| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 29th January 2011)This was a very edible brussel sprout dish. I liked the sweet tart apples along with the brussel sprout and nutty pine nuts, but somehow the flavors didn't come together for me. Next time I will, instead, go back to a tried and true oven roasted brussels. |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 18th February 2011)We go through a lot of yogurt, and I've been wanting to reduce my plastic consumption. My first attempt led to a slimy failure, but my second attempt produced some of the best yogurt ever!
What did I change? I used 2% instead of skim, I heated the milk to 190F rather than 170, and I used a better incubation method. This second time, I made a water bath in a small cooler, and I let it incubate a fairly long time (8 hours). Oh, and I also snuck in about 1T sugar (suggested on a different web site).
If I can make yogurt like this consistently, goodbye plastic tubs! |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 26th March 2011)Polenta is my newest breakfast love.
This is a typical recipe - and I modified it to make it more breakfast friendly by replacing 2/3 of the water with fat free milk.
The recipe also recommends adding nuts and dried fruit. I toasted some roughtly cut raw almonds (400˚F for about 10 minutes), and added them, along with a handful of currents, and a tiny bit of brown sugar. It was heavenly. |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 6th April 2011)This lived up to its promise of being quick (about 20 minutes start to finish) and delicious.
The first time I made this, the initial browning of the tofu took me twice as long as Heidi suggested - probably 8 minutes . The second time I increased the heat, and they browned beautifully - so make sure your pan is hot, and for me, I had the flame at medium-high. I did not have cilantro either time I prepared this, and my substitution of tarragon seemed OK. No Brussels sprouts, so I substituted cabbage - and the time I used red cabbage, it was really beautiful. I also followed the suggestion of adding cooked brown rice. The combination was great. The slight sweetness of caramelizing the tofu with some brown sugar contrasted nicely with the sharp flavor of the cabbage. I also found it was improved by addition of pepper. |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 9th April 2011)The most painful part of making chocolate chip cookies (other than acknowledging all the calories) is forming individual cookies. I was immediately drawn to this recipe for 2 reasons: it cooks as a single large cookie (in a skillet), and it uses whole wheat flour.
I found the dough to be very stiff, but it seemed to bake up OK. The cookies had a nice whole wheat flavor, which I loved, but it might not appeal to everyone. They also had a good salt/sweet thing going on.
A dangerous aspect of these cookies - its too easy to keep slicing a tiny bit more, and then a tiny bit more...
If I remake these, I will definitely be adding walnuts. And I didn't have bar chocolate, so used chocolate chips. |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 19th May 2011)This was pretty - a nice green color and the coconut gave it a very nice look. Having read Wester's review, I more than doubled the spices. But really you couldn't taste the cumin or mustard seed or the coconut - but it gave us an overall impression of just too many different flavor hints. I won't bother with this dish again. |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 8th July 2011)I had high hopes for this soup - ginger and cumin are two of my favorites, and I had two bags of fresh peas in my CSA box. But for me and my family, this was not that great. The recipe calls for a lot of garlic - 10 cloves. We all felt the flavor was too heavily garlic. I could taste the ginger, but with only 1/4 tsp cumin, it was hard to detect above the garlic.
If I make this again, I'd use 2 cloves of garlic, use a lot more cumin, and be sure to have the right blending instrument.
I did use fresh mint as a garnish and lemon juice, but for me, it didn't save this soup.
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| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 28th July 2011)Smooth tart-creamy soup with intriguing flavors!
This soup uses zucchini and potatoes, shallots, cooked with some fresh rosemary, and blended with buttermilk. I didn't serve this soup till the day after I made it, and it was fabulous. I vowed to eat more cold soups, and I did have some of this cold. But then I also tried it warm, with feta, and it just POPPED. Great flavor!
I am surprised at how much I like the buttermilk in this. I'm not a fan of American buttermilk, but it worked well in this soup. |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 28th July 2011)Quick, relatively healthy, but a bit too salty.
This cake uses 1/4 C butter (which I browned, a suggestion from the author) and 2 eggs. I bought WW pastry flour for this recipe, and because I've been having baking powder issues, I used only 75% of what was called for (1 T). The cake rose beautifully, and it has a lovely texture. Its only a little sweet (only 1/2 C sugar), but it has too much salt.
Now its really something for my family to say "too salty". We buy the sea-salt Lindt chocolate, and call it crack. But this cake has 1/2 tsp salt in the batter, and then another tsp of kosher salt sprinkled on top (in addition to 3 T coarse sugar). The top is nice and crackly, but the overwhelming flavor is salt, not the lovely 1 C of home-grown raspberries!
This cake makes up quickly, and bakes quickly (took me 27 minutes). But I'd recommend only using 1/2 tsp salt on top. |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 1st August 2011)Soba noodles and miso broth. Great for a quick summer dinner.
We garnished with swiss chard (rather than spinach), green onions, and cilantro.
This needed a bit of salt, but honestly, I think we should have used a bit more miso. I'll use this basic recipe again! |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 30th August 2011)Excellent corn flavor, and enjoyed by all.
I was really mad at this recipe in the beginning because at 6:30, I realized that the timing was dead wrong - it cannot take only 15 minutes of cooking when the first step says 15 - 30 minutes. But Heidi's instructions to cut the potatoes really small (1/4 inch), some of the cooking steps really were fast. My total time for preparation was about 45 minutes, and I move fast.
No picture - sorry - it looked like dishwater. My expectations were really low. But wow - the flavor truly packed a fresh summer garden flavor.
My husband loved the yogurt-harrissa mix-in. Dinner started with a complaint - no meat again, but one sip and that crazy talk ended! |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 14th November 2011)This was a pretty simple lentil soup - made even easier by cooking the lentils in the pressure cooker. I substituted garden swiss chard for the spinach, and a red onion for the yellow - these substitutions seemed minor in the final product.
I found I needed to punch it up a bit with extra cumin, salt, and pepper. Also I added the lemon juice, tasted for flavor, about 15 minutes before serving. However, something happened in those 15 minutes to diminish the lemon flavor. Luckily I tasted right before serving, and added another ~ 1 1/2 T. |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 25th February 2012)It was so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so good!!!!!!!!!!!!! I loved them there is nothing better to eat than a quick and easy healthy meal like these for lunch. They are technically appetizers but they can work as a whole meal if you make enough! I cooked the tofu so that it was very crisp on the out side (the way I like it). It took quite a while, but turned out crispy and brown on the outside and soft on the inside. My mother was glad that they didn't take very much time to make, and that I was willing to cook it! I really like crispy tofu, and this is a great way to use it. Make plenty.
We also added some avocado to some of the rolls -- that added a wonderful creamy texture and of course great flavor.
13 daughter
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| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 27th December 2012)Nice simple approach to brussels sprouts. They did brown up nicely, but I prefer the oven-roasted ones, as I think that gets them crispier.
These are made especially good by the last-minute addition of a bit of grated Pecorino cheese. |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 13th May 2013)An excellent chocolate pudding. Easy to make, healthy, and delicious.
I substituted Grand Marnier for the amaretto to get the chocolate-orange rather than almond flavor. And next time I will probably use ginger liqueur.
A highly adaptable recipe that is sure to please anyone - vegan or not! |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 26th December 2014)We prepared this punch for our Christmas Eve dinner party. I really liked that it wasn't too sweet, and that one could dial down the alcohol by addition of sparkling water. It is a gin and prosecco based punch, with additional flavor from rosemary simple syrup and ginger juice. Getting several tablespoons of juice from a ginger root was the most difficult step of the recipe, and the overall flavor went well cheese-based appetizers. |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 26th December 2014)Festive and delicious, but very rich.
This dish comes from independently preparing three parts - whipped cream (soft peaks), a custard (egg yolks, sugar, and peppermint liquor), and beaten egg whites. I used my stand mixer for the whipped cream, which was a strategic mistake, as it left me with a regular bowl and either a hand whisk or my stick blender (whisk attachment) for the egg whites. Nevertheless, when the three parts are ready, they are folded together, chunks of peppermint sticks mixed in, and then put into individual serving dishes. I used those small plastic drink cups, which I think were too big (it was a rich dessert after a heavy prime rib dinner).
Too much peppermint - I used peppermint schnaps, and next time I would cut it by 1/3. The other thing is that it was difficult to judge the amount produced. I needed 11 desserts, and was using cups larger than the shot glasses suggested in the recipe, so I doubled it. That made a lot - probably twice what I needed. Nobody will be sad about that, but just saying... |
| From: 101 Cookbooks (reviewed 7th August 2015)This is a bare-bones recipe that is infinitely adaptable to the vegetables on hand. We used kale, brown rice, poached egg, za'atar, capers, and salted yogurt. It was a bit bland, and I think it needed some sort of sauce. A bit of miso-ginger sauce would have elevated it. |
| From: About.com food (reviewed 21st August 2011)Light and cheese-onion as the dominant flavors. These were easy and lighten the zucchini backlog.
I discovered this recipe first through The Kitchn, and found both their suggested link (with lovely photographs), and an earlier on-line version that attributes the recipe to a magazine, link above.
Its a bit involved - salting and draining the zucchini - but I saved time by freezing and grating the butter prior to cutting in. I also cut the 6 T butter to about 5T, as I consider the cheddar as another fat contribution.
I also substituted a small fresh onion from my CSA box for the green onions.
The result - light and crunchy, a delightful cheddar/onion flavor, and lovely flecks of green. Try them! |
| From: About.com food (reviewed 22nd November 2014)This is a special dutch spice mixture which is similar to pumpkin pie spice. This recipe provides the components and their ratio. The only negative is that if you only need about 1 tsp, you are stuck trying to estimate 1/20th of a tsp. For me, that is no issue, I just wing it. However I asked my engineer husband to prepare the spice mixture, and the exacting engineering side of his brain wasn't happy with "wing it". Nevertheless, this provided an interesting flavor for my Dutch apple pie, and the Dutch friend who organized the dinner told me it smelled authentic. Many thanks to BethNH for pointing out this recipe. |
| From: About.com food (reviewed 22nd November 2014)Lovely flavor, but a very frustrating pastry dough. The dough is composed on eggs, flour, and butter - no water at all! It did come together in my (new) stand mixer, and I doubt I would have had the patience to make it by hand. The recipe's comments note the sticky nature of the dough, and the authors suggests not rolling it out, but instead to pat it into shape with wet hands. Instead I did roll it out, but between parchment sheets. To move it into the pan (a springform is called for), I had to refrigerate it (over night), and even still, had to pat the rips back together.
The pastry was sweeter than the filling, but both turned out quite well. I used speculaaskruiden spices, and a mix of granny smith and fuji apples. The dough did puff up while baking, and I was impressed at how beautiful it was when finished cooking. However, slicing and serving really wrecked the tablecloth - very messy. |
| Great chocolate flavor, definite butter flavor, and a very soft tender texture.
These are prepared by melting butter, adding cocoa, and when cool, mixing in sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs (3!), and flour.
Because I do not own a 9 X 9 pan, I had to choose between and 8 X 8 (my usual choice) and 8.5 X 11. The 8 X 8 is significantly smaller than the 9 X 9 (64 sq inches versus 81), while the 8.5 X 11 is 93.5 sq inches. I chose the larger pan, and while the brownies are somewhat thin, there are lots of them.
For me, these took 20 minutes, and they are NOT overcooked. |
| From: Ad Hoc at Home (reviewed 6th February 2011)These potato cakes were good - but suffered because we have become big fans of the sweet potato hash from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook.
I found these to be not so challenging to flip - I used my bench knife to assist the spatula. I liked the addition of scallions, and the potato starch was genius - they really did make cakes that stuck together. But I didn't like having to use as much oil as is needed to keep the potatoes sizzling.
I will try applying the potato starch technique to sweet potatoes - a hybrid Ad Hoc/Zuni sweet potato cake. |
| Flat breads filled with spinach and scallions. Heavy on the garlic (yum), this dish really worked. Don't forget the yogurt sauce; we also served with hummus.
My son had tasted this dish at a farmer's market in Palo Alto, and so recreated it at home. The bread part is almost exactly a tortilla, but prepared with olive oil. We didn't make the potato filling, only the spinach.
I recommend cutting way back on the oil for the final frying of the filled bread. A tasty and unusual dish. |
| From: All Recipes (reviewed 31st December 2010)This is a very reliable recipe, and one I've been enjoying since my childhood. Although this is not a pretty thing, it makes an awesome cake that sort-of floats in a thick chocolaty sauce.
How many rich-tasting deserts use only 2 T of oil for the entire 8 servings? No eggs, either. So I like this because its fairly low fat, but lots of flavor.
Note: I bake this for about 5 minutes less than they suggest. I think this results in a generous amount of the pudding. Cooking longer, or letting it sit for a long time, changes the ratio between sauce and cake, and not in a good way.
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| From: All Recipes (reviewed 21st March 2011)Great creamy texture! This is an excellent breakfast dish for someone with new braces. I followed the advice in the All Recipes reviews for this recipe and used mostly milk (2C skim milk plus 1C water), and coarse grits. This cooked up in about 8 minutes, and tastes great with a bit of salt and pepper. |
| From: All Recipes (reviewed 3rd May 2011)I'm forever in search of the perfect chocolate pudding cake. These things feel like my life - they look like a disaster, until at the end it all comes together. You make a thick batter, sprinkle sugar and cocoa on top, then pour on boiling water. The result is a cake floating in a small sea of hot chocolate pudding.
This recipe differed from Chocolate Pudding Cake II in that it took one extra T oil (3T), and it included 1/4 C chocolate chips.
I always make a big mistake when making this dish. The cocoa is to be divided between the cake and the topping, but in my giddy haste, I add it all the the cake, and then spend 10 minutes trying to pull out half of it. So always, the cake has too much cocoa. This time was no exception.
Still not perfection, but sometimes its all about the journey. |
| From: All Recipes (reviewed 17th July 2011)Moist and flavorful! These burgers contain sundried tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh oregano, lemon juice, etc. The recipe called for ground chicken breast, but the best I could do was ground turkey. It worked just fine!
After mixing up the meat, etc, you form patties, and then press feta cheese into the center, folding the meat over, and reforming the patty. This worked better than I had hoped - but do be sure to crumble the feta.
I also worried that the patties were very moist - but my husband put them on the grill, and they came back looking great!
We ate these with tzatziki, also from All Recipes (link below). It really hit the spot on a hot summer day. |
| From: All Recipes (reviewed 17th July 2011)Fantastic Tzatziki - cool but with a good zing from the garlic and lemon.
This recipe specifies that you need 10+ hours. But boy did we manage to cut corners. Drain yogurt overnight? Nah - just instead of laying it in the colander, tie up the corners of the cheese cloth and hang it - water comes out much faster. We let it go for maybe 20 minutes.
Drain grated cuke for 2 hours? Nah, only 15 minutes.
Refrigerate at least 2 hours after combining ingredients - you guess it - nah - try 10 minutes.
I had thought this would be runny and harsh, but the texture was perfect. We did add a fair amount of salt and pepper, but the flavor was great. I'll definitely return to this recipe.
We used the sauce with Greek Feta Burgers, link below. |
| From: All Recipes (reviewed 19th July 2011)Crunchy green beans with a well flavored sauce! I found fermented black beans at my Asian grocery, and was excited to try to recreate this, one of my favorite of Chinese dishes. I liked that it called for both ginger and garlic. However, it called for only 3 minutes of cooking, without stipulating the size of the beans. I picked up green beans at the farmers market, and they were pretty big. We cooked these for almost 10 minutes, and they were still rather crunchy.
I think this recipe has potential but it doesn't quite come up to Chinese Restaurant level. Of course, its probably got much less oil, too!
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| From: All Recipes (reviewed 3rd August 2011)Wedges of cabbage, nestled in aluminum foil, and grilled till done.
These were flavored with a pat of butter, a bit of garlic salt and Lawrey's seasoning salt. I liked the easy cooked cabbage, but thought the spice combination was a bit boring. I will likely repeat - but maybe with tarragon and a wedge of lemon??
I used a gas grill - at first on medium, moved to low after about 5 minutes. You can tell that the bottom is slightly burnt - so I'd advise just keeping at low the entire time. Cooking time about 30 minutes. |
| From: All Recipes (reviewed 14th August 2011) This cake was inspired when i was thinking about pistachios and cake at the same time. I stumbled on this recipe and decided to give it a try. It was soft and had an almost angle food like texture, I thought that it would be more pistachio flavored but it barely had any pistachio flavor at all. The only really good part was that it was easy to make and looked pretty cool. The flavor was not terrible but it was not what I expected. It also took very little oil (1/4 C).
12 daughter |
| From: All Recipes (reviewed 27th December 2011)Great flavor - mocha chocolate - moist and tender, but very rich.
My 16 yr old son prepared this for our family Christmas dinner, in part as an assignment from his French teacher. It has a very spongy cake made with 5 eggs, separated, and beaten egg whites. We had trouble knowing when the cake was done - it never bounced back to a touch, but seemed to be done (we cooked it 4 minutes more than the suggested 12-15 minutes).
A filling of whipped cream, sugar, and instant coffee was spectacular. Not too sweet, and it really kept the cake moist.
On top of the rolled cake, a mocha buttercream frosting was spread, and then textured with fork tines to mimic bark.
A great job done by my son, and a delicious cake (affectionately called "a piece of wood" by my kids). I almost missed getting a photograph - it went quickly. |
| This modest-looking recipe produced a beautiful side dish - long carrots with a lovely glaze and bits of herbs. The cumin etc. nicely complemented the carrots, didn't overwhelm them.
This cookbook was a cookbook club selection. A bit difficult in the winter, when the farms are not cranking, but should be great come summer. |
| An unusual carrot cake!
Som problems with the recipe - go by the volume and not the estimated number of pounds of carrots. For me, the 1 lb of grated carrots gave me a full cup more carrot than the 2 1/2 cups called for in the recipe.
Moisture here comes from the vegetables and 1C mayonaise (no oil). The flavor was amped up by 1/4 grated fresh ginger and hazelnuts. I toasted the hazelnuts for a bit more flavor.
The frosting was also unusual. It was a cream cheese frosting that used molasses for flavoring. Wow - good by the finger and on the cake. |
| Lovely rich flavor from the ham and red bell potatoes, yet light from the mostly-egg-white-eggs. You are instructed to cook the eggs and then put just a bit of Parmesan cheese on it, then the pre-made ham etc. filling.
This recipe was a natural for us - we had leftover ham (reviewed here) and egg whites from preparing lemon curd. It was greatly enjoyed by all four eaters at my house. |
| Great texture and amazing flavor. This cookbook gives a basic biscotti recipe (almond biscotti), and then suggests two variations (chocolate-hazelnut and orange-anise). This particular version takes toasted anise seed and orange zest, and those flavors come through in a lovely and not overly assertive way.
This cookbook also had very nice instructions - it includes pictures of patting out the log, cutting the cookies, and the second baking. My husband prepared these to bring to his buddies at work - the instructions were clear and he had a stress-free baking experience.
I'd recommend this recipe for anyone. With its lower calorie (70) and fat content (only 4T butter and 2 eggs for 30 cookies), these delicious cookies could be prepared for any occasion. |
| I prepared this for a special birthday breakfast for myself. Its a bit involved -- steel cut oats are sautéed in butter and then toasted, then cooked in a water/milk mixture for 20 minutes, then figs, salt, honey and vanilla added - and another 10 minutes of cooking. But the effort was worth it. The steel cut oats were just slightly chewy -- just the way I like. And the figs and honey give it just the perfect sweetness and flavor.
And lucky me -- I've got enough for all week! |
| Great flavor, but problematic recipe.
13-daughter prepared this cake for my birthday. It was a good choice - lots of lemon zest and a healthier, lightened cake.
The major problem was that the cake fell. My daughter was so sad! I think one reason it fell because the recipe instructs you to rotate the pan half way through cooking - but the cake seemed to be highly vulnerable then. Another factor that probably contributed to the cake falling was that there were no high altitude instructions.
The cake also stuck to the pan, but that might reflect inadequate greasing on our part.
We applied a citrus glaze (page 461), which was a nice addition. |
| Soft and fudgy, sweet but not too sweet, and it forms that nice top crust that I normally associate with box mixes! There are distinct butter and vanilla flavors, a rich chocolate flavor, and the perfect texture.
This recipe does dirty up three bowls (never a good thing), but I think its worth it. Weights are given as well as volume!
Three forms of chocolate - bittersweet chocolate (we used semi-sweet chocolate chips), cocoa, and chocolate sauce (we used this one). The recipe also includes one egg plus an egg white, and a bit of low-fat sour cream. I think they would be even better with toasted walnuts.
Very precise instructions for testing doneness allows you to pull it out of the over before it overcooks, but for us cooking time was 28 minutes, not 20-25. Also, we didn't believe these had to cool for two hours, they tasted great after 25 minutes cooling time. |
| Good cheese flavor, but not the perfect recipe.
This is a stove-top Mac & Cheese, not baked. It was prepared by 13-daughter. We couldn't find the reduced-fat cheddar cheese called for, and so used the normal full fat version. Our major problem was that there was too much sauce for the amount of noodles. We countered this by adding a generous layer of panko - but wished we'd cooked about 10% more noodles. |
| For a nice chocolate cake, this came together quickly. It produced a light cake with good chocolate flavor and only 2g fat per serving. We served it with just a sprinkle of powdered sugar, and it made kids and husband smile. |
| This was a full meal - lots of vegetables, whole wheat penne pasta, in a broth-based sauce. Nice flavor but it needed a bit more salt.
The recipe suggests that it serves six. However, it probably could serve at least 8 - it makes a lot!
This was prepared by 13 daughter and her father. I am lucky indeed. |
| An impending vacation but a big bag of pears gave me the impetus to try this recipe. The key here is that the fruit and crunchy topping are first baked separately. Also, the topping has a lot of chopped up almonds.
I baked the topping a bit longer than suggested - it was slower getting crunchy. I thought I'd overdone it. The topping is then poured over the fruit, and baked another 10 minutes. It sat about 20 minutes before I served it, and it was perfect. Crunchy top, which becomes soft where it contacts the pear. And not very sweet - just the right touch of sweetness.
This is definitely a recipe to remember, and put into active rotation. |
| Delicious sauce with many vegetables (celery, carrot, onion, mushrooms) and a bit of ground turkey. Not the prettiest sauce, but it had a good mild flavor. Be sure to add a bit of pepper. |
| A very nice fritatta - the flavor was enhanced by including lemon zest and goat cheese with the eggs. The combination of mushrooms, asparagus, and onion was lovely.
The recipe calls for 12 eggs and another 6 whites. Instead, I used five eggs, three large, and two came from our tiny silkie hen. Nevertheless, I used the called for amounts of other ingredients.
The cooking instructions went well. Mine stuck a bit to my cast iron frying pan, and so it didn't come out of the pan as nicely as the one in the pictures, but it tasted great. |
| Crunchy, nice hazelnut flavor, slight chocolate flavor.
I prepared these for my son to munch on while he takes the USAMO (USA Math Olympiad exam). These were a sentimental choice, as I used hazelnuts from the my Aunt's farm, and she just recently passed away.
Tasted great with my morning cup of coffee. The recipe in this book is simple, relatively low fat, and is accompanied by great pictures and detailed instructions. But I don't think these are quite as good as ones with anise. |
| A fine salad - but didn't thrill me.
A bed of lettuce, layered with potatoes - cooked, dressed in a mustard-lemon sauce, and salmon. The recipe also calls for green beans, but no beans here, so we skipped that.
I like the general concept of this recipe. The salmon-potato combination was pretty good. Lettuce from our garden yielded a spider on 13-daughter's plate, which added excitement to the meal.
This is a fine way to use leftover salmon, but I wouldn't cook salmon just for this recipe. |
| Who knew kale could make a delightful smoothie?
Kale, 1% milk, oj, banana, 2 tsp sugar, frozen peaches (recipe called for apple, but I sub'd the peaches because I had them), and ice cubes. I wasn't expecting much, but it tasted great. |
| This recipe presents a simple way to cook sugar snap peas. First they are sautéed to give a bit of color, then they are steamed, and finally, when the water is gone, a bit more oil is added, along with soy sauce, sugar, rice vinegar, and garlic.
All that messing around with lovely local snap peas had me worried that they would be over-cooked. To my surprise, these were perfect. A bit tender, but with a good crunch, and an excellent sesame touch. |
| Nice flavor and texture. These waffles used both WW and AP flour, and buttermilk helped them to be light and tender. A full batch was OK for four of us. These were a bit fussy as the eggs are separated and the whites folded in. But aside from the extra bowls, they tasted good. |
| This lasagna was OK - but nothing special. It is a "lightened" version, and my kids thought it was vegetarian (though it contained chicken).
The cheese layer was made with cottage cheese (my substitution for ricotta), mozzarella, Parmesan, and fresh basil. Because its not in season, I substituted in a basil-garlic-pine nut mix (pesto without cheese).
I ran into one unexpected problem. The recipe suggested a 9 x 13 inch pan, which I did. The instructions say to place 4 lasagna noodles per layer, but I could only fit 3. Each noodle was maybe 11 or 12 inches long, so there was a bit of space on the end of the pan. Have any of you noticed this?
This was enjoyed by the teenagers, but I won't bother with the recipe again. |
| A nice change from my usual vinaigrette. This dressing uses buttermilk, light mayonaise, and low fat sour cream (for which I subbed greek yogurt). Its flavored with grated Parmesan cheese, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, shallot, pepper, and garlic. It was a creamy dressing with a nice tang. |
| An excellent set of instructions that leads to tender and flavorful pork. I followed the brining instructions (page 240), brined for 30 minutes, dried, seared, baked, and tented. So many processes - none of them difficult but they do keep you tied to the kitchen.
I prepared this using this Apricot-Orange Glaze. |
| Extremely easy to prepare and the flavor packs a big punch. I skipped the chopped dried apricots, as my home-made preserves had plenty of chunks.
I used this glaze for this pork tenderloin. They were a match made in heaven.
I have not prepared a pork tenderloin for years - everyone enjoyed this low fat meal. |
| Easily prepared from garden and pantry items, this healthy dish is tasty, but a bit bland.
Zucchini are sliced, salted, and water squeezed out. They are mixed with oil, garlic, and herbs, as are some tomatoes. These two vegetables sandwich a piece of chicken, and the whole thing is sealed in foil packets, and baked.
One nice thing about this dish is that there few dishes are dirtied once the packets are in the oven, and they cook just the right amount of time to get the kitchen cleaned up.
I served this with short-grain brown rice (my favorite). Substituted thighs for breasts, and lime for the lemon. The basil was pretty much lost, I didn't taste it, despite it being lovely fresh leaves from my garden. But the tomatoes were wonderful.
Just OK, nothing amazing. |
| The fish turned out moist and perfectly cooked at the 18-minute timepoint, but the crumb coating was not all that great, and it took a lot of work.
If I make this again (and I might), I will use Panko instead of making whole wheat crumbs. I will also increase the spices in the egg batter. This will turn it from a one-hour hand-on prep time recipe to about 10 minutes of hands-on time. It is certainly a lean fish dish, and that I did appreciate. |
| An easy sweet quick bread, a bit of yogurt keeps it light, and toasted walnuts provided a bit of bitter counterpoint. Only the smallest hint of cinnamon and nutmeg, not distracting. |
| Easy - and no mayo! For this crunchy slaw you prepare a warm dressing (vinegar, mustard, honey, etc), dress the prepared fruit & veggies, and chill it for an hour. I substituted a new-season gala for the granny smith that the recipe suggested.
As is typical for me, I didn't prepare ahead and so only refrigerated for about 15 minutes. Instead of boiling the dressing, I simply warmed it up in the microwave.
I really linked the tangy flavor of this slaw, and would definitely make it again.
This slaw accompanied salmon burgers for dinner (costco); DH and I enjoyed a child-free dinner on the patio, watching the sun set. |
| Confession: I skipped the porcini and shallots (none on hand), and instead used this recipe as a guide for braising. I used only four chicken thighs, and found that the recipe produced a very tender chicken, but in general I find thighs are pretty consistently tender. The liquid is lovely, and I saved it for another day, as I wanted to try the chicken with this Fig-Cranberry Sauce. I think it would have been better, though, with the suggested sauce. |
| This is a simple salad dressing that uses lemon juice as its acid, shallots, and fresh herbs. Because its winter, I replaced the fresh herbs with some frozen basil/garlic/olive (pesto minus cheese). |
| This couldn't be easier - a tub of washed arugula, grapefruit segments (supremed), and crumbled Feta. I used the suggested lemon herb dressing, which was a perfect complement.
Not only easy, the flavors went together so beautifully, you'd be very happy if this were served to you at a restaurant - and even more so to get it at home. |
| Easy and delicious!
Chicken breasts are pounded into thin cutlets, dipped in flavored flour, then egg white, and finally a panko-parmesan mix (we substituted Asiago). The breasts are baked for 8 - 10 minutes, and the result was tender, moist, and flavorful.
We skipped the suggested topping of tomato sauce and mozzarella. I thought it was a perfect stand-alone meal, but my son (home from his first semester at college) opined that it would be elevated by an acidic sauce, perhaps tomato, and perhaps something creamy. But his room mate, who is joining us for the holidays, said it was perfect, and way better than anything served in the dining hall (faint praise, but very cute).
This came together quickly, and I wouldn't hesitate to prepare it again. |
| Sweet potatoes cooked with onion, garlic, and spices - thats great. Now pair it with chopped up Swiss chard, and its approaching nirvana. We also added some sharp cheddar cheese.
12 daughter dislikes Swiss chard, but loved this! A great way to consume those leafy greens.
I found I could really pack in a lot of chard -- I sliced it up into slivers (across the leaf), and piled it an inch deep inside the tortilla. Cooking it caused the chard to wilt a bit - making it easy to eat - not wet, and still a bit crunchy. Do dry it well, though, before cutting.
I slipped when adding the chili powder, and was surprised at how good it tasted.
Note page number here is inaccurate, please help me cookbookers - I found it mentioned but no recipe in the book itself. |
| The combination of flavors and textures, along with ease of preparation, propels this recipe to a "5". In place of brioche, we used a rich fig bread (from Costco). We used a home-made marmalade (lime kumquat), and of course drizzled the nutella on top. Each of these three simple ingredients is wonderful, but the combination is more than the sum of its parts. Just fabulous. |
| This is a very simple soup to put together - and it probably took me only one hour, start to finish. I also really liked that it is fresh and low fat.
The recipe tells us to puree the soup, and the best I could do was an old food processor. I was in a hurry, and didn't do a very good job of the puree - still rather chunky. We might have liked it better with a smooth texture.
We tasted this as the original recipe and the version with Parmesan cheese. Both were good, but there seemed to be something missing.
Two of us rated this 3, and two of us rated this a 4. I decided it was on the low side of 3.5, so setted for 3. |
| Very easy to prepare, and a delicious side dish. I used green cardamom, and it gave a fairly strong flavor which I liked. Some thought the rice was strong on its own, but everyone agreed it was great with a strongly flavored main dish (I served this alongside the curried chicken and vegetables, also from this cookbook and reviewed here).
I carried out the initial steps - onion saute, rice saute - in a sauce pan and then transferred it into my rice cooker, along with chicken stock (better than bullion) and lemon zest. Fragrence while cooking was amazing, and the rice cooker approach worked well. |
| This is an easy recipe to prepare, and very fun for each person to open their "papillote". The combination of chicken and vegetables was well balanced. The flavor was good - not really hot, but very nice. It could easily be spiced up by additional curry powder.
I substituted chicken thighs for the breasts, and used frozen peas.
We will definitely be making this again. |
| This recipe involves first preparing chicken broth with herbs, lemon, and garlic, and then using this broth to cook potatoes. I used some lovely little red-skinned potatoes. Preparing this dish put a wonderful aroma in my kitchen, but the effect on the potatoes was minimal. The potatoes clearly tasted good, but how much better than boiled in water? To us, just a bit better. |
| YUM YUM YUM.
It was my plan to prepare enough to serve some with dinner tomorrow. I scaled up by 50%, so should have had enough for six servings (and there was a lot). I served some to my husband and 15-yr-old son, who had already eaten dinner. Somehow, ALL the beans disappeared, none for tomorrow!
Part of the wonderful flavor comes from pancetta, some comes from the butter. These are not what my doctor had in mind when she said to eat more vegetables, but they were amazingly delicious. |
| Socca is an amazing and addicting thing, and it needs only one uncommon ingredient - chick pea flour.
I made this to reward my daughter's performance at her gymnastics meet, and my basis for comparison is the recipe at the David Lebovitz web site (see my other review). I think I like the Lebovitz version a bit more -- it is flavored with cumin rather than rosemary. Also I tried following the instructions to cook this in cake pans. For me this was really difficult - they stuck in the pan and broke into tiny pieces when prying them out. The remainder I cooked in my cast iron frying pan - and it worked better.
If you have chick pea flour, make these using any recipe. You'll love their crunchy goodness. |
| This is a pretty typical recipe for hummus. It does instruct you to take the little green thing out of the center of the garlic (which I did), and it used the standard chick pea-tahini ratio. I compared 4 recipes before selecting this one - I like that there was no addition of oil. Adding cumin was suggested, but optional. I added it, and found that the hummus was very well flavored. It was excellent with a fresh baguette, cucumber slices, and avocado. |
| This made a very light salad dressing with a delicate flavor. I used hazelnut oil (in place of olive oil, as suggested in the recipe), and served it on a salad made with lettuce, cucumber, pear, and craisins. It was great, perfect with the fruit. |
| I've never before made gougeres, or anything like it. It seemed so odd to me to boil water&milk, mix in flour, etc. Dorie Greenspan cautions the cook about how the ingredients go together, and her advice was right on.
Our batch only puffed a bit - like a cookie - but I think it was my fault. To get enough flour, I had to combine all-purpose, bread, and a bit of whole wheat. We will try these again when the pantry is full. |
| I tend to be a purist - nothing is better than unadorned steamed broccoli. But I decided to fancy up the broccoli this time, and I'm glad I did.
This easy recipe makes broccoli that combines garlic and lemon zest, and just the tiniest hint of mint. On the down side, it also includes a fair amount of butter (which I halved).
Son (15) gave it a 5, daughter (12) didn't like the smell, but I also loved it, so we compromised on a 4.
I think if you had family members who don't like broccoli, this recipe might allow you to convert them. |
| Simple and very good. This is the easiest way to prepare rhubarb (short of eating raw, dipped in sugar). Rhubarb is tossed with sugar and some orange zest, and baked. The rhubarb retains more of its structure than if it were a pie filling, or prepared on the stove top, and its a bit on the tart side (in a good way).
I usually freeze chopped rhubarb, thinking I'll use it in the winter, but it typically looks terrible, and so I throw it out. I'm thinking that freezing batches of this roasted rhubarb might keep better, and it would give me something that could be served in a variety of ways.
The recipe suggests serving with yogurt or on a cake, great ideas, but we put a bit on ice cream (vanilla), and that was good, too. |
| This is a very basic vinaigrette - red wine vinegar, olive oil, and mustard. Given that this is a French cookbook, I used my (French) Maille Dijon Originale mustard. I was afraid this mustard would be too strong, but it worked perfectly.
Everyone loved it - it needed a bit of pepper, but is easy, and extremely versatile. I could imagine lots of variations with addition of various herbs. |
| Simple and good.
I love a 2 ingredient recipe - this one calls for lemon juice and olive oil. We substituted lime juice (suggested as an option in the cookbook). The cookbook was a little unclear about how much oil to use, we used approximately 2:1 oil to juice ratio.
I should also mention that this cookbook lists its salad dressings under "viniagrettes", which always slows me down when using the index to find the correct page. |
| The concept here is that zucchini masquerades as pasta in this refreshing summer salad.
Added to the zucchini is cucumber, onion, lemon, nut oil, and a lot mint. I didn't have a sweet onion, so diced a regular yellow, and soaked it in cold water for an hour. It was not hot at all, so that did the trick. I didn't have pistachio oil, and so substituted hazelnut oil. The nut oil was very subtle.
I was happy to use up some zucchini with making this, but my kids didn't really like it. If it were crunchier, it would be better. I did like the mint and lemon combination.
**update** The recipe warns you not to make this ahead, and so I almost tossed the leftovers. So thankful I didn't - I might like it more today. Maybe this is a better adult salad than a kid's salad, and it makes a really nice lunch on a hot day when you decided to skip going to work ;) |
| Either you love beets or you do not. This recipe is unlikely to convert you if you fall into the latter category, but if you like beets, you are likely to enjoy this.
Beets are first roasted, then are peeled, sliced, and marinated in a mixture of lime juice, honey, and herbs. We left ours in the refrigerator over night. The lime and honey were detectable, and nicely complemented the earthiness of the beets. |
| This is a simple set of instructions - slice up your grape tomatoes, drizzle on olive oil, salt, pepper, add garlic and rosemary, and roast. The temperature is low, and the time called for long.
I used this strategy to slow roast a pan of roma tomatoes. Because they were much larger than grape, it of course took a lot more time. After four hours (bedtime), I turned the oven off. In the morning - perfectly reduced tomatoes.
Nerd that I am, I weighted them before and after. The four hours removed 50% of the water, and a small taste showed that it intensified the flavor considerably. I've packed them away in the freezer for our inevitable cold weather.
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| A simple and very delicious roast chicken. The cook is advised to put a slice or two of bread under the chicken, in the roasting pan. This holds the chicken above the juices, and becomes a delicious snack after roasting. We used carrots, potatoes, and an onion, nearly the end of this summer's CSA.
Two options are presented to the cook for finishing off the chicken. You can either leave it in the pan, or, like I did, put it on the cutting board with the breast down (and tail up). I selected the second choice, as this was supposed to get juice back into the breast meat. Indeed, the chicken was perfectly cooked, and the breast was moist.
The vegetables were really awesome - again perfectly cooked.
I rate this a "4", as I'm hoping to test all of Dorrie's roast chicken recipes, and am leaving room in the rating scale for something totally awesome.
The ingredient list calls for 2/3 C dry white wine, but I only found one place where 2-3T were suggested. I think the rest was intended for the cook!
By the way, after reading AJ's review of chicken breasts, and her endoresement of Costco's organic chicken breasts (which we do not have here), I purchased costco's whole organic chicken, which I used here.
That bit of bread under the chicken -- its good enough to just eat that (and toss the chicken). |
| A delicious chicken dish, and it looks beautiful!
This is the dish that is pictured on the front cover - and 13-daughter exclaimed as we cracked the bread sealing the pot - wow - it looks just like the picture!
The most interesting thing about this dish is its use of preserved lemon. I found a jar at my local "pars" market - a mideastern shop. It was called lemon pickles. You cut off the peel, boil it in sugar water, and add it to the broth. It gave the dish a very subtle exotic flavor.
I liked that this dish uses a lot of vegetables. I couldn't find small onions in my market, and so just used a large one, sliced. I also halved the garlic (2 heads instead of 4).
The meat was very succulent, the broth delicious, and the vegetables cooked perfectly. This is a lot of work, though, as you must brown the vegetables and chicken before assembling, and assembly requires the extra bread-like stuff that seals the lid in place. |
| This was a delicious full flavored soup. It was prepared with whole milk, There was great leek flavor, and it wasn't too rich. Brussels sprouts were added to the soup, and croutons and grated cheese were passed to put on top.
This was the first course of a cookbook club, and it set a high bar. I was surprised at how good the Brussels sprouts tasted in the soup.
This recipe is definitely a keeper. |
| This barley dish had a lot of fresh and crunchy vegetables. It had a lovely flavor, and the barley was a good texture. This was a side dish in a cookbook club dinner with all courses prepared from this cookbook. This seems to be a versatile recipe and could be modified by many different additions. |
| Excellent chocolate flavor (13 daughter rates a 5, probably her brother agrees). These were served in lovely puff pastry shells. Very rich chocolate flavor. |
| This side dish could easily also be a main dish. A pumpkin is stuffed with an amazing array of wonderful things - including bread, bacon, sausage, cheese, herbs, and cream. My friend has prepared this several times - although butternut squash generally tastes better, preparing this in a pumpkin gives you the lid to keep it closed, and it turns our moister.
This dish was prepared with butternut and acorn squash for our cookbook club. It was a lovely side dish. |
| Amazing flavor - the complex spiciness from the curry and cardamon, with the excellent fruit flavors from apples, figs, yellow raisins, and apples, tempered the potential gaminess of lamb. The result was a very thick stew. Because there were so many complex ingredients, each bite contained emphasized a different flavor.
This took me about 2 hours to have it cook all the way through. The recipe says it makes 6 servings. I made just shy of a double batch, and the 11 people at our meal only ate half of it.
This recipe is a definite keeper. |
| This was OK, but the other roast chicken recipes in this book are better.
This is an easy and straight forward dish. A bed of vegetables is prepared in a dutch oven (after a bit of sautée in EVOO), the salted and peppered chicken placed in the pot, and roasted at high temperature with the lid closed. Herbs called for were bay leaf, thyme, and rosemary.
The difference here is that you add 1/2C Armagnac (or cognac or brandy, I used cognac because it was what we had).
The aroma was heavenly, the chicken moist, and the vegetables nicely cooked. But the sauce that resulted from the roast chicken was disappointing. The cook is instructed to add 1C water, and stir until it is thickened. Huh? The recipe called for no thickeners. I tried following the instructions, and then added a bit of Wondra flour to actually make it a bit thicker. |
| Great apple flavor. As described by AJ, the batter more or less just coats the apple chunks. It becomes a lightly texture with great rum flavor.
We used a combination of jonagold (not great apples) and granny smiths. The cake seems adaptable for all sorts of apple varieties.
I had difficulty telling when the cake was done baking. I had used a 9 inch rather than 8 inch springform pan. The cake had baked 55 minutes before I took it out. The top was still sticky, but it tasted really great. Next time I will cook it a bit longer. |
| Its not really just 5 minutes a day, but it is a very quick approach to preparation of yeast bread.
This master recipe serves as a template for a host of variations. The idea is that one prepares a very simple no-knead dough (similar to those of Bittman, Cooks Illustrated, Sullivan St. Bakery, etc), and prepares a large batch. It is then aged in the refrigerator, where is is supposed to take on better (sourdough-like) flavors.
Because we were almost out of yeast, my first dough was for a single loaf, and it was refrigerated only one night. The resulting bread was beautiful, with a great bounce in the oven, but it wasn't as flavorful as I would like.
I now have a 3-loaf batch in the refrigerator, prepared with the addition of malt, and will report back if I learn anything unexpected.
update: the extra malt does contribute to a higher rise! This bread is delicious, and much appreciated by my family. My daughter also suggested that I should buy the book - its that good. |
| This baguette starts with the basic master recipe, and largely just varies it by how the loaf is shaped, and how it is treated just before baking (brushed with water).
I had varied the master recipe by cutting down the amount of yeast (to 1T, not the 1.5T), and by adding diastatic malt (1T for 6.5C AP flour).
The first thing I noticed was the rising time; the dough took off and was overflowing the large container within an hour. The malt contains enzymes that break down starch (amylase), helping the yeast to grow and introduce their wonderfully flavorful by-products to the bread. Probably I can further reduce the amount of starter yeast. I also added about 1/3C of the previous batch of dough, in the hopes it has more of a sourdough-like population of microbe. This suggestion came from reviews of the book that I read somewhere - probably amazon.
The baguettes are not like those of Paris, however they have a very crispy - wonderfully crunch - crust and a soft custardy inside. They were also beautifully browned (said to be encouraged by the additional sugars liberated by the malt). My daughter rated them 5, but I think 4 is more like it, optimist that I am, hoping to find a baguette that will take me back to Paris.
Note that the other boule loaves baked with the malt-added recipe were also wonderful. Some crackled very loudly, entertaining us, and matching what the book said would happen. |
| A nice loaf with some whole grain. This is a no-knead approach, with the dough made mostly from white, but also including a bit of rye and whole wheat. It turned out a very respectable loaf, and with good flavor. |
| This is an easy way to make an ok 100% whole wheat bread. Mine did not have great internal texture - it was a bit too wet despite cooking for longer than called for. It was not nearly as nice as this 100% whole wheat bread, but it did take considerably less effort. |
| From: Baking Bites (reviewed 1st April 2013)This was a perfectly respectable coffee cake, but it wasn't anything all that special. I am faced with too many kiwi (impulse buy at costco), and was intrigued with the idea of baking with them. This recipe makes a large coffee cake (9 x 13 inch pan), a very standard recipe with butter milk. We substituted frozen blackberries for the raspberries. The blackberries ended up at the bottom of the cake (probably raspberries would have done better), and the kiwis basically disappeared.
On the plus side, 14-daughter was able to make this almost all by herself. The instructions were good, and one could do a lot worse than this simple cake. |
| From: Baking Bites (reviewed 15th March 2014)Chocolate crumb crust, made from chocolate wafer cookies, sugar, salt, and butter was superb. The filling - made in the usual way with custard poured on chocolate, then once slightly cooled, folded into whipped cream and placed into the pie.
The filling was only slightly sweet, and perfect with the crust. The filling might have been a tad too stiff, next time I might use only 80% of the called-for gelatin.
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| These cookies have everything I like in a chocolate chip cookie. The cookie matrix is soft in the middle and crunchy on the edge, it has good notes of caramel and butter, and including pecans is just genius.
My only complaint is that the baking time was wrong. The recipe suggests 10-12 minutes, but mine were definitely done by 8 minutes, and bordering on overcooked at 9.
Yield estimate of 48 was right on.
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| I prepared this recipe as it was written, and loved the result! The muffins were moist, the raisins were just little nuggets of sweetness (not overpowering), and the muffins themselves had just the right amount of sweetness.
The color inside was also lovely - a perfect orange color. I might pump up the ground ginger and other spices next time, but maybe mine are just getting too old?
I am still playing with my new oven, and prepared these using convection bake. They turned out a tad browner than I had expected, and was initially disappointed. However they were all extra crunchy - telling me that the heat was well distributed - and the inside was so nice and moist that the final result was just perfect.
I prepared these for my daughter, for the first breakfast of her four-day weekend with no school. |
| These muffins are wonderfully lemony, they have a crunchy exterior, and a tender crumb. I substituted greek yogurt for the sour cream. The yogurt created a creamy center and gave it just a little more of a pop in flavor. |
| With more chocolate than flour, these are some really rich brownies. In addition to 2 types of chocolate and butter, at the end, you fold in 6 oz of cut up york peppermint patties. We selected this recipe to prepare for my son's care package because he likes chocolate (who doesn't?) and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Can't send ice cream, but this has that minty feel to it.
My only negative is that the cookies were difficult to get out of the foil without breaking them. Somewhat brittle, but all those broken pieces were not put to waste (but possibly to waist) :0
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