Great Books

"There are two kinds of people in this world: the ones who don't cook out of and have NEVER cooked out of THE I HATE TO COOK BOOK, and the other kind...The I HATE TO COOK people consist mainly of those who find other things more interesting and less fattening, and so they do it as seldom as possible. Today there is an Annual Culinary Olympics, with hundreds of cooks from many countries ardently competing. But we who hate to cook have had our own Olympics for years, seeing who can get out of the kitchen the fastest and stay out the longest." - Peg BrackenPhilosopher's Chowder. Skinny Meatloaf. Fat Man's Shrimp. Immediate Fudge Cake. These are just a few of the beloved recipes from Peg Bracken's classic I HATE TO COOK BOOK. Written in a time when women were expected to have full, delicious meals on the table for their families every night, Peg Bracken offered women who didn't revel in this obligation an alternative: quick, simple meals that took minimal effort but would still satisfy. 50 years later, times have certainly changed - but the appeal of THE I HATE TO COOK BOOK hasn't. This book is for everyone, men and women alike, who wants to get from cooking hour to cocktail hour in as little time as possible.

The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed.by Florence Daniel

Pam Anderson grew up watching her parents and grandparents make dinner every night by simply taking the ingredients on hand and cooking them with the techniques they knew. Times have changed. Today we have an overwhelming array of ingredients and a fraction of the cooking time, but Anderson believes the secret to getting dinner on the table lies in the past. After a long day, who has the energy to look up a recipe and search for the right ingredients before ever starting to cook? To make dinner night after night, Anderson believes the first two steps--looking for a recipe, then scrambling for the exact ingredients--must be eliminated. Understanding that most recipes are simply "variations on a theme," she innovatively teaches technique, ultimately eliminating the need for recipes.Once the technique or formula is mastered, Anderson encourages inexperienced as well as veteran cooks to spread their culinary wings. For example, after learning to sear a steak, it's understood that the same method works for scallops, tuna, hamburger, swordfish, salmon, pork tenderloin, and more. You never need to look at a recipe again. Vary the look and flavor of these dishes with interchangeable pan sauces, salsas, relishes, and butters.Best of all, these recipes rise above the mundane Monday-through-Friday fare. Imagine homemade ravioli and lasagna for weeknight supper, or from-scratch tomato sauce before the pasta water has even boiled. Last-minute guests? Dress up simple tomato sauce with capers and olives or shrimp and red pepper flakes. Drizzle sautéed chicken breasts with a balsamic vinegar pan sauce. Anderson teaches you how to do it--without a recipe. Don't buy exotic ingredients and follow tedious instructions for making hors d'oeuvres. Forage through the pantry and refrigerator for quick appetizers. The ingredients are all there; the method is in your head. Master four simple potato dishes--a bake, a cake, a mash, and a roast--compatible with many meals. Learn how to make the five-minute dinner salad, easily changing its look and flavor depending on the season and occasion. Tuck a few dessert techniques in your back pocket and effortlessly turn any meal into a special occasion.There's real rhyme and reason to Pam's method at the beginning of every chapter: To dress greens, "Drizzle salad with oil, salt, and pepper, then toss until just slick. Sprinkle in some vinegar to give it a little kick." To make a frittata, "Cook eggs without stirring until set around the edges. Bake until puffy, then cut it into wedges." Each chapter also contains a helpful at-a-glance chart that highlights the key points of every technique, and a master recipe with enough variations to keep you going until you've learned how to cook without a book.

Learn what makes a recipe tick, says How to Cook Without a Book author Pam Anderson, and you'll serve great food fast. Recognizing that most cooks feel challenged in the face of daily meal making, Anderson provides a game plan: prepare dishes based on available ingredients and simple cooking techniques you've mastered--not on recipes you've got to look up and ingredients you'll need to shop for--and you maximize the potential of kitchen ease. Cooks looking for a way to address the what-will-we-have-tonight quandary definitively, or those who feel they lack the energy or know-how to tackle cooking every night, should find the book essential. In chapters such as "Simple Stir-Frys" or "Weeknight Ravioli and Lasagna," Anderson presents a particular cooking procedure, provides a recipe that embodies it in its basic form (the protein-adaptable Weeknight Stir-Fry, for example), then offers simple variations (such as Stir-Fried Chicken with Asparagus and Mushrooms or Stir-Fried Shrimp with Pepper and Scallions). Chapters conclude with an at-a-glance review of key technique points. Following Anderson's tips and innovations, lasagna, for example, becomes a weeknight option (use egg-roll wrappers for the pasta, Anderson advises, and forgo the baking); she also shows how, once mastered, her Big Fat Omelet, which serves four, can become the basis for a wide range of lunch and dinner entrées. With a comprehensive pantry section and a dessert chapter that puts frozen puff pastry to work in imaginative ways, the book is a trove of information that cooks can use and depend on. --Arthur Boehm

The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Cooking / Specific Ingredients / Herbs, Spices, Condiments; Cooking / Specific Ingredients / Vegetables;

Today's Favorite Kitchen Companion—Revised and Better Than Ever Mark Bittman's award-winning How to Cook Everything has helped countless home cooks discover the rewards of simple cooking. Now the ultimate cookbook has been revised and expanded (almost half the material is new), making it absolutely indispensable for anyone who cooks—or wants to. With Bittman's straightforward instructions and advice, you'll make crowd-pleasing food using fresh, natural ingredients; simple techniques; and basic equipment. Even better, you'll discover how to relax and enjoy yourself in the kitchen as you prepare delicious meals for every occasion. "A week doesn't go by where I don't pull How to Cook Everything down from the shelf, so I am thrilled there's a new, revised edition. My original is falling apart!" —Al Roker "This new generation of How to Cook Everything makes my 'desert island' cookbook choice jacked up and simply universal. I'll now bequeath my cookbooks to a collector; I need only this one." —Mario Batali "Mark Bittman has done the impossible, improving upon his now-classic How to Cook Everything. If you need know-how, here's where to find it." —Bobby Flay "Mark Bittman is a great cook and an incredible teacher. In this second edition, Mark has fine-tuned the original, making this book a must for every kitchen." —Jean-Georges Vongerichten "Throw away all your old recipes and buy How to Cook Everything. Mark Bittman's recipes are foolproof, easy, and more modern than any others." —Isaac Mizrahi "Generous, thorough, reliable, and necessary, How to Cook Everything is an indispensable reference for both experienced and beginner cooks." —Mollie Katzen, author of the Moosewood Cookbook "I learned how to cook from How to Cook Everything in a way that gives me the freedom to be creative. This new edition will be my gift to new couples or for a housewarming; if you have this book, you don't really need any others." —Lisa Loeb, singer/songwriter

Today's favorite kitchen companion—revised and better than ever. Mark Bittman's award-winning How to Cook Everything has helped countless home cooks discover the rewards of simple cooking. Now the ultimate cookbook has been revised and expanded (almost half the material is new), making it absolutely indispensable for anyone who cooks—or wants to. With Bittman's straightforward instructions and advice, you'll make crowd-pleasing food using fresh, natural ingredients; simple techniques; and basic equipment. Even better, you'll discover how to relax and enjoy yourself in the kitchen as you prepare delicious meals for every occasion. "A week doesn't go by where I don't pull How to Cook Everything down from the shelf, so I am thrilled there's a new, revised edition. My original is falling apart!" —Al Roker "This new generation of How to Cook Everything makes my 'desert island' cookbook choice jacked up and simply universal. I'll now bequeath my cookbooks to a collector; I need only this one." —Mario Batali "Mark Bittman has done the impossible, improving upon his now-classic How to Cook Everything. If you need know-how, here's where to find it." —Bobby Flay "Mark Bittman is a great cook and an incredible teacher. In this second edition, Mark has fine-tuned the original, making this book a must for every kitchen." —Jean-Georges Vongerichten "Throw away all your old recipes and buy How to Cook Everything. Mark Bittman's recipes are foolproof, easy, and more modern than any others." —Isaac Mizrahi "Generous, thorough, reliable, and necessary, How to Cook Everything is an indispensable reference for both experienced and beginner cooks." —Mollie Katzen, author of the Moosewood Cookbook "I learned how to cook from How to Cook Everything in a way that gives me the freedom to be creative. This new edition will be my gift to new couples or for a housewarming; if you have this book, you don't really need any others." —Lisa Loeb, singer/songwriter Exclusive Recipe Excerpts from How to Cook Everything • Grilled or Broiled Chicken Kebabs • Roasted Shrimp with Herb Sauce • Warm Spicy Greens with Bacon and Eggs • Author Tip: 7 Ways to Vary Chicken Kebabs [PDF] 10 Reasons You Need the New How to Cook Everything (even if you already have the original) 1. The 2000+ simple recipes will make cooking at home easier, so you can spend less and eat better. 2. With 1,446 new recipes and variations such as Beer-and-Butter Chicken Wings, Roasted Corn Chowder, BLT Salad, Paella with Chicken and Chorizo, Caramelized French Toast, and Popcorn Brittle, this book provides a whole new array of recipes. 3. The many new techniques covered in this edition will help you to expand your repertoire of kitchen skills to include frosting a cake, grinding your own chili powder, or even de-boning a quail. 4. Your husband, wife, brother, sister, son, daughter, or best friend needs a little help in the kitchen (okay, maybe a lot). The new How to Cook Everything contains more expert advice like “12 Must-Have Kitchen Tools,” “Super-Easy 3-Ingredient Soups,” and “The Basics of Cutting.” 5. You trust Bittman’s no-nonsense opinions and can’t wait to read the thousands of new ones packed into this edition. He’ll even help you to select the best inexpensive fish (ex. mackerel is versatile, tasty, healthy, and plentiful; tilapia can taste kinda muddy). 6. The index of “Essential Recipes” points you to Bittman’s favorite dishes in each chapter, so there’s less reason to be intimidated by all those recipes. 7. There are more helpful lists in the new How to Cook Everything than ever before. Bittman shows how to jack up the basics with easy ideas like “4 Ways to Thicken a Sauce”, and “Infinite Ways to Season or Serve Any Grilled or Broiled Chicken Dish.” 8. With this edition’s brand new charts, it’s absurdly easy to look up the cooking times for grains, heat factor for chiles, and other need-to-know information about everything from herbs and spices to flour and noodles. 9. You know it’s cheap, easy, and fast to serve your family boneless chicken breasts every week, but sometimes you run out of ideas. That’s why you really need all the new recipes, variations, and other suggestions for chicken breasts like “11 More Ways to Vary Grilled or Broiled Boneless Chicken.” 10. There are plenty of new illustrations which incorporate more detail than many photos. They’ll show you how to use a pastry bag, how to eat crabs, and even how to puree soup using an immersion blender (it’s is way less messy than a regular blender).

For the Amish, baking is an art form, a pleasure, and a way of life. The emotion they bring to baking is at the heart of The Amish Cook's Baking Book. Together, celebrated Amish cook Lovina Eicher and her editor, Kevin Williams, introduce a new generation to Amish baking.This baking book is filled with 80 beautiful photographs and over 100 classic Amish recipes for sweets that have been handcrafted in Lovina Eicher's Amish kitchen. The Amish Cook's Baking Book includes the following chapters: Pies; Breads, Rolls, and Pastries; Cookies; Cakes; Bars 'n' Brownies; and Special-Occasion Baking. Home cooks get an extra treat with sidebars from Lovina's children as well as interesting insights into Amish life both inside and outside the kitchen."Baking is something my mother taught me, much like sewing and ironing, or gardening. Now, as a mother of eight children of my own, I am beginning to teach them how to bake. I have many cherished memories of baking throughout my life." --Lovina Eicher

26 b&w illus 6 x 9. Orig. $14.95.

Some people are born to bake, boil, and lovingly tend to food, and they do it willingly. Then there are those among us who are born to burn, break, and destroy food--and would rather pull out our own wisdom teeth than have to cook a meal. For these anti-cooks, Peg Bracken has been offering advice, and dare it be said, creating recipes since the 1970s. The Compleat I Hate to Cook Book combines Bracken's earlier work, the infamous I Hate to Cook Book along with its two successors. The emphasis is on cheap, simple, "cut as many corners and spend as little time in the kitchen as humanly possible" foods. With such lovely names (Shuttemup Cookies, Fat Man's Shrimp, A Puffy Prune Whip), even naysayers will be curious. Fancy ingredients are replaced by cans of condensed soup, baked beans, and crushed corn flakes. Three-page recipes are traded for short, snappy, and simple instructions. Bracken hasn't forgotten these health-conscious times either: in a chapter entitled "Some of My Best Friends Are Fat," she concocts easy recipes for Skinny Meatloaf and a rather tasty 22 Calorie Banana Whip, which coincidentally contains just 22 calories! This book comes highly recommended for kitchen phobics the world over. --Naomi Gesinger

A clever and funny ode to reading and books from the creators of The Gruffalo. Charlie Cook has a favorite book. ItÂ’s about a pirate, who also has a favorite book . . . about Goldilocks, who also has a favorite book . . . about a knight, who also has a favorite book. . . . This hilarious pattern continues throughout the story, right to the surprising conclusion. Told in rollicking rhyme, this tale is sure to please the read-aloud crowd.