southerncooker's Profile

From: Boomer, NC USA

Joined: January 3rd, 2010

About me: I collect cookbooks and love to cook and try new recipes. I tested recipes for Leite's Culinaria for almost eight years. I learned to cook from many good southern cooks including my Mom, Dad, several Aunts and my Grandmothers. My children and husband also like to cook and try new foods and recipes. My son still lives with us but our daughter is married. She often visits to cook with me. We are adventuresome eaters willing to try new things.

Bourbon Roasted Pork Loin from Everyday Dorie: The Way I Cook

This was delicious. I know she says in the book not to use the good bourbon but all I had was Woodford Reserve so that's what I used. I marinated for about 8 hours in fridge. Loved the apples and onions... read more >

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book reviews (117)
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southerncooker's Reviews

Cookbook Reviews

Cooking From the Hip: Fast, Easy, Phenomenal Meals

By Cat Cora, Ann Krueger Spivack
Houghton Mifflin - 2007

This book is divided into five sections: Fast, Easy, Fun, Phenomenal, and Good
to Know. It also includes resources for hard to find ingredients, which some
people find really helpful. It has beautiful color photos and lots of notes
from Cat throughout the book.

Cat Cora is the Food Network's only female Iron Chef and I enjoy watching her
compete on that show.

I made the Two Bean Salad with Hearts of Palm and Blue Cheese and it was
great. It was so pretty layered in my glass pedestal serving bowl. I did have trouble
finding Sherry Vinegar so I used 1/2 red wine vinegar and 1/2 rice wine
vinegar. I also used black beans instead of kidney since I forgot to get more
kidney beans and had a couple cans of black beans already in the cabinet.
Dexter likes black beans better anyway. He also wants me to leave out the
chick peas and make this one again.

Cat encourages you to "cook from the hip" (hence the title of the book),
taking these recipes as guide lines. She suggests using what you have on hand
or your family enjoys and making substitutions if desired, which I did. This
is a beautiful, fun book to read, cook from and enjoy.