Category: Book Reviews

Posted in Book Reviews

Savory Bites: Meals You Can Make in Your Cupcake Pan

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

TV’s cupcake queen “channels her inner Julia Child” with a mind-blowing collection of savory recipes for any occasion (TodayShow).

Hollis Wilder, the first three-time champion of Food Network’s Cupcake Wars, takes the traditional sweet cupcake in a new direction, with fresh flavors and a new savory look. The trusty cupcake pan works just as well for satisfying mini-meals as it does for decadent sweets. Small, uniform portions make it easier to avoid overeating, and the meals are perfect for making ahead of time and freezing for the week in single or family-size portions. Hollis provides tips for having children help with the cooking to make a more memorable family mealtime. With one hundred exciting recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, such as Apple Sausage Breakfast Cakes, Fig and Blue Cheese Tarts, Pumpkin Risotto, and Curried Chicken Salad with Mango, Savory Bites proves a cupcake pan isn’t just for sweets and is sure to please any palate or budget.

L. Lee
5.0 out of 5 stars 
One of my favorite cookbooks and I have hundreds of cookbooks!
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2015
Verified Purchase
I love this cookbook. The muffin tin concept is pretty unique and the diversity of the recipes is really impressive...breakfast, pasta, vegetable, seafood, meats & poultry. Many of the ingredient combinations are very innovative and are easy to make substitutions to suit your taste. The book is very well edited, with extremely detailed instructions. One of my favorite things is that nearly all the meals can be made in advance and they do stay good for up to five days in the frig. I did not think that was possible but they do. I have made at least 10 of the recipes without a loser yet. The spinach & mushroom quiche is a hit with everyone and is great to make ahead for breakfast when you have house guests.
Posted in Book Reviews

The Easy Filipino Cookbook: 100 Classics Made Simple

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

The Filipino cookbook that makes home cooking quick and easy, bringing the flavors of the islands to your own kitchen—from Crackling Pork to Cassava Cake.

Filipino food is a versatile, adaptable cuisine, perfect for cooking and sharing with your loved ones. Each delectable dish is a labor of love―and a proud celebration of Pinoy culture.

The Easy Filipino Cookbook begins with an in-depth history of Filipino food as we know it, as well as culinary influences from around the world. These tasty and traditional Filipino recipes are also simple enough for any home cook and so delicious you’ll feel proud to share with everyone. Kain tayo―let’s eat!

The Easy Filipino Cookbook includes:

  • Regional recipes―This Filipino cookbook gives you a look into flavor profiles for dishes hailing from Luzon, Calabarzon, Bicol, Visayas, and Mindanao.
  • Pinoy prep―Discover essential tools, techniques, and ingredients for popular Filipino dishes, as well as adaptations for an electric pressure cooker or Instant Pot®.
  • Masarap menu―Cook your way through one hundred easy-to-make, classic, and favorite Filipino dishes―including some yummy party menu inspiration to complete any celebration.

The Easy Filipino Cookbook is the quintessential guide to the unique sweet, sour, salty, and bitter flavors of the vibrant and diverse Filipino culture. Mabuhay!

Editorial Reviews

Review

“I needed Roline to write this cookbook. What a great job she’s done being a teacher with her cookbook. Filipino cuisine has always intrigued me, enticed me, and vexed me all at the same time. With all of its different influences, Roline summarizes Filipino cuisine beautifully, with an easy at-home approach. I can’t get enough of her Pancit recipes or eating her fresh Lumpia.” —Elena F. Sirignano, Executive Chef-Instructor Napa Valley Cooking School –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Roline Casper is a speaker, chef, philanthropist, and restaurateur. She received her culinary degree from Napa Valley Cooking School after successfully opening her restaurant, Roline’s Uniquely Filipino. Follow Chef Roline’s adventures on Instagram @rolinesunifil or visit her website, http://www.rolines.com. –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Posted in Book Reviews

How to Win a Cowboy’s Heart Cookbook

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

This fun cookbook is full of charming cooking tips and advice for catching your man’s heart—through his stomach. The belly-filling recipes will satisfy the hardest working ranch hands, cowboys, farmers, and western-loving city folks. The recipes are organized into meals from the first date and “Hand Holdin’ in the Parlor” to when it’s time for “Impressin’ the In-laws.” The shopping list for a well-stocked western pantry will set you up for serving tasty grinds such as Sweet Potato Pancakes, All-Day Red Beans, Smothered Yardbird, Cowboy Cottage Pie, and Stewed Fruit with Sugar Dumplings when that dinner bell rings.


Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

It’s been said that there are many ways to a cowboy’s heart–fast horses, silver-mounted spurs, or fancy tall-top boots–but the quickest and perhaps easiest route is a home-cooked meal. Kathy Lynn Wills’s recipe secrets will show you how to add flavorful cowboy style and frontier mystery to everyday meals. With quick preparation and easy-to-find ingredients, you will be winning hearts in no time with dishes like Chili Relleno Eggs with Stewed Tomato Sauce, Lonestar Buttermilk Custard Pie, Creamy Bean Soup, and Ginger-Honey Flank Steak. Come and get it!

From the Back Cover

Whether you’re “Hand Holdin’ in the Parlor” with Sugar Dumplings or “Waiting Together for the Thaw” over Cowboy Cottage Pie, this collection is the perfect way to celebrate America’s love affair with the West.
Recipes include:
Morning Home Fries
Creamy Corn Bread
Picnic Potato Salad
Double Fruit Cobbler
Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes
Chicken-Fried Steak
Also contains cooking tips and advice and a shopping list for the well-stocked western pantry.

About the Author

Linda K. Gage (illustrations on cover and chapter openings) is an illustrator and fine artist who works in pen and ink, pencil, watercolor, and pastel. She lives in Jordan Valley, Oregon.

Linda Bark’karie (illustrations throughout the recipes) is a western artist who specializes in black and white, primarily graphite. She lives in Pleasanton, California.

Kathy Lynn Wills spends her time among cattle and dogs in the dairy and rural ranchlands of Northern California, writing, cooking, and raising crops. Her blog, whatjameshadfordinner.blogspot.com, reports on her travels and, yes, nightly dinners on the farm.

Posted in Book Reviews

The Easy Puerto Rican Cookbook: 100 Classic Recipes Made Simple

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Master the melting pot of Puerto Rican cooking with 100 classic recipes

Puerto Rican cooking is rich with diverse flavors and textures that come together to create a unique culinary experience you could only find on the Island of Enchantment—until now. The Easy Puerto Rican Cookbook is packed with 100 classic recipes made simple, so you can create mouthwatering meals in your own kitchen with ease.

Discover dozens of weeknight-friendly recipes, including a number of dishes that take 30 minutes or less to prepare and serve. Simplify your routine with recipes containing five ingredients or fewer, one-pot meals, slow-cooker dinners, and more. The authentic recipes in this Puerto Rican cookbook focus on whole foods, so you get all of the incredible flavors of traditional cuisine without the salt, fat, and processed ingredients.

The Easy Puerto Rican Cookbook includes:

  • 100 delectable recipes—Get a true taste of the island with delicious recipes for every meal, from cocktails and small plates to entrees, desserts, and beyond.
  • Staples from scratch—Try 16 staple recipes like Chicharrón de Cerdo (Fried Pork Belly), Mojo Criollo (Garlic Marinade), and Pique (Puerto Rican Hot Sauce).
  • Your Puerto Rican pantry—This beautifully designed Puerto Rican cookbook offers a guide to stocking your kitchen with essentials like annatto seeds, guava paste, and more.

If you’ve been searching for a Puerto Rican cookbook that simplifies traditional recipes without sacrificing flavor, look no further—The Easy Puerto Rican Cookbook has everything you need.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“In this cookbook, you will find traditional Puerto Rican standards that can be executed for daily family meals or elaborate party favorites. Tony lays the book out in an easy to understand format, separating the recipes by ingredients and difficulty. This is a great book for your own personal use or as a gift. As a restaurant owner executing a variety of recipes on a daily basis, this is an easy to use, fun book to sample some traditional Puerto Rican recipes. I highly recommend it.” —Harlan Logan, owner of South Moon BBQ –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

TONY RICAN is a former professional wrestler who’s successfully transitioned to a culinary career. He teaches people how to prepare bold yet basic dishes via his YouTube channel, The Average Guy Gourmet. Tony is also the author of the best-selling The Easy Puerto Rican Cookbook. –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Posted in Book Reviews

The Easy Indian Slow Cooker Cookbook: Prep-and-Go Restaurant Favorites to Make at Home

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Authentic Indian cuisine served up with minimum effort and maximum flavor.

The Easy Indian Slow Cooker Cookbook introduces you to the history, culture, and flavors of Indian dishes and combines them with the modern magic of the slow cooker. It’s an Indian cookbook that lets you get recipes started fast, with minimal prep, and then leave them to cook in a single pot. Easy.

Author, blogger, and popular cooking instructor Hari Ghotra puts a simple, slow cooker spin on over 60 classic favorites—no need to reach for the takeout menu. From Butter Chicken to Chickpea Curry and Red Lentil Dhal, you can discover her own personal take on a traditional Indian cookbook—minus a million pots and pans.

Get cooking—and clean up quick with an Indian cookbook that offers:

  • 15-minute prep time—Most dishes can be simmering in the slow cooker in about 15 minutes.
  • Something for everyone—This Indian cookbook includes delicious meat, poultry, seafood, and vegetarian recipes.
  • Smart shopping—Find an appendix of Indian markets and stores by city, state, and online so you can stock up on all the spices and ingredients you’ll need.

Your favorite Indian dishes are just one pot away with The Easy Indian Slow Cooker Cookbook.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

HARI GHOTRA is a chef trained at Michelin-starred Tamarind’s of Mayfair and the founder of the biggest Indian food digital platform in the UK (www.harighotra.co.uk), where she develops and features hundreds of easy-to-follow recipes, videos, and informative blog posts. Her work has appeared in Huffington Post, the Independent, and the Guardian, among many other media platforms. She lives in London.–This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

“Combining Indian food with a slow cooker offers a winning combination. This book is perfectly timed to help us all reconnect with our slow cookers and offers a wonderful range of recipes.”―Peter Sidwell, Founder of Simply Good Food TV

“With vibrant images throughout and informative writing both on the origins of these classic dishes and how to use this often neglected piece of equipment (the slow cooker), Hari has changed the way we look at and cook Indian cuisine. The book includes recipes to suit all tastes, including vegetarian and meat dishes, sides and even dessert! This is the perfect book for anyone with a busy lifestyle.”―Tony Rodd, Chef at Copper and Ink

“A genuinely useful, informative book. Hari makes a virtue out of the slow cooker appliance as it chimes so perfectly with the traditional slow cooking required for many Indian dishes―dishes you can do 15 minutes of prep for, then leave to cook to perfection while you get on with other things.”―Karen Barnes, Editor of delicious. Magazine

“These mouth-watering recipes will inspire you to create fabulous Indian-inspired soups, dhals, curries, rice dishes and sweets at home with minimum effort and maximum flavor. A must-have for all lovers of Indian food and fuss-free cooking.”―Saira Hamilton (@SairaHamilton)

“Hari’s book isn’t just full of recipes, there’s a ton of information about all the regions of Indian cuisine, how to get the best out of your slow cooker and even how to make your own spice blends.”―Jamie Spafford from Sorted Food (@JamieSpafford from @sortedfood)

“This is one of those cookbooks you know you will turn to again and again―and of all the cuisines, Indian is the one that really does taste so, so much better when made yourself. Who knew making real, fresh Indian food could be so convenient?”―Rachel Brady, http://www.mrsrachelbrady.co.uk

–This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Posted in Book Reviews

The French Cook: Sauces

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

From the award-winning food writer and author of Mashed, a step-by-step, French cooking class on sauces with an array of recipes to create.

This is the first in a series of French cookbooks that will simplify and demystify French cuisine for all of those who love it and would like to bring it home to their American kitchens without traveling outside their homes.

Here Holly Herrick creates a French cooking course all about sauces, filled with beautiful how-to photography and step-by-step techniques that will have you making sauces like a pro. The book focuses on the five mother sauces of French cuisine: béchamel, veloutés, hollandaise, espagnol and brown sauces, and les sauces tomates. In addition, Herrick devotes chapters to fonds, or stocks, the base of so many sauces, and mayonnaises, a simple, versatile sauce so widely used in classical French cuisine. In addition to the sauces, the book integrates main course ingredients, such as steak or roasted chicken, something more than to be dressed with a sauce, but also something that helped to shape the sauce itself. With myriad variations and derivatives on each basic sauce, this book can transform your next meal into a veritable French feast.
“A balanced selection of recipes for sauce spinoffs and the entrees they are intended for. Standouts include a richer, simpler alternative to bouillabaisse (Lobster Tail, Littleneck Clams and Sea Scallops With a Saffron, Chive, and Butter Béchamel Sauce). Also notable is Veal and Pork Meatballs in a Velouté Sauce, in which herbes de Provence, Dijon mustard and chopped shallots combine to produce what might be described as Swedish Meatballs on Steroids.”—Wall Street Journal

Continue reading “The French Cook: Sauces” →
Posted in Book Reviews

A Taste of Greece

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Greek Cooking Made Easy with Authentic Greek Recipes (Best Recipes from Around the World)

From ancient times to the modern day, Greek cooking has evolved to be some of the healthiest around the globe. Greek culture has given a loving name for their own food; they call it “the food of the Gods.” With a focus on including whole and local foods, the Greek diet helps to maintain heart health and prevent the development of diabetes, and some areas of Greece are recognized as having some of the lowest cancer rates in the world.

And it’s not just good for us; it’s delicious! Greek food is hailed across the world for its amazingly textured cuisine that provides a perfect balance of different flavors. Greek foods are naturally healthy and full of flavors, reflecting the culture’s deep and sentimental attachment to their local food.

Continue reading “A Taste of Greece” →
Posted in Book Reviews

The French Slow Cooker

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Plug it in and Cook with French Flair

“I’d bet that if French cooks could get their hands on Michele Scicolone’s French Slow Cooker, which is filled with smart, practical, and convenient recipes, they’d never let it go.” — Dorie Greenspan, author of Around My French Table

With a slow cooker, even novices can turn out dishes that taste as though they came straight out of the kitchen of a French grandmère. Provençal vegetable soup. Red-wine braised beef with mushrooms. Chicken with forty cloves of garlic. Even bouillabaisse. With The French Slow Cooker, all of these are as simple as setting the timer and walking away. Michele Scicolone goes far beyond the usual slow-cooker standbys of soups and stews, with Slow-Cooked Salmon with Lemon and Green Olives, Crispy Duck Confit, and Spinach Soufflé. And for dessert, how about Ginger Crème Brûlée? With The French Slow Cooker, the results are always magnifique.

Continue reading “The French Slow Cooker” →
Posted in Book Reviews

The Italian Slow Cooker: 125 Easy Recipes for the Electric Slow Cooker

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree


Finally, a book that combines the fresh, exuberant flavors of great Italian food with the ease and comfort of a slow cooker. Michele Scicolone, a bestselling author and an authority on Italian cooking, shows how good ingredients and simple techniques can lift the usual “crockpot” fare into the dimension of fine food.


Pasta with Meat and Mushroom Ragu, Osso Buco with Red Wine, Chicken with Peppers and Mushrooms: These are dishes that even the most discriminating cook can proudly serve to company, yet all are so carefree that anyone with just five or ten minutes of prep time can make them on a weekday and return to perfection.


Simmered in the slow cooker, soups, stews, beans, grains, pasta sauces, and fish are as healthy as they are delicious. Polenta and risotto, “stir-crazy” dishes that ordinarily need careful timing, are effortless. Meat loaves come out perfectly moist, tough cuts of meat turn succulent, and cheesecakes emerge flawless.

Continue reading “The Italian Slow Cooker: 125 Easy Recipes for the Electric Slow Cooker” →
Posted in Book Reviews

Instant Pot Italian: 100 Irresistible Recipes Made Easier Than Ever

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

A must-have cookbook for Instant Pot fans and those just getting to know its miraculous capabilities, with 100 recipes for favorite Italian dishes.

The Instant Pot has made getting dinner on the table easier than ever. And Italian food is a perfect partner for your Instant Pot—think rich and meaty braises, one-pot pastas, risotto, stuffed artichokes, and more. This authorized Instant Pot cookbook offers 100 delicious, sure-to-please recipes for weeknight cooking and beyond. Recipes take advantage of the Instant Pot’s many settings, allowing you to perfectly sauté and simmer a variety of dishes with just the push of a button. Long-cooking foods like grains and beans (Fall Farro with Pears and Walnuts, Corona Beans with Tomato and Sage) as well as slow stews and braises (Tuscan Beef Stew, Chicken with Creamy Artichoke Sauce) finish in half the time of stovetop cooking. But other hacks and surprises abound, too—set-it-and-forget it recipes for focaccia, quick pickles, no-oven-required cakes and cheesecakes, and even DIY ricotta.

The Reviews

A. Purse
5.0 out of 5 stars.
 Excellent Book,
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2021
Verified Purchase
So far I’ve made the chicken liver pate the rigatoni alla vodka the farfalle with sausage spaghetti carbonara and pasta à la vodka. Every single dish is a 10. I have original Italian recipes that I’ve used for years and these recipes are just as good and much much more convenient. Frankly to me this book is a wonder: in half an hour you can make incredible Italian food and the taste is perfection.
iluvag
5.0 out of 5 stars. 
I love Italian Food and my Instant Pot!
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2023
Verified Purchase
I have quite a few of these Instant Pot cookbooks. I've been eyeing this book for awhile, because I love Italian Food, but did not purchase it, because frankly some of my recent book purchases from Amazon have not arrived in the best condition. Definitely unfair to the sellers who take care, but I was really getting tired of receiving new books that were mangled during shipping because of inadequate shipping packaging! I finally decided to get this book, and I'm so happy I did! The recipes sound really, really good! But, in addition to that, this seller wrapped this book so well, that not even the Post Office could damage it. It arrived in absolutely perfect condition! Can't wait to try these recipes in my Instant Pot!