BethNH's Profile

From: , NH USA

Joined: December 16th, 2010

About me: I've been cooking and baking since I was a child and collecting cookbooks almost that long. Years ago, I lost my entire collection in a flood and I've been slowly building it back up. I cook for my husband and three sons who are not very adventurous eaters. We're on the go a lot with sports and school schedules. I love to bake and my boys and their friends appreciate all manner of baked goods.

Favorite cookbook: King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion


Latest review:

April 1st, 2017

Ginger Pork Meatballs with Cilantro and Fish Sauce from Dinner: Changing the Game

These meatballs and the dipping sauce were to die for delicious. Although there was a lot of chopping the recipe was easy to follow. Everyone loved it and we will definitely make this again. read more >


recipe reviews (265)
book reviews (8)
useful review votes (161)

BethNH's Reviews


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9 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 9Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

The Chinese Takeout Cookbook: Quick and Easy Dishes to Prepare at Home

By Diana Kuan
Ballantine Books - 2012

10th February 2013

Beef with Broccoli : page 87

In celebration of Chinese New Year, we tried another recipe from this cookbook.

Like the other recipes in the book that I've tried so far, this one starts with a marinade and a sauce that are made with basic Chinese pantry staples. Once those are made the flank steak is marinated while the broccoli is blanched. Finally, everything is stir fried together and the sauce is added to coat.

I would actually give this recipe a 3.5. It was delicious but somewhat salty. The flank steak was very tender and the broccoli was nicely cooked. My husband and middle son each gave the dish and 8 while my youngest gave it a 6. It was good, and I'd make it again, but it wasn't as good as the chicken recipes we've tried from this same book.

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28th December 2012

Cashew Chicken : page 69

Very nice cashew chicken. The recipe is well organized and includes a marinade and sauce. Once the chicken is marinating, there is time to put on a pot of rice and cook the rest of the ingredients.

This is basically a stir fry of peppers, onions, chicken and cashews with a delicious sauce.

Serving sizes are small and need to be doubled for my family of 5.

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28th February 2015

Dan Dan Noodles : page 137

College son and his girlfriend made this for dinner for us last night. As with every recipe in this book they doubled the ingredients to feed 6 of us.

This recipe was delicious in every possible way. It was flavorful and quite spicy. We all loved it.

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10th December 2014 (edited: 10th December 2014)

General Tso's Chicken : page 70

Another excellent recipe from Ms. Kuan. This cookbook has yet to fail me.

That being said, this may not have been the best recipe for me to tackle at the last minute on a week night. The chicken is first marinated, then coated in a corn starch mixture, and then deep fried. I should have spread the chicken on a cookie sheet to coat in the corn starch because it kind of clumped together.

Once in the oil, it spattered everywhere! Ugh. What a mess. I followed the suggestion of frying the chicken twice to get it extra crispy and that worked really well. Finally, the chicken was put in another pan with a sauce that thickened and covered the chicken nicely. It was sweet and spicy and crispy and delicious.

As always, I doubled the recipe to have enough to feed my family of four. Served with rice and stir fried green beans this was a delicious recipe.

Thank God my husband does clean up duty.

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26th December 2012 (edited: 27th December 2012)

Kung Pao Chicken : page 65

Delicious but not for the faint of heart!

The recipe is very well written. The different parts of the recipe - marinade, sauce, and main ingredients - are separated on the side bar which makes it really easy to prepare each part of the recipe.

Although there are many ingredients, they come together easily. While the chicken marinates, it's easy to pull together the sauce and additional ingredients.

I doubled this recipe to feed my family of five and hesitated to double the dried red chilies called for. The recipe calls for 8-10 and I went with 10ish. Everything else in the recipe was doubled.

Thank goodness I didn't double the red chilies because this dish was HOT! It was delicious but very spicy. It was hilarious to watch the sweat break out on the brows of my family. We all loved the dish but agreed that next time we'd cut the number of peppers in half.

The chicken was very flavorful and the sauce nicely covered everything. We'll definitely eat this again with one minor change.

This exact recipe can be found on Ms. Juan's blog, Appetite for China. A link has been provided.

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19th November 2014

Sichuan Dry-Fried Beef : page 89

Excellent! Full of flavor and just the right amount of spice. Plenty hot but not so hot as to make my middle son break out in a sweat. The beef was very tender.

The whole meal comes together in the time it takes to make a pot of rice. A perfect week night meal.

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The woman behind the fish counter offered me a free bag of mussels today while I was buying fish. Who could resist?

A quick search on EYB turned up this recipe from one of my most used cookbooks. I assembled everything only to realize I didn't have any five-spice powder.

It turns out it didn't matter. There was so much flavor from the aromatics, soy sauce and oyster sauce that we didn't miss the spice.

My boys have never had mussels before and both were willing to try them. The middle boy really enjoyed them and ate a bunch. The youngest liked them more once my husband suggested he could put sriracha on them.

I can't wait to have these again.

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14th February 2013

Stir-Fried Sesame Chicken : page 73

Another excellent meal from Ms. Kuan.

Marinated chicken is quickly stir fried with garlic and peas (we subbed pea pods) and then finished with a delicious sauce.

Very easy to put together. In the time it takes the rice cooker to make the rice, I was able to make the rest of the meal.

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5th June 2013

Yangzhou Fried Rice : page 152

A very yummy fried rice which is hearty enough to serve as a main course. In addition to the rice there is both ham (or Chinese barbecued pork) and shrimp.

I made a few adjustments to the recipe. I used one medium onion instead of scallions and I used honey ham from the deli. I doubled everything except the peas. It was odd that there was no flavoring added to this rice so I added the flavoring for the rice recipe on the next page - soy sauce and sesame oil.

If you have cold rice on hand this whole dinner comes together in no time.

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