The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Super Easy! By Ree Drummond

 

As a working mother, the “Super Easy!” part of this title called to me. I have previously read and enjoyed Drummond’s autobiography, a previous cookbook, and some of her children’s books.  I will admit that recipes from her past cookbook that I had were very tasty, although one was too hot for my midwestern taste.  I was eager to try out this new cookbook. 

I was happy to see that recipes had a hot and a not so hot option for people like me that like some spice and not a lot.  There were a lot of great chapters including breakfast, apps & snacks, salads, soups & stews, pizza & sandwiches, pasta & grains, easy skillets, lovin’ from oven, terrific tex-mex, and desserts.  There is also a section on superhero shortcuts and top nine must have cooking staples to save time.  As a busy mother, I already use most of the shortcuts and have the cooking staples in my cupboard. . . except for canned peppers and hot sauces!

Each recipe has beautiful pictures that show the final product and all of the steps to make the dish.  There is a paragraph about the recipe, an ingredients list, and then step by step instructions with pictures for each step.  The only thing that was confusing when making the recipes is that the step-by-step pictures go in columns from top to bottom, left to right, rather than just left to right like when you are regularly reading a page.  At the end of the recipe is a list of variations that can be used on the recipe to change it up.

My husband Ben made the Teriyaki Chicken Sheet Pan Supper recipe for us for dinner one night and it was delicious.  Even our picky kids liked the chicken.  We did use green onions rather than asparagus as that is what we had on hand.  It was a delicious, relatively easy, and healthy dinner after work one night.  We have other recipes tagged that we will try out soon.

Overall, The Pioneer Woman Cooks:  Super Easy!  Is a great cookbook with interesting new recipes for busy nights after work.

Book Source:  Review Copy from William Morrow. Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Cookbook Club by Beth Harbison

The Cookbook Club was a delightful book about three very different women in the greater DC area who are going through a lot of life changes and meet each other in a cookbook club. 

 Margo Everson has her world shaken when her husband Calvin leaves her and moves across the country.  As she tries to determine where to take her life next, she starts to follow “Boozy Crocker” on Instagram and discovers there is a cookbook club in her area.  She attends a meeting and makes new friends.  Margo loves to cook and makes YouTube videos to show her parents and their Florida community friends how to make healthy meals.  She also has an old farmhouse her ex-husband doesn’t want that she needs to fix up.  When an old friend comes to town for some time away and decides to become the tenant, Margo may rectify missed opportunities from the past.

 Trista Walker was a lawyer, but she recently left the firm to take over a bar / restaurant.  It’s her dream to bring her unique vision of meals to the city and make is a success. What better way to try out recipes than on a cookbook club? 

 Aja Alexander meets her boyfriend’s very wealthy mother and decides to help her out with her gardening problem.  Things become awkward when she realizes she’s pregnant and her boyfriend dumps her.  How will Aja move forward?

 I enjoyed all of these characters and their stories.  I also loved the cooking and food discussions as I love to cook myself.  There are some recipes at the end of this novel that I need to try out – they look fabulous.  The author published four cookbooks before she started writing women’s fiction, so she knows what she is writing about.  I also love that she started cooking as a child with Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls.  I enjoyed that as well when I was a child.  I love that this book shows the power of friendship, believing in yourself, and good food.  It was a delightful read in such a dreary year.

 Overall, The Cookbook Club is a charming character driven story with descriptions of wonderful cooking and food.  I enjoyed it!

 

Book Source:  Review Copy from William Morrow Books. Thank-you!

The What to Eat When Cookbook by Michael F. Roizen, MD, Michael Crupain, MD, MPH, and Jim Perko, SR, CEC, AAC (TLC Book Tour)

 I don’t know about you, but I am always looking for another good cookbook.  It’s even better if the cookbook can help me to eat healthy delicious food.  Being in my forties now and having a mostly sedentary job, this has become particularly important.

 The What to Eat When Cookbook starts with Section 1, “The When Way.”  The quote it starts with is perfect, “Eat only when the sun is up; eat earlier, less later.”  I do make this biggest mistake and eat the most at the end of the day for supper.  This book states that we should be consuming 80 percent of your daily calories before 3 PM.  My Great Grandparents had it right, their large meal of the day was at lunch with a very small supper.  I think the large problem with this right now is having kids who are hungry for a full dinner after 3 PM.

 The book also stresses the three P’s, “plan, prep, and plate.”  It rightly states that many of our unhealthy choices are because we go with what is easiest with our busy lifestyles.  If we plan out our meals a head of time, we will be more successful.  We mostly do this at my house, although we have been known to slip in pizza when are too tired to make dinner. 

 There is also a great chart of what are “YES!” foods and what foods to limit or try not to eat at all.  I thought this was a very handy guide.  It also has a great list on how to get started including recording what you eat for five days to note your patterns, swapping the no foods out, having a large salad ready to eat when you are hungry, etc. 

 Chapter two gives a great list of items to keep stocked in your kitchen at all time including spices, oils & vinegars, produce, meats, nuts, seeds, & grains, dairy, canned & packaged goods other, and tools.  There is also a great chart of ingredient conversions between pounds and cups for cooking certain ingredients.  I also love that there is a great section about sanitation.  I used to teach microbiology and environmental health, so I love that!  There are basics on preparing and cooking. 

 The majority of the book is filled with interesting and tasty recipes.  There are beautiful pictures, prep and cooking times, the amount of servings, the serving size, health information (calories, etc.), ingredients, detailed instructions, helpful tips, and an overall summary of the recipe.  I really liked this.  In particular having the health information right on the recipe really helps when you are on a diet. 

 Our favorite item from this cookbook is really a cooking hack, one recipe discussed getting Salmon burgers at Costco and simply frying them in olive oil with salt.  We picked them up and they are my husband and my favorite now.  My husband likes to make them into sandwiches, and I like them just plain with some salt.  We usually just eat regular salmon, so it is nice to have a different way to get a healthy meat into our diet.  We also tried about a braised mustard chicken and liked that as well.  My husband particularly liked that it was different than are usual chicken dishes and he really liked the onions.

 The one problem with this cookbook was that it was hard to find ingredients for some of the recipes at our small, rural grocery store.  Our kids unfortunately are also not taken with the healthy recipes (besides the Salmon burgers, which they like), but I can see this in particular becoming a favorite as the kids get older.

 Overall, The What to Eat When Cookbook has great recipes, but also great tips on how to eat healthier. 

 Book Source:  Review Copy from National Geographic as part of the TLC Book Tour.  Thank-you!  For more stops on this tour check out this link.

About The What to Eat When Cookbook

• Hardcover: 304 pages  

• Publisher: National Geographic (October 20, 2020) 

 This inspiring cookbook/strategic eating plan--sequel to the wildly popular What to Eat When--offers 125 delectable recipes geared to longevity, weight loss, and success. 

 In their acclaimed lifestyle guide What to Eat When, Dr. Michael Roizen and Dr. Michael Crupain revealed when to eat foods for healthier living, disease prevention, better performance, and a longer life. The key, they assert, is eating breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper. Now, in this mouthwatering sequel, they deliver 125 recipes to put these lessons into practice. From a fiber-rich pasta dish loaded with healthy and fresh tomatoes and a creamy lemon dip and homemade crackers to satisfy your snack cravings to a salmon burger you'll love to eat for breakfast (yes, breakfast!) and a healthier, decadant chocolate mousse--a treat that also offers hormone-boosting ingredients before you hit the gym. Each dish is paired with practical information about the nutrients and benefits of the ingredients, plus expert cooking tips, what portion size to eat when, and helpful subsitutions. Covering breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert--and the best times to eat all four--this highly anticipated sequel to Roizen and Crupain's best-selling eating guide offers a plethora of meals that will get you through the day, and extend your life by years! 

Purchase Links

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

About the Authors

DR. MICHAEL ROIZEN is the Chief Wellness Officer at the Cleveland Clinic, Chief Medical Consultant on The Dr. Oz Show, author of four #1 New York Times best-selling books, and originator of the popular RealAge.com. He is board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine. He's been recognized with an Ellie, an Emmy, and the Paul G. Rogers Award from the National Library of Medicine for Best Medical Communicator. 

DR. MICHAEL CRUPAIN is the Medical Director of The Dr. Oz Show. He is board certified in preventive medicine, a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine, and part-time faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Prior to joining The Dr. Oz Show, he directed food safety testing at Consumer Reports. He is an Emmy award-winning producer and sat on an USDA advisory committee. 

JIM PERKO is the executive chef for the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute and the Center for Integrative and Lifestyle Medicine. A graduate of The Culinary Institute of America, he has apprenticed for the American Culinary Federation 1976 US Culinary Olympic Team and cooked for scientists on the 1977-78 US Antarctic Expedition. Perko is the founder of the national award-winning program Food Is Knowledge.

Sasha in Good Taste: Recipes for Bits, Feasts, Sips, and Celebrations by Sasha Pieterse, Photography by Elizabeth Messina

I love cookbooks and have a nice collection of them.  My very first cookbook was a Betty Crocker cookbook that my Dad gave me when I was 18.  I’ve received and collected many cookbooks since then and love to try out new recipes. My kids are in on the act now too and pick out recipes to try as well.  I’ve been using this to get the kids to try new things.  When they pick it out and cook (or help to cook it) they want to try it out. My fourteen-year-old son has become quite the baker. 

Sasha in Good Taste is a beautiful book that looks like the pictures are set for Instagram.  The book is split into the following chapters:  But Why, Though, Savory, Sweet, Sips, Party Prep, It’s all in the Details, and Party Prep.  This book is mostly about entertaining guests.  In the “But Why, Though” section, I figured out that Sasha was an actress on Pretty Little Liars, she’s lived all over the world, she likes to eat healthy, and entertain.  The book has a lot of pictures with interesting ways to decorate and to set up snacks for guests.  The pictures were fun to look at.

The book was light on actual recipes.  The kids and I looked through it to pick out some recipes to make.  I also looked through the alcoholic drinks with my husband to pick out a few to try.  Unfortunately, many of the recipes had ingredients that were not available where we live without driving to a specialty store in a larger town (lavender extract, elderflower liquor, pink Himalayan sea salt).  We didn’t try out those recipes.  We decided to try the “Dirty Diana” chocolate cookies.  My 14-year-old son also made his favorite chocolate cookies so we could compare.  The Dirty Diana cookies lost the cookie battle and were just okay. The recipe had cane sugar in it, and it was large and crunchy even after cooking.  I pulled them out as directed before they were all of the way done, but they were still dry.  I had added a bit of water to the dough to help with the lack of liquid before I cooked them as well as they were too dry to shape.  I think more eggs or addition of milk or water was needed for the recipe.  I could make the cookies taste better with some tinkering on the recipe, but we will probably just stick to my son’s recipe.

Overall, the pictures and ideas for setting up a party were excellent, but the recipes were sparse and needed hard to find ingredients.  The one recipe we tried out was lackluster.

Book Source:  Review Copy from William Morrow Books.  Thank-you!