Monday, December 8, 2008

Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics or Rachael Rays Big Orange Book

Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics: How to Get Great Flavors from Simple Ingredients

Author: Ina Garten

Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics is the essential Ina Garten cookbook, focusing on the techniques behind her elegant food and easy entertaining style, and offering nearly a hundred brand-new recipes that will become trusted favorites.

Ina Garten’s bestselling cookbooks have con-sistently provided accessible, subtly sophisticated recipes ranging from French classics made easy to delicious, simple home cooking. In Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics, Ina truly breaks down her ideas on flavor, examining the ingredients and techniques that are the foundation of her easy, refined style.

Here Ina covers the essentials, from ten ways to boost the flavors of your ingredients to ten things not to serve at a party, as well as professional tips that make successful baking, cooking, and entertaining a breeze. The recipes—crowd-pleasers like Lobster Corn Chowder, Tuscan Lemon Chicken, and Easy Sticky Buns—demonstrate Ina’s talent for transforming fresh, easy-to-find ingredients into elegant meals you can make without stress.

For longtime fans, Ina delivers new insights into her simple techniques; for newcomers she provides a thorough master class on the basics of Barefoot Contessa cooking plus a Q&A section with answers to the questions people ask her all the time. With full-color photographs and invaluable cooking tips, Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics is an essential addition to the cherished library of Barefoot Contessa cookbooks.

Publishers Weekly

The sixth cookbook from the Barefoot Contessa juggernaut contains exactly the kind of appealing, simple-yet-just-gourmet-enough recipes Garten devotees adore. There's nothing very surprising (Garten tries to claim an ingredient-focused premise), but her formula works. She offers such dishes as Lobster Corn Chowder, Creamy Cucumber Salad, Tuscan Lemon Chicken, Tagliarelle with Truffle Butter (which has just five ingredients, plus salt and pepper), and Brownie Pudding. Garten suggests tips on such things as setting the table and "10 things not to serve at a dinner party." Her tone can be charmingly pretentious, but she comes down to earth with admissions like "I have to admit that pastry still makes me anxious. When I discovered puff pastry, it was such a relief." Recipes are short and simple, and she often squeezes in insightful hints for making things work perfectly. (Oct.)

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Judith Sutton - Library Journal

Simple recipes with lots of flavor have always been Garten's hallmark, from her days as the owner of her gourmet take-out shop, Barefoot Contessa, in Long Island's Hamptons to her current Food Network shows. Here, she emphasizes finishing touches that brighten a dish and "bring out [its] essence," whether it's a squeeze of lemon juice or a final scattering of fresh herbs. Each recipe chapter opens with a page of ideas for easy entertaining (e.g., "10 No-Cook Things To Serve with Drinks") or other tips. Garten's previous cookbooks have sold more than six million copies, and her new Food Network show, Back to Basics, premieres in the fall, so her latest title is sure to be in demand.



Rachael Ray's Big Orange Book: Her Favorite All-New 30-Minute Meals, Veggie Meals, Holiday Menus, Dinners-for-One, Kosher Meals, Rollover Menus, and Much, Much More!

Author: Rachael Ray

In the 10 years since she served up her first 30-minute meal—and thousands of delectable dinners later— Rachael Ray has learned just about all there is to know about getting a great tasting meal on the table in a hurry, whether it is one of her patented 30-minute miracles or something just a tad more involved for a special gathering. Rachael’s Big Orange Book is the ultimate resource for busy cooks. Need kitchen inspiration? It’s all here and it’s all new—and bigger than ever!

Just one for dinner tonight? Forget the cold cereal. Rach has a chapter of recipes that make dining on your own a thoroughly civilized occasion, with great meals that won’t leave you with a fridge full of leftovers. Vegetarians on the guest list? No problem! Choose from dozens of meat-free meals that are every bit as satisfying as your tried-and-true standards and savory enough to please the carnivores in your crowd. Observing a Kosher menu? Check out the selection of menus just for Kosher cooks, all ready in less than, you guessed it, 30 minutes. There's even a mother lode of burger recipes for fans of the bun—so many options you could make a different burger every day for a full month!

In addition to her latest 30-minute creations, Rachael has put together an array of menus and recipes for easy entertaining, from quick snacks to serve for game night and easy hors d’oeuvres, to soup-to-nuts menus for her favorite holidays and special occasions. Whip up a pasta buffet for a special mom on Mother’s Day, please a crowd with a super-simple Oscar party menu, and give thanks for not one but four fantastic menus that keep holiday stressto a minimum by getting you out of the kitchen in record time.

Best of all, these recipes have all the huge flavors you’ve come to expect from Rachael, with something to please every taste—and every food budget. You’ll even find the treasured family recipes that Rachael and her husband, John, have enjoyed for years; see if they don’t become beloved family traditions in your home as well. Whether this is your first introduction to cooking the 30-minute way or you are a long-time convert, you’ll find irresistible new recipes here to make the most of every second you spend in the kitchen.

Publishers Weekly

Ray offers up her biggest collection of recipes to date. Dedicating whole chapters to kosher and vegetarian meals, meals for one, burgers, holiday menus, starters and appetizers, her trademark 30-minute meals and more, Ray covers the gamut in this tome named after her favorite color. Recipes are designed for cooks of all levels, and meals with more than one course are marked so that cooks can maximize time and effort. Dishes range from the familiar, such as a weeknight pot roast, to the more ambitious lemon and garlic chicken with grilled prosciutto-wrapped asparagus served with a pesto three-bean salad. Ray includes something for every appetite, from the hearty Buffalo chicken chili mac and sausage mushroom ragu with rigatoni to the more refined tomato and shrimp salad with horseradish dressing. She also includes family hand-me-down recipes and dishes that require longer than 30 minutes. Lavish photographs accompany each dish, making even the simplest meal mouthwatering. With its attractive package and moderate price tag, Ray's multitude of fans will flock to this extensive collection, making it a great holiday gift purchase. (Nov.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.



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