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Showing posts from October, 2012

The Good Cook Series

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Soups by Time-Life Books My rating: 5 of 5 stars Every cook should have a set of The Gook Cook series which was published by Time Life between 1979 and 1983. They are organized by cooking subject (Fish, Soup, Cookies & Crackers, etc.). They were edited by the brilliant Richard Olney and written by many food writers who went on to become well known. Each has a brief but comprehensive history of the topic followed by 80 pages of detailed techniques accompanied by detailed photos. The last 80 pages contain around 200 recipes from around the world, spanning 300 years, many of which were translated for the first time for these books. It is hard to imagine any dish or technique that this series does not cover. Want to make your own food dye? This is your series. Want to make a basic broth? This is your series. Want to make a birthday cake? This is your series. There are 28 volumes (see the list at Wikipedia ), all of which I picked up at used book stores fairly cheaply.

Review of The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn

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The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks by Kathleen Flinn My rating: 3 of 5 stars I was captivated by the book's beginning in which Kathleen Flinn tells about becoming interested in a woman and daughter grocery shopping. Fascinated by the prepackaged and "mix" foods in her cart, she began stalking them and eventually wound up helping them replace all the highly processed meals with the ingredients for homemade. Key to this was scribbling recipes and simple instructions. This encounter led to Flinn's epiphany that there is a generation of women (and people in general, actually) who don't have the first idea of how to cook. Never taught to cook by their parents, they are equally ignorant of nutrition. Flinn selected 10 worthy candidates and began her Kitchen Counter Cooking School to educate not only them as cooks but also herself in the ways of how to communicate simple kitchen kn

Tandoori Pizza

This is also from  James McNair's New Pizza . It is a delicious adaptation of Indian flavors to pizza and we really like it a lot. Tandoori Pizza Use  Garlic-Glazed Chicken Pizza recipe as your guide, incorporating the changes below. Step 1: 1 c. yogurt 2 T lime juice 2 T grated ginger 2 T minced garlic 1 T paprika 2 t garam masala 1 t salt 1 t cayenne 1-1/2 lb boned and skinned chicken breast halves or thighs Combine yogurt through cayenne to make a marinade. Marinate chicken for a minimum of 4 hours up to overnight. Preheat oven to 500°. Place chicken on a rack set over a shallow roasting pan and roast 10 minutes for breasts or 20 minutes for thights. Let cool. Chop into small bite-sized pieces. You can refrigerate chicken at this point. Just bring it to room temperature before making the pizza. ========= Step 2: 1 recipe of  California-Style pizza dough  (use sesame oil instead of olive oil; use no cheese in the crust, substit