Queezle_Sister's Reviews
1394 recipes reviewed. Showing 51 to 100Sort by: Book Title 
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The America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook: A New, Healthier Way to Cook Everything from America's Most Trusted Test Kitchen
By America's Test Kitchen, America's Test Kitchen, America's Test Kitchen, Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine, America's Test Kitchen
America's Test Kitchen - 2010
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating
By Barbara Kingsolver
Faber and Faber - 2008
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.
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Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours
By Dorie Greenspan, Alan Richardson
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2010
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 ;)
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Excellent chocolate flavor (13 daughter rates a 5, probably her brother agrees). These were served in lovely puff pastry shells. Very rich chocolate flavor.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
By Jeff Hertzberg MD, Zoe Francois
Thomas Dunne Books - 2007
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Website: Baking Bites
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.
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Website: Baking Bites
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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Baking: From My Home to Yours
By Dorie Greenspan
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2006
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.
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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.
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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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