kaye16's Reviews
Cookbook Reviews
64 books reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Rating 
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Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking
By Madhur Jaffrey
Barron's Educational Series - 1983
Probably my first Indian cookbook, bought after I saw bits of the series on the BBC. Much used, with many favorites. Sometimes tending to be too oily or salty, but this is easily remedied. Quick list of favorites (noted in front of book):
Gujarati-style green beans, p102
Raita, p162
Lentils with garlic & onion, p124
Spicy baked chicken, p71
Rice with peas, p149
Simple buttery rice with onions, p145
Seviyan ki kheer, p192
Spicy green beans, p103
Aromatic yellow rice, p153
Onion relish, p174
Yogurt with eggplant, p164
Lemony chicken with fresh coriander, p73
Carrot & onion salad, p171
Madhur Jaffrey's Quick & Easy Indian Cooking
By Madhur Jaffrey, Philip Salaverry
Chronicle Books - 1996
One of my favorite cookbooks, Indian recipes that you can make on the spur of the moment. There are some errors in the book, although it's fairly easy to work around them. There's a newer edition now, and I'm curious to see it, but don't think I'd replace my well-used old one.
The Best Ever French Cooking Course
By Carole Clements, Elizabeth Wolf-Cohen
Hermes House - 2002
This is one of my favorite cookbooks. I don't understand why it's not better known and more popular. It's full of classic French recipes, well explained and well illustrated. Many favorite recipes here.
24aug12: I have been given (and will pass along to a friend) a book called French Food and Cooking by the same authors, same publisher, new ISBN (1846814154). I've turned the pages and they are the same book inside. A search for the ISBN leads to Simple French Cooking by Clements only, which may or may not be the same book yet again.
Inside French Food and Cooking, it says the book was previously published as The French Recipe Cookbook, which is not the title I own and first saw. Ah, but I now see that mine has the same statement.
A search for French Food and Cooking by title at amazon.co.uk turns up a book with the same title and cover, but another ISBN altogether!
What on earth is going on with this?
8dec17: Have seen this book with yet another title. Bizarre.
The Art of Cooking for Two
By Coralie Castle, Astrid Newton
101 Productions - 1976
This is one of my Desert Island cookbooks. Lots of useful recipes and good directions. It's really an old-fashioned cookbook, rather than a recipe book. My copy is held together with a rubber band and still used frequently. Lots of favorites here. Good ideas/suggestions for vegetables.
Ken Hom's Hot Wok : Over 150 one-pan Wonders
By Ken Hom
BBC Books - 1996
Loved the series and love the book. Lots of stickies and notes from recipes I've made. The recipes tend to be a bit salty; now I never add any extra salt Hom may prescribe.
How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart
By Pam Anderson
Broadway - 2000
I find this a very useful book. Aimed at week-night cooking, it provides formulas (supported by little "poems" :-) for various bits of the dinner, a master recipe with variations following the same technique. Nothing really new, but the organization makes it very useful. The section on pan sauces is worth the book. I'd never really looked at a sauce like this as a technique, but now I find they quickly dress up a simply sauteed bit of meat.
The serving sizes are generally very generous.
Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day
By Moosewood Collective
Simon & Schuster - 1994
This is definitely one of my Desert Island Cookbooks. It probably has more used and repeated recipes than any other cookbook I have (and I have a lot). This is the book where Moosewood realized that people cooking at home have a limited amount of time. Recipes are fast, easy, and tasty.
American Wholefoods Cuisine: Over 1300 Meatless, Wholesome Recipes from Short Order to Gourmet (Plume)
By Nikki Goldbeck, David Goldbeck
Plume - 1984
This book was never very popular, but I find it one of the best vegetarian cookbooks around. I've met vegetarians who swear by it. Yet it never appears on anyone's favorite cookbooks lists. Very puzzling.
It's a very plain book, no photos, no drawings, no fancy layout, kind of a Joy of Cooking for vegetarians. Nothing very exotic, but good, interesting food.
Jeannette's secrets of everyday good cooking
By Jeannette Seaver
Knopf : distributed by Random House - 1975
This is another of my Desert Island Cookbooks. I love this book! Seaver is a working French worman, married to an American, striving to maintain her French standards for meals and the preparation of food. We must have 3-course, family meals. The food is great. I don't think I've made one recipe we didn't like. The chapter on leftovers is wonderful.
There are chapters on
- The basics (doughs, sauces, salads, etc.)
- Family dinners (menus)
- Small dinner parties (up to 8)
- Large parties
- Things to do with leftovers
The Kitchen Congregation: A Daughter's Story of Wives and Women Friends
By Nora Seton
Picador - 2001
This is more kitchen literature than a cookbook, but I have marked a number of recipes to try. It's a memoir of a daughter and her mother and friends, their lives certering around their kitchens. I loved it and my husband loved it. I've pulled it down to read again, and might even try a recipe.
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
By Marcella Hazan
Knopf - 1992
If you have to have only one Italian cookbook, this would be it. It's not a fancy book with lots of glossy photos, but it is full of good, solid recipes. I've been using it for years and am now using it even more recently since I joined the Cooking Italy group at Spinach Tiger where Angela is leading us in cooking with this book.
A few recipes have had problems, but these have been 1) sweets (so not so interesting to me) and 2) easily recognized so you can correct the problem.
Hazan does seem to have problems with the portions, so you should use you common sense and experience when looking at the recipes.
Tofu Cookery
By Louise Hagler
Book Publishing Company (TN) - 1991
This is the best tofu cookbook, with a big variety of very good recipes. There are even instructions for making tofu at home, which I haven't tried yet, but may need to since tofu is not generally available where I live.
Although my copy has the same ISBN as the one shown here, there is a banner in the upper right cover corner that says it's a Revised Edition.
Big Flavors of the Hot Sun: Recipes and Techniques from the Spice Zone
By Chris Schlesinger, John Willoughby, Alan Witschonke
William Morrow & Co - 1994
I love this book and have used it lots. Rarely has there been any kind of disappointment.
The introduction starts with one of my favorite food quotes: "Subtlety in food does not impress me. I like big, loud flavors—sweet, sour, hot, salty, aromatic, pungent, tingling—preferably all in the same bite."
What I *don't* like about this book is that I coughed up money for a hardback and it fell apart almost immediately. This wasn't from abuse, but from poor manufacturing quality. My copy of The Thrill of the Grill (S&W's earlier book) has done the same thing. Shame on the publishers, William Morrow and Company, Inc!
Mediterranean Hot: Spicy Recipes from Southern Italy, Greece, Turkey & North Africa
By Aglaia Kremezi
Artisan - 1996
I picked this book up on a remainder table for a amazingly low price, making it a really good buy. We've really enjoyed all the recipes I've tried. A few have minor problems that should have been caught in the editing, but nothing insurmountable.
LITTLE VEGETARIAN FEASTS: MAIN-DISH SALA
By Martha Rose Shulman
Bantam - 1992
Of course, the real title of this book is Main-Dish Salads.
A small book, but full of really good recipes for exactly what the title says - vegetarian main-dish salad.
Some of the portions seem to be a bit on the small side, or else we eat more that we should.
Marcella Cucina
By Marcella Hazan
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1997
This was my first Hazan book (from either of them), and one of my favorites. The layout and lovely photos make it more approachable then Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. It's still a cookbook I go to when I'm looking for something interesting for dinner.
Recipes include Ahead-of-Time notes which are very handy. In the Pasta chapter, each recipe has a Suggested Pasta section, very useful for learning what kinds of sauce go best with what kinds of pasta.
Favorite Bread Machine Recipes (Magnetic Book)
By Donna R. German
Bristol Publishing Enterprises - 1997
This tiny thing one was of my first ABM books, and the most used until I got German's The Big Book of Bread Machine Recipes. All the recipes here (supposedly, I haven't checked thoroughly) are included in that book, along with the recipes from four(?) other tiny books in this magnetic series.
An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
By Tamar Adler, Alice Waters, Alice Waters
Scribner - 2012
One of the very best food-lit books I've read, really a treat. Elegant and thoughtful writing, as well as some good recipe ideas along the way. I think this book will stay out, to be dipped into occasionally.
Beard on Pasta
By James Beard
Random House Value Publishing - 1994
I think this may be one of the first serious books on pasta aimed at the general cooking public published in the US (1983). It's a good read (it is James Beard after all). There are lots of "standard" pasta recipes, and lots of new-to-me variations. I haven't cooked from it yet, but looking forward to it.
Fresh pasta: Barbara Kafka's Buckwheat Noodles, Avocado Pasta, several versions of ravioli
Dry pasta: Chêvre-Tomato Spaghetti, Orzo Soufflé.
A keeper.
The Greens Cookbook: Extraordinary Vegetarian Cuisine From The Celebrated Restaurant
By Deborah Madison, Edward Espe Brown
Bantam - 1987
Kitchen Scraps
By Pierre Lamielle
Whitecap Books Ltd. - 2009
A new book for me. I've made only one recipe so far, and it was a hit. The book is a great read, very funny with clever illustrations. There are lots of laugh-out-loud bits you'll want read aloud to your partner, annoying him/her to no end.
Totally Picnic Cookbook (Totally Cookbooks)
By Helene Siegel, Carolyn Vibbert
Celestial Arts - 1996
This is a very nice little cookbook, with interesting recipes for, yes, taking on a picnic. They work equally well, of course, if you're just eating them at home.
The instructions can be a bit weak or presume some knowedge of cooking, e.g., an ingredient might be "1 bell pepper, roasted, peeled, seeded, and diced" with no information about how one might roast a bell pepper. No problem for an experienced cook, but if you've never done this, you might like more of a clue.
Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites: Flavorful Recipes for Healthful Meals
By Moosewood Collective
Clarkson Potter - 1996
I've never been a fan of the low-fat fad, but do believe in careful eating. This book has a number of household favorites, and there a still lots of stickies for recipes I mean to try.
The fish section is especially good.
Fast Vegetarian Feasts
By Martha Rose Shulman
Main Street Books - 1986
This is a very good vegetarian cookbook. I would certainly consider it for my Desert Island cookbook shelf. The pressed tofu recipe is worth the price of the book.
Shulman defines "fast" as recipes that can be made in 45 minutes or less. My working definition was usually 30 minutes, since I know kitchen time often expands beyond the time planned. There are quite a few recipes here that will take more than 45 minutes, including a chapter on "Recipes for the Sunday cook".
Nevertheless there are a lot of tasty recipes and good menu suggestions here.
Nothing Fancy: Recipes and Recollections of Soul-Satisfying Food
By Diana Kennedy
North Point Pr - 1989
I really have enjoyed this book. Diana Kennedy, author of the classic books on Mexican cuisine, has written a lovely book about recipes she grew up with and enjoys making.
Desperation Dinners
By Beverly Mills, Alicia Ross
Workman Publishing Company - 1997
In spite of the rather cutesy name, this book is actually quite good. It's full of interesting and tasty recipes that can be prepared quickly.
The Eating Well Rush Hour Cookbook: Healthy Meals for Busy Cooks
By Magazine of Food and Health, Elizabeth Hiser, Eating Well Magazine
Eating Well Book - 1995
This book has 15 menus per season, meals that can be prepared in one hour. When I was working, my definition of a fast meal was only 30 minutes, so I'd have to think about using this book on weeknights.
Each menu comes with a timetable to see you through the preparation. In the one menu I've made so far, this was very helpful for keeping on track. And the food was excellent.
I'll definitely be using this book more often.
Good and Cheap
By Leanne Brown
http://www.leannebrown.ca/ - 2014
This is a book written by a food studies student aimed at helping folks using food stamps to eat well. My first impression is very good.
Like many good cookbooks, the recipes are are guides, lots of variations are suggested.
A PDF copy of the book can be downloaded here:
http://www.leannebrown.ca/
365 Ways to Cook Pasta
By Marie Simmons
Harpercollins - 1996
Yeah, yeah, 365 ways to cook anything, a bit of a silly gimmick. But this is actually quite a good collection of a variety of pasta recipes. It doesn't address making fresh pasta, not surprisingly. Full of good recipes, though.
The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accessories
By David Lebovitz
Ten Speed Press,U.S. - 2007
This is a much-used cookbook, with lots of interesting recipes and many more still to do.
I don't like the emphasis on egg-custard ice creams which are good, but rich, and too much bother for every day.
The recipes tend to be too sweet. I cut the sugar back by about 1/3 and we find them great like that.
Eating Together: Recipes and Recollections
By Lillian Hellman, Peter Feibleman
Little, Brown and Company - 1984
A fun read, with his and hers sections—first reminiscences and recipes from Lillian Hellman; then the same from Peter Feibleman (who wrote a couple of the Time-Life Foods of the World books). They were both from New Orleans and apparently close friends. She died as this book was being readied to print.
I haven't cooked from this yet, but have marked quite a few recipes, more in Feibleman's section.
The Pasta Machine Cookbook (A Nitty Gritty Cookbook) (Nitty Gritty Cookbooks)
By Donna Rathmell German
Bristol Publishing Enterprises - 1993
Not sure why I haven't reviewed this book, since it's one of my go-to books when I want fresh pasta. There are some interesting pasta recipes (although I must say I mostly use Marcella Hazan's two eggs+1cup flour recipe) and lots of good sauces.
There's a section on gluten-free pastas. I haven't tried any of these.
The Bold Vegetarian
By Bharti Kirchner
HarperCollins,Australia - 1995
This book was highly recommended to me at some point, although I can't remember whose idea it was. It lingered on my Want list for a long time before I finally found myself a copy.
After a read through, it seemed to me that I would have saved quite a few stickies by marking the recipes that weren't especially interesting vs marking the ones I'd like to make.
Certainly a good read cookbook-wise with a very appealing selection of recipes that are high on flavor.
Now to the cooking ...
Polenta
By Brigit Legere Binns, Debroah Denker
Chronicle Books - 1996
We've really enjoyed this book, having had several holiday meals from it. I've not used the non-dinner recipes, but will try to correct this omission.
The recipes are generally well written, often with helpful instructive photographs. Most of the dishes also have photos of the final product.
The Italian Slow Cooker
By Michele Scicolone
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2010
There are a number of really good recipes in this book, things I will make again, no doubt. But quite a few, e.g., Calamari Soup and Tomato and Red Wine Sauce, I just don't see why you'd bother with the crockpot.
200 Budget Meals (Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook)
By Sunil Vijayakar
Hamlyn - 2008
This is not a cookbook anyone would choose based on the title alone. I found it when, after having a good time cooking from Vijayakar's 30 Minute Indian, I went looking for other books he had written and found this one very well reviewed at Amazon UK and at a budget price.
Not sure about the budget-ness of recipes using shrimp, calamari, pomegranate, and other vaguely exotic bits of food, but the dishes I've made have been uniformly tasty, easy, and fast to prepare.
Vegetarian Planet
By Didi Emmons
Harvard Common Press - 1997
I've had this book for quite a while, but not used it all that much. Recently it was my cookbook-of-the-month, meaning I cooked from it at least once a week for a month.
This is almost an excellent vegetarian cookbook. There are lots of interesting ideas and unusual combinations, most of which work quite well. As a whole recipes tend to be under spiced/flavored. We frequently used various hot sauces to liven things up at table.
The Banana-Ginger Chutney was an enormous hit. It went well not only with the excellent Jamaican Burgers, but also with boudin noir and foie gras. (Not exactly vegetarian, but there you go.)
Southern Herb Growing
By Madalene Hill & Gwen Barclay
Shearer Publishing - 1987
Yes, it's about herb growing, but it's filled with recipes using herbs, including some old favorites from Hilltop Herb Farm.
Haven't cooked from it yet, but it's a very good read.
Vegetable Harvest: Vegetables at the Center of the Plate
By Patricia Wells
William Morrow Cookbooks - 2007
Somehow this book didn't have much appeal to me. It's been several years on the shelf, barely used. Thinking that it might be a candidate for recycling, I've been using it as my cookbook-of-the-month for July. Wherein we discovered that is *not* a candidate for recyling.
There are lots of new favorite and already standards here. There are several versions of steamed fish, which is a new technique to me (except in East Asian food). The grilled artichokes and the zucchini carpaccio have already been made several times. (DH doesn't like raw zuke, but loves this carpaccio.)
Some of the recipes barely contain vegetables -- fish steamed on rosemary twigs, for instance. Still the emphasis is on lots of fresh veg, and everything is simply prepared and presented. And tasty.
I do have a bottle of pistachio oil to use up now.
The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet
By Pierre Franey
Ballantine Books - 1985
This books is a really good read. The recipe headnotes could almost be published as a separate book.
Each main course recipes is accompanied by a recipe of a side dish, and all can be prepared within an hour. The one main dish I've made so far was delicious.
A recipe for Pommes Vapeur appears a half dozen times, the same but different each time.
A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen: Easy Seasonal Dishes for Family and Friends
By Jack Bishop
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2004
This book has been on my shelf for quite a while. I recently chose it for a thorough read and was surprised how many recipes I had made, mostly quite a while go, athough I'm planning on using it more now.
It's vegetarian, and the recipes are aimed for a family. They are realistic in that nothing takes more than hour to make or uses really exotic ingredients. (Ignore the zucchini blossoms on the cover. They're pretty, but not very available where I am, except in-season, in the potager.)
The book is arranged seasonally, which is good and bad.
Bread Machine Baker
By Elizabeth Harbison
Gramercy - 2001
It surprises me I'm the only one who has this book. It's full of good recipes, most of which I haven't reviewed. Being back in bread-making mode for the duration of the pandemic, I've been baking a lot. Picked this up today. Had forgotten how much I liked it. The only problem is that the breads are all small loaves.
Jump up and Kiss Me: Spicy Vegetarian Cooking
By Jennifer T. Thompson
Ten Speed Press - 1996
Spicy Vegetarian Cooking — sounds like a good idea, but somehow the book doesn't click with me. I've tried a few things, with varying levels of success, but they seem a bit iffy. Not recommended for beginning cooks.
Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco
By Paula Wolfert
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1987
I have the same title, same ISBN, but different cover and different publisher. ???
Under The Lime Tree.Cook!
By Nikki Emmerton
Pyjama Press - 2011
I bought this book because I'd tried and very much liked one of the recipes that appeared in a local expat magazine. It's a thin, square, paperback, quite attractive, with the lovely, cluttered look of a self-produced book. I'm finding several more recipes I'd like to try. All the recipes are vegetarian and many are vegan or give vegan substitutions.
However, the typographical style of the recipe ingredient lists is extraordinarily annoying. I've never seen anything like this and hope never to see it again. The numbers in the quantities (except for fractions) and some of the punctuation marks are ... superscripted! Readability plunges.
Cookbooker's limited formatting for reviews does not allow me to demonstrate, but imagine "75g soft margarine (chilled)" with the 75 and the two parenthesis made smaller and raised from the baseline. The first time I saw "1 onion, peeled & chopped", I was looking for a footnote numbered "1" (odd to put a footnote at the start of the line, I though) and thought the comma (,) was a speck midway up the "n". This conceit appears only in the ingredients lists, thank goodness!
100 Essential Curries. Madhur Jaffrey (My Kitchen)
By Madhur Jaffrey
Ebury - 2011
Yes, another of those books with numbers in the tile. From a series of books by well-known chefs. What I don't like about this book is that it looks like there's nothing new here -- all the recipes are repeats from other Jaffrey books. Which would be OK if the source were indicated on each recipe. Even a list of source books in the back would be better than nothing.
There are *only* recipes. None of the extra information about ingredients or techniques that you might like to have is there.
But it seems to be a good selection of recipes, at least I recognize a number of favorites from my other Jaffrey books. I feel a bit cheated, but if you had to have only one Indian cookbook, this might be a good choice. Maybe.
Ottolenghi: The Cookbook
By Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi
Ebury Press - 2010
Have dashed through the book and marked many, many recipes to try. First impressions ...
- Lots of wasted space. Pages and pages lost to photographs, full page pics of dishes (of minor use) and other food-related stuff (of no use at all). I have the feeling that something like 1/4 of the pages are photographs. No wonder the book is so expensive!
- Way too many recipes for sweets in relation to real food.
- This is clearly not a book aimed at beginning cooks, but there are overly detailed instructions for things like peeling tomatoes which you probably already know how to do. Weird.
- Font is difficult to read.
Will update comments after cooking from this a bit.
Asian Vegetarian Feast: Tempting Vegetable And Pasta Recipes From The East
By Ken Hom
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1997
Despite the title, this is *not* a vegetarian cookbook. One of the mainstay ingredients is chicken stock, which Hom says is necessary because of the added taste. Last time I looked chicken was not a vegetable. Not that there aren't some good recipes here, but the title is a lie.
Recipes: A Quintet Of Cuisines
By Editors of Time-Life Books
Time-Life Books - 1970
Reviewing both the hardback and the recipe book ...
My recipes book is marked as published in 1970, revised in 197, and reprinted in 1975.
This is a bit the odd book out in the series, covering five different cuisines. At least for the Dutch part (actually the Low Countries, including Belgium and Luxembourg), the survey seemed to me very shallow. North African cooking (Tunisia, Algerian, and Morocco) has been trendy lately and the food is especially delicious, so it's a shame to see that area slighted; it could have used a book of its own imho.
Most of the writing read like magazine articles from the old Gourmet magazine, travelogs very author-centric. As a whole, I enjoyed the food I made, but didn't especially enjoy the read.
Recipes: The Cooking of Spain and Portugal
April 30th, 2014 (edited 30th April 2014)The hardback is a much better read than Quintet. It provides a region by region review of the foods of Spain and Portugal by someone who actually lived there.
The recipes are I tried were pretty good, but a bit on the oily side. Also a bit blander than I expected.