I think the easiest way to describe Sam Zien and his new cookbook, Sam the Cooking Guy is by saying that he seems to be the male equivalent of Rachael Ray (back before RR exploded all over daytime television and Dunkin' Donuts commercials). He says he's not a chef, just wants to help the average person get dinner on the table and dreams up crazy/quirky names for his dishes. Before you think this comparison to be damning, I want to remind you all that back in the early days RR made some good food and really helped people think about skipping the drive through in order to make dinner at home.
And, if you're looking for that elusive cookbook, the one that is entertaining to read and offers some easy to follow and tasty recipes, then this could be a good one to check out. The book contains 126 recipes, which would keep you cooking for quite a while. He's a big fan of those pre-cooked deli chickens, pre-baked pizza crusts and ready-to-eat bacon, so he's not for those people who like to do things from scratch, but for the "quick and easy crowd" he might just be the new, hottest thing.
Last Fall, a Slashfood reader (thanks Kate!) introduced me to the book Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos in the comment of a post about Flight of the Conchords and Lasagna for One (go read the post if that sentence sounds like Greek to you). I ordered the book sometime soon after she mentioned it, but I didn't get around to using any of the recipes until last week.
Friday night, Scott expressed a longing for cupcakes. Normally I would have just smiled and said "that's unfortunate," but I was feeling sort of generous and so decided to pull out the book and see what I could come up with. There was a recipe in the book for "Just Plain Good Cupcakes" that made exactly four little cakes. I had all the necessary ingredients and so I gave it a try. And they were perfect cupcakes - light, fluffy and moist. I was actually grateful that there weren't more, as it was hard to stop eating them (the recipe is after the jump).
The cupcakes were easy, because I could bake them up in traditional muffin tins. There are also recipes in the book for tiny cakes that get baked in well-cleaned tin cans and mini-loaf pans. I'm already looking forward to trying some of the other recipes in the book, as it's a great way to satisfy a dessert craving without having to make something that serves 12.
In French 101 in college, we all had to do individual spoken exams at the end of the term. The idea was to demonstrate that we could converse simply in the language.
We had been learning kitchen and food terms, and my professor asked me (in French) to describe my mealtimes.
"Mes amis et moi," I began, "Nous nous asseyons sur la table."
My professor looked confused. "Ellen, sur la table? Vous vous asseyez sur la table?"
I nodded happily. "Oui."
I'd told him that my friends and I sat atop the table at mealtimes.
Luckily, you don't have to speak a Français to appreciate Sur la Table's new cookbook, "Things Cooks Love". It's the company's first of several - "The Art & Soul of Baking" and "A Cook's Guide to Knives" will be available this fall).
The book covers kitchen tools and basics, as well as simple recipes to practice on tools and cookware. (What's a cookbook from a gourmet cookware store without a little self-promotion?)
(Pssst - the book is only $25 at the company's website until May 31, when it'll be $35. Get it while it's chaud.)
I pulled out my cookie tome yesterday - Carole Walter'sGreat Cookies: Secrets to Sensational Sweets - and went for the aptly-named Carole's Really Great Chocolate Chip Cookies. (I know, the name sounds like a cop-out - until you realize that these are in addition to the "Soft and Chewy Choc. Chip Cookies," the "Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies," the "Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter..." - Well, you get the point. After awhile, you run out of names.
No matter: I felt good about these babies. Of course, it was not until I walked the ten blocks home that I realized I'd forgotten the light corn syrup that the recipe called for. So, out came the laptop, in a frantic search for the proper ratio of sugar-to-liquid to make DIY corn syrup. (It's one cup granulated sugar to 1/4 cup water, cooked til thickened).
The cookies are made with 1/2 cup of 1-minute oatmeal to prevent them from spreading out too much while in the oven. It definitely seemed to help, although my first batch was a bit underdone (I cooked them for 12 minutes), and my second batch - at 14 minutes - was slightly crunchy. Although, I have to say, dipped in my coffee this morning, the latter batch was absolutely perfect. Perhaps I should have turned the cookie sheet halfway through, like Carole suggests, or gone with real corn syrup instead of my cheap-o substitute. No matter - despite my flops, they were still amazing. (Oh- and forgive the grainy laptop camera shot).
Christiane Jory did, and was so thrilled with the outcome that she decided to write a book about her discoveries: The '99 Cent Only Stores' Cookbook. It's filled with recipes that make gourmet food out of not-so-gourmet ingredients. (This seems to be the week for 99 cent meals).
Like the NPR reporter who interviewed Jory, I'm definitely skeptical of food that comes from a 99 cent store. Yep, I'll admit it: the often-discolored cans, dented boxes, and brands I've never heard of creep me out. And if you told me you bought wine at the same place? I'd try it, but I'd cringe a little.
One of my first thoughts was, Oh, but the food is probably shipped from far-off countries and sits in warehouses for days. But Jory insists that some of the food at the stores actually comes from local farmers and distributors. Jory relies on improvised and substituted ingredients - evaporated milk instead of cartons of milk, canned veggies instead of fresh - to achieve a tasty meal at a low cost.
I have to say, Jory definitely encouraged me to look for food in different places, and be open to new ideas. The only thing that turned me off was the health aspect. Canned foods and refrigerated croissants can be easy and tasty, but they're not the most nutritious. Maybe next time I pass a Dollar Tree, I'll look around for bargains, but I don't think I would make it my primary source of food. Would you
You know a cookbook is a keeper when you pick it up as you would a novel, and page through carefully, taking in the words and photographs and recipes as if they were classic literature. You savor each page, admiring the layout, drooling over the photos, and scheming about what recipe you'll try next.
That is what Carole Walter's Great Cookies: Secrets to Sensational Sweets is to me. I'll read it when I'm not even planning on baking, for fun or inspiration. Walter, an accomplished pastry chef, divides her book into twelve categories, including drop cookies, "big boys," rugelach, biscotti, meringues and more, each with its own glossy, full-color photograph and often accompanied by a sweet story about her children or grandchildren.
The drop cookies chapter alone is enough to stop you in your tracks. Rustic Maple Pecan cookies mingle with Crystallized Ginger and Macadamia Wafers and rub shoulders with Zach's Chocolate Coconut Devils.
Overwhelmed, I went with a safe bet: the chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.
Last week, when I visited the Kitchen Arts and Letters bookstore (I do intend to actually write about that amazing store and post some pictures I took while there), I came across a cookbook unlike any other I've ever seen (and that's saying a lot, as I've been reading cookbooks for fun since I was 7). Written, photographed and designed by British artist/writer/designer/cook Jake Tilson, A Tale of 12 Kitchens it is as much a life history through food/pictures/recipes as it is a cookbook. It starts at the point when Tilson was born and his parents were living in a converted Victorian dairy shop. It moves through his childhood, his memories of the nightly dinner parties his parents hosted and then to his years traveling, marriage and eating his way through New York.
All through the book, keeping step with the prose are lots of images and appealing design choices. There are reproductions of pages from his mother's recipe notebooks, photos of shops and restaurants that were instrumental to his cookery journey and scraps of flotsam from his personal food history. I haven't cooked from this book yet, but having already been touched by the amount of passion and affection with which this book was created, I hazard a guess that the food will also be wonderful.
This is the only book that I've featured where I want to encourage you to go and check out the related website. Tilson and his web designers (although he may have just done it himself) have put a lot of energy into creating an appealing and interesting site. I especially like the fact that you can see a generous selection of images from inside the book.
In the few days left running up to the big game, you probably don't have a lot of extra time. Between everyday chores and getting ready for your super bowl get together, there just isn't enough time in the day. If only there were a way to save a little time somewhere. Well, that's where this cookbook can help.
Bowl Food: Comfort Food For People on the Go is an edited cookbook, a collection of recipes from many sources. It offers one bowl main dishes that are quick to prepare, satisfying and lower on cleanup. From what I've read, the book leans toward a lot of Asian style dishes. And one review estimates that 25% of the recipes are fully vegetarian, with many that can be adjusted to become vegetarian easily.
The reviews on this cookbook are mixed. Everyone agrees that the recipes are delicious. Some of the reviewers totally agree that the recipes are easy and quick. Others thought they included too many exotic ingredients that are hard to find, requiring a trip to specialty stores.
Amazon offered a look at some of the recipes and I thought they looked really good. If you're the kind of cook who can break away from recipes, or if you keep an extremely wide array of ingredients around, Bowl Food can become your best friend during the week. Or it could become your weekend or party cookbook. Either way, it looks interesting and tasty. I'm ordering my copy today.
The Peaceable Kitchen Cookbook, by Kate Cusick Easterday, is sort of a different cookbook from the others I've featured in the past. It isn't glossy or full of drool-inducing pictures. Instead, it is a cookbook built around a philosophy of eating that emphasized that "eating low on the food chain can be a creative, healthful and good-tasting experience." Although it was printed in 1980, beyond the time frame that is normally associated with the natural foods movement of the sixties and seventies, it is deeply influenced by that time period. I find that many of the recipes translate really nicely to today, especially with our current awareness of local, organic and whole foods.
As with so many of my cookbooks, I picked this one up at a thrift store sometime in the last few years. It jumped out at me in large part because of the appealing juxtaposition between the words 'Peaceable' and 'Kitchen.' I think that if there was a restaurant near my home with a similar name, I'd want to eat there just for that.
It is chock full of interesting and easy recipes for main dishes (both those prepared in the oven or in a skillet), recipes for cooking whole grains, some really appealing veggie dishes (I want to try the dish called Celery-Broccoli Celebration) and some homey desserts. The one thing to be aware of is that this book does have a number of recipes calling for cheese, milk, butter and eggs, so it isn't great for vegans or those who are minding their cholesterol (although you can always adapt the recipes a bit).
As Bob reminded us last week, January is National Soup Month, so I thought it was only fitting to feature a soup cookbook. The Daily Soup Cookbook is written by the chefs who created the recipes at the Daily Soup chain of restaurants. Filled with over 200 soup recipes, the book is divided up by primary ingredient: corn, potato, bean, chili, nut and fruit (to name a few). They also offer suggestions for movies you should rent to eat soup by and musical recommendations to cook and eat soup by.
When it comes to soup, I tend not to follow recipes, instead striking out on my own with whatever ingredients I happen to have. However, when I eat soups made by others, or those prepared by stores or restaurants, I'm always blown away by the flavors and unique combinations that other people put together. The recipes contained in this book make me think that following a recipe might not be such a bad idea if they could get me soup at home that tasted as wonderful as some of the stuff I come across out there in the world.
Over the course of the next month and a half, most of us are going to be running around with a panicked glint in our eyes as we try to get everything done for the holidays. Food can be one of the most stressful aspects of this November-December stretch. Luckily Kim O'Donnel, the washingtonpost.com food blogger extraordinaire, recently wrote a cookbook to help us all come through the trials of holiday cooking with honors.
The book is called A Mighty Appetite for the Holidays: Kitchen Tricks for the Feasting Season and it is full of terrific tips, stories, techniques and recipes (you can buy it here). She offers advice on how to brine a turkey, gives a 7-day cooking timeline for Thanksgiving and also includes a section on what to cook if you find yourself alone on turkey day.
One of the recipes that jumped out at me from the book fits nicely into the alternative side dish category we've been talking about lately. It's for a Parsnip-Potato Mash and seems to be a good way to mix up your regular old potato mashers. The recipe is after the jump.
I watched the episode of Oprah a few weeks ago that had Jerry Seinfeld's wife Jessica, talking about her new get-your-kids-to-eat cookbook Deceptively Delicious. Basically, she purees up the good stuff her kids should be eating (broccoli, cauliflower, other veggies) and secretly puts them inside foods that her kids really love (chicken fingers, chocolate chip cookies, etc). But is this a new thing?
I ask this because I had heard about doing something similar, and a woman who wrote and published another cookbook is wondering if the two projects are too similar. Missy Chase Lapine, author ofThe Sneaky Chef (published in April by Running Press), says that her publicists pitched the idea to Oprah five times with no luck, and then six months later Jessica Seinfeld is on the show with her cookbook doing very similar recipes and cooking tips, and that Oprah it was being "touted as an entirely new technique."
I don't use recipe cards much because I tend to lose them, rip them, get stuff all over them. In fact, I barely even use recipe books in the kitchen for the same reasons, as well as the amount of counter space they take up in my sorbet container-sized kitchen. About the best I do is print out a copy from the files on my computer, or directly from the web.
However, I couldn't help but be drawn to Cook's Card's Betty Crocker set in an adorable little red box. The cute recipe box contains 55 classics from Betty Crocker from the original 1950s cookbook. Sure, I probably won't even make 10 things in there, which include delicacies like Pigs in Blankets and Pioneer Macaroni and Cheese, but the idea of such home-y comfort foods appeals to me these days.
In case you have somehow missed the announcements, food blogger Clotilde Dusoulier, the mastermind behind ChocolateAndZucchini.com, has finally released her cookbook entitled Chocolate and Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen.
Clotilde has been blogging about food since September of 2003, and if her website is any indication I'm sure that the book is going to be phenomenal. I don't have a copy yet, but it is guaranteed at least one of us will post a review once we've seen it.
Congratulations, Clotilde! We wish you much success with your book tour!
To a large portion of the population, "carb" was nothing more than a nasty, four-letter word a few years ago. Like most diets and trends though, the shelf life on that has largely expired and people are once again venturing down the bread and pasta aisles of their local supermarkets. This is especially good news for lovers of Italian food, and even better news for someone like Giada De Laurentiis.
The Food Network personality, chef, and author of several cookbooks released her latest book earlier this month, entitled Everyday Pasta. She has all the basics covered including spaghetti, ravioli, risotto, salads, wine, and various sauces, plus she incorporates a number of her favorite ingredients into the dishes such as pancetta, fresh herbs, and citrus.
Want a little preview? Amazon.com has a recipe for Giada's Rigatoni with Sausage, Peppers, and Onions displayed, which I have included after the jump.
Have you ever stashed a Coke in the freezer, hoping to chill it quickly, then forgotten all about it, only to have it explode all over your frozen peas?
I think the easiest way to describe Sam Zien and his new cookbook, Sam the Cooking Guy is by saying that he seems to be the male equivalent of Rachael Ray (back before RR exploded all over daytime television and Dunkin' Donuts commercials). He says he's not a chef, just wants to help the average person get dinner on the table and dreams up crazy/quirky names for his dishes. Before you think this comparison to be damning, I want to remind you all that back in the early days RR made some good food and really helped people think about skipping the drive through in order to make dinner at home. 
The Peaceable Kitchen Cookbook
As 
I watched the episode of 
To a large portion of the population, "carb" was nothing more than a nasty, four-letter word a few years ago. Like most diets and trends though, the shelf life on that has largely expired and people are once again venturing down the bread and pasta aisles of their local supermarkets. This is especially good news for lovers of Italian food, and even better news for someone like Giada De Laurentiis. 
A fraking amazing Battlestar Galactica cake
Iced Tea 101
Pierogies + cheese + onions + kraut = Parmageddon!
