editorial Review:

Spend less time in the kitchen and more time with your family...

Since the first edition of Once-a-Month Cooking was published in 1986, its proven, practical method has helped hundreds of thousands of families cut down their cooking time and still enjoy home-cooked meals every night.
Newly revised to satisfy today's lower-fat tastes, this easy-to-follow, family-tested cookbook explains how to: plan ahead, spend less time in the supermarket, cut down on prep time, group similar kitchen tasks together to get them all done at once, make kitchen clean-up more manageable, use the freezer, computer, and our head to create a month full of delicious, nutritious meals and actually have enough time to relax and enjoy them. Once-a-Month Cooking is the perfect cookbook for today's busy lifestyles.

The Quick & Easy Ayurvedic Cookbook

Eileen Keavy Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

great addition to ayurvedic cook's library 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This book has been a wonderful way to introduce Ayurvedic cooking into my kitchen. I love the fact that these recipes are not "indian" dishes, for variety. I've tried the Salmon Loaf, Seafood cakes, beans & rice, and some very simple side dishes to go with these....all are great. I can also serve these to others who don't care to have indian food 7 days a week ;) As a beginner, I find most recipes in other, traditional Ayurvedic cooking sources a bit too much for my full-time work week, yet as an added benefit from using this cookbook I found that I've built up the courage to try those challenging ones as well... maybe on the weekend, initially. I base this review on comparison with the more complex "Eat - Taste - Heal", "The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia" (good reference on Ayurvedic properties of single foods, but not on "mixing"), and "The Path of Practice" (although this one is not really a cookbook). Hope my experience encourages you to try the Ayurvedic diet!

Editorial Review:

Ayurveda is an ancient Indian system of health and healing based in the principle that each human being is unique, and has a distinct individual constitution, genetic inheritance, and predisposition to certain ailments. This is the first Ayurvedic Cooking book that allows you to easily implement Ayurvedic principles in your cooking and improve your health without devoting long hours of study to the subject or breaking your budget. Learn how to cure insomnia and indigestion, even out mood swings, and much more, just by making food choices based on your Ayurvedic constitution. The recipes include familiar favorites - such as baked apples, chicken burgers, and potato salad - making it a practical, easy-to-use addition to your kitchen and home.