Easy Cooking

Author(s): Andy Pforzheimer, Sasa Mahr-batuz
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication Date: 2009-06-16
Pages: 224
Review: The Connecticut restaurant Barcelona chain has a well deserved regional reputation for food that is especially elegant with flavor and cultural culinary subtext. Now the team of Sasa Mahr-Batuz and Andy Pforzheimer (with the assistance of Mary Goodbody) has compiled an equally elegant compilation of recipes for dishes served in the Barcelona restaurants. Superbly illustrated throughout, there are chapters dedicated to cocktails and wine, cold and hot tapas, main courses, party dishes, and desserts. The recipes range from a Clementine Crush; Goat Cheese with Mojo Verde; and Lobster Risotto; to Morcilla Sausage with Caramelized Onions; Grilled Sea Bass with Warm Salad of Fingerling Potatoes and Wax Beans with Broken Shallot Vinaigrette; and Crepas Salguero. Enhanced a listing of sources for Spanish ingredients and foods, an extensive metric conversions and equivalents table, and a handy index, “The Barcelona Cookbook” is a welcome and highly recommended addition to personal, professional, and community library ethnic cookbook collections!

As a college student who often cooks dinner with her 6 housemates on any given night, it is hard to find a cookbook that has recipes for delicious food that are actually possible to pull off well. The Barcelona Cookbook is one of those few that offers the combination of easy-to-follow directions for amazing entrees and appetizers, cool information on Spanish culture and cuisine, and (most importantly for us!) instructions on how to make killer cocktails. We also really appreciate that almost every recipe is paired with a great picture, so we know what the meal should look like - very helpful! I’ve been to two of the Barcelona restaurants before, and while I could never perfectly replicate any of the yummy food I’ve gotten there, the Barcelona Cookbook helps me come pretty darn close.I have an extensive collection of cookbooks, including cookbooks in Spanish which I bought in Spain, but this cookbook has brought great Spanish and mediterranean cooking into my kitchen like no other. In addition to the fabulous photography and excellent writing and explanations about wine and party menus, what is striking about this book is that it accomplishes both simplicity and sophistication in all its recipes. This means that these recipes should be accessible to any home cook and to anyone who loves to entertain in style (but with low stress). I’m not a big drinker, but the cocktails like blood orange margaritas, clementine crush, and red and white sangrias, are too tempting to pass up. Some of my cookbooks end up downstairs in my bookshelves, but this one is going to stay with a coveted few in my kitchen.A long-time patron of the fabulous Barcelona Restaurants, I was anxious to incorporate their signature dishes into my repertoire…and this book does not disappoint. There are recipes for both cold and hot tapas, main dishes (including Barcelona’s great “chicken al pimentos”) and party food. I especially like the chapter on Spanish wines and cocktails (blood orange margaritas top my list!) and the wonderful ideas for outdoor entertaining. The book is easy to read and easy to use — great for anyone who likes to eat and loves to entertain!
Price: $29.99   Buy This Book

Author(s): Noemi C. Taylor
Publisher: Capital Books
Publication Date: 2003-03-28
Pages: 256
Review: Thumbing through the book you can practically smell the food cooking and you can absolutely feel the friendship these four women have forged over the years. That a daughter collected their creativity for all to share is a dash of spice. I and a friend prepared the first dish I tried for a dinner party with several friends. I’ll be dipping into this book many times!This book is a wonderful resource for an endless variety of tasty dishes! The recipes are easy to follow and prepare, and the stories are equally heartwarming. A great book for anyone who cooks because they love to. Salud!Ms. Taylor hit the nail on the head with this one. This is a fantastic compilation of delicious mouth watering recipes, I can’t believe Ms. Taylor put them in writing. I would have thought these recipes are “secrets”. I’m no pro but I was able to make delicious food quite easily. My kitchen is smelling so good at this point, I look forward to coming home from work and enjoying it. A great cookbook!!This cookbook is excellent. It features recipes of the Spanish -American culture,while also providing informative and entertaining information about the recipes. This cookbook not only focuses on delicious recipes, it also expounds on the history of four remarkable Spanish-American women who have remained friends throughout decades. These four women provide accounts of their friendship, as well as recipes for the many meals they have shared together. The recipes range from simple to semi-difficult. None are impossible, or take a ridiculous amount of time. The selection of recipes is excellent, and each chapter has its own table of contents, making that perfect recipe easy to find! I would recommend this book to anyone looking to liven up their recipe collection with some unique and delicious meals with some cultural history! This book is also very helpful if planning a dinner party. There are endless combinations of appetizers, salads, side dishes, vegetables, entrees, and desserts for all appetites.This book was a very well written book. The colors used and the layout of the book are excellent. I really like how for each food, it describes where the recipe comes from (Spain, Columbia, Argentina, Peru). It is also nice to see how each contirbutor to the book shares something personal about herself. I know from having had these foods how tasty they are. Ms. Taylor did an excellent job putting this book together. I reccomend this book to everyone who enjoys cooking and to those who enjoy a little variation in their diet. Great job!
Price: $17.95   Buy This Book

Author(s): Susan Serrano, Juan Serrano
Publisher: Hippocrene Books
Publication Date: 1997-05
Pages: 270
Review: This is the best cookbook I have. Not that I don’t use others probably more but when I’m entertaining or cooking for a crowd this is the cookbook I reach for because the recipes are clear, detailed, and the food is incredible. The one drawback is that there are times when the term “season to taste” is used… and you do need to determine what spices and herbs you’d like to use. If you have a preferred way of preparing various items (fish, meat, chicken, rice) this gives you the versatility to flavor things your own way. They don’t do this for all recipes… some call for very specific flavors and they give you specific quantities.

They provide many varieties on various recipes - how to substitute or where the meat is optional - and they usually explain fairly clearly what works and why. It’s not as technical as Cook’s Illustrated, it’s more like someone taking the time to write down how and why your grandmother cooked the way she did.

I can highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for a good Spanish cookbook to prepare anything from Tapas to Paella and everything in between.
Price: $11.95   Buy This Book

Author(s): Adela Hernandez Gonzmart, Ferdie Pacheco
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Publication Date: 1995-09-28
Pages: 320
Review: Can anyone tell me if they have the recipe for their cuban bread in it? It is by far the best I have ever had!A recent salad made wonderfully by a friend convinced me that there is just about as much art in making salads as anything else. It made me think of the excellent 1905 Salad at the Columbia Restaurant which we get every time we’re there. It has just the right combination of things and an especially fine dressing. But here’s a case of “Don’t try to do it at home” unless you are really accomplished at that sort of thing. The time we tried to do it, following the recipe provided exactly, it didn’t taste anything like what you get at the restaurant. And we had purchased their own dressing. Anyways, they have have a new location in Palm Beach which I want to visit. The best we’ve tried is the one in Sarasota. You can go afterwards to see the Rubens tapestry cartoons at the Ringling Museum of Art. That’s a fun afternoon.Wow, this is some cookbook. I picked it up in the Orlando Airport, and have been enjoying it ever since. Highly recommend it.This is a wonderful recipe that also goes into the history of the restaurant. I love the columbia and always got to the one at St. Armands circle when I am in Florida. I love the ropa vieja and cuban snawhiches are quick and easyThis is such a wonderful cookbook. In South Florida, I visited Columbia and loved the food. I purchased it to try something new. The recipes are authentic with some background narrative woven in there. The language is easy and you can follow the recipe without any problems. Of the recipes I tried, most could be prepared from a well-stocked pantry, not necessarily a huge trip to the grocery store like some cookbooks demand. There are some really great seafood recipes in here too. You’ll love the simple Cuban sandwich in here too. I believe this cookbook is well worth the price.
Price: $24.95   Buy This Book

Author(s): White; Katona; German; Simmons
Publisher: Bristol Publishing Enterprises
Publication Date: 2003-09-01
Pages: 360
Review: Pros: This book has a lot of recipes. A ton of recipes. If you know what you’re looking for, go to this book. The recipes I’ve tried have been tasty.

Cons: This book has no pictures of the recipes or descriptions of the recipes. I enjoy trying new recipes, but only if I know what I’m making. I’d hope to use this book as a resource for recipes to serve when entertaining, but I don’t have background knowledge of what some of the recipes are.
Price: $14.95   Buy This Book

Author(s): Meredith Deeds, Carla Snyder
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Publication Date: 2006-08-24
Pages: 352
Review: There are plenty of good recipes in a well organized format in this cookbook. The recipes are relatively simple and include “make ahead” suggestions to assist in party planning. I tried a couple of them recently for a big party and the ones I made were excellent. The major drawback for me is that there isn’t a single photograph. I am an avid party giver and always appreciate a good cookbook for those miniature ‘meals’ I like to serve. This book whacks a punch and has some wonderful recipes that are both delicious and easy to prepare. Great addition to anyones collection.This book has more than 250 recipes but not a single photo except the cover. I am sorry, but I don’t care how good those recipes are because I need beautiful photos of each dish to make me want to cook. I put this book back on amazon for sale as soon as I got it.Just got it and very impressed with recipes, breadth of ideas, and innovativeness. And don’t take my word for it: This cookbook was one of three in this category nominated for a James Beard Award!!! Didn’t win but a wonderful honor for these up and coming cookbook authors. I was so pleased with the last book that these authors wrote that I really looked forward to this book. It is very well thought out in it’s presentation of recipes and handy tips, and the recipes themselves are to die for. What I especially like about this book is the “Find it Fast Index”, which breaks down the recipes into several categories from “Quick and Simple” to “Freezer Friendly” and several in between. It also has a very helpful Menu Planning Chapter for those of us who appreciate help in figuring out what to serve with what! I am still working my way through the recipes, but my favorite right now is Pear, Gorgonzola and Hazelnut Bundles. It is so delicious, and so quick and easy to prepare. I really like the variety of recipes, all the way from Nachos to more sophisticated recipes. The icing on the cake is that this book has been nominated for the best book in America in the Entertaining Category of the James Beard Foundation Awards, which is the equivelant of the Academy Awards, so I must not be the only one who loves it. I’m glad it’s being recognized for the great book that it is!
Price: $19.95   Buy This Book

Author(s): Gooseberry Patch
Publisher: Gooseberry Patch
Publication Date: 2007-08-01
Pages: 128
Review: There are some good recipes but the book is very small. I would not buy it if I had seen it first.
Price: $7.95   Buy This Book

Author(s): Chad Evans, Karen Johnson, Kathy Aragaki
Publisher: Publications International
Publication Date: 2007-08
Pages: 160
Review: Nice pictures (a must for me), but not too many recipes that sound appealing to the average person.
Price: $12.98   Buy This Book

Author(s): Susannah Blake
Publisher: Sellers Publishing
Publication Date: 2007-02-09
Pages: 288
Review: Have not gotten to try anything out of it yet but there are a lot of great looking recipes. Most recipes also have modifiers so that you have lots of ideas on how to change things to tweak them to your personal taste. A+ on that. I purchased this recipe book thinking, like everyone else, there were 500 recipes in there. There are only a hundred or so and four variations to each. The recipes themselves aren’t bad but definitely not the norm. If you have a picky eater in your house, like my fiance, you probably wont have much chance to use it.This is really a must not buy item. The title is deceptive. There’s actually 125 recipes, and they have 4 variations of each, for example, a recipe of a bruschetta with red bell pepper and garlic, and then a variation of yellow pepper and garlic is considered another recipe. It’s a cheap book though.I was disappointed that there weren’t the kinds of appetizers I would be interested in serving my guests. The photos were very clear, and tips were good, but the recipes just were not ones that I would use so I gave the book away.i like this book–the recipes are short and easy to understand

i already used lots of the recipes and i like them
Price: $15.95   Buy This Book

Author(s): Maria Bruscino Sanchez
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication Date: 1997-07-15
Pages: 128
Review: Just what I wanted. Cookies to learn about my Italian heritage. I especially like the short descriptions of each recipe and the history of where the recipes came from, aunts, neighbors, etc.

Looking forward to trying several of the cookies and sharing with friends.I admit this is a lower score than maybe is warranted, but the cookies were nothing special. They were good, but then they were made of sugar. I would say, you will be really happy with 3 recipies out of this book, but might learn something from some others. Really not alot of info, but then again, less then 10, dollars. Having grown up in Connecticut amid its wonderful Italian bakeries, I was thrilled to find this cookbook. The fact that the author owns an Italian bakery in Waterbury was enough of a recommendation for me. So far, I have made seven of the cookie recipes, and have enjoyed them all. The only problem I had was running out of pine nuts for the Pignoli cookies. I’ll buy twice as many, next time!

One reviewer complained about the lack of photos in the book, so I am posting my own.I love this book. I have always wanted to know how to make these authentic Italian cookies…and here they are all rolled up into on great book! I think its great! SWEET MARIA’S ITALIAN COOKIE TRAY COOKBOOK IS WONDERFUL. VERY EASY RECIPES BUT QUITE A SELECTION. AMUSING LITTLE STORIES WITH THE RECIPES MAKE IT FUN TO BAKE FROM THIS BOOK. I HAVE THIS BOOK AND HAVE BOUGHT SEVERAL FOR GIFTS - RECIPIENTS VERY GLAD TO RECEIVE IT.
Price: $14.95   Buy This Book