Tag Archives: Economy Cooking

June 7, 2013 · 7:18 am

Recipe: Homemade Finishing Butters

final shot of softened butter in bowlPoor Paula Deen. Eater National reports that “midst of a weak attempt at rebranding herself as healthy,” the Food Network star is launching a line of “finishing butters” for WalMart. The woman who made famous a donut-and-egg breakfast sandwich and then came out of the medical closet to announce she had Type 2 Diabetes now has he own line of butter. (To answer your question, yes, she’s still a spokesperson for a brand of insulin.)tub of Paula butter

Questions about Deen’s brand management team’s thinking aside, here’s what irks me about this. Her line of butters hasn’t hit shelves yet, but a supermarket source told me WalMart plans to retail them for $3.99 per 6.5 ounce tub — roughly the same price as a pound of decent butter. If you want to choose to make a local and/or organic version, you can do it for less than you’d pay for Deen’s version.

So don’t fall for a plastic tub of doctored-up butter. Save money and do it yourself. If you can let butter sit on a counter, spend two minutes chopping and stir, you can make your own and just keep a few in the freezer to dress up weeknight dinners. I often make compound butter from leftovers — herbs on the verge of going bad, leftover chopped garlic, that last bit of ginger. Just a dab transforms any dish, from meats, fish or chicken, to steamed vegetables and simple pastas.

Lest you wonder, Deen didn’t come up with this concept. Known in French as beurre composé, finishing butter has been around since at least the 1700s. They’re simply unsalted butter that has been blended with herbs and seasonings with  endless variations. Auguste Escoffier published three dozen combinations in 1903, among them his famed anchovy butter and beurre à la maître d’hotel (lemon parsley butter).

But as Matt Lauer acknowledged in Deen’s  Today spot promoting her finishing butters, the calories still count. Below I’ve included photos from a batch I made and a video from SimpleBites.com to show you the method. Note: I often make small doses of butter and just stir it by hand. Compound butters are also a great way to flavor a roasted chicken, to offer up something special to slather on warm bread and to perk up a piece of fish cooked in parchment.

Recipe: Compound Butter Master Recipe

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
3 tablespoons of your favorite herbs
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
Few grinds black pepper

Let the butter sit at room temperatures until softened. Chop the herbs. Add to the butter and stir or “chop into” the butter until well-incorporated. You can use a stand mixer for this, but it’s not necessary. Place the butter on foil, plastic wrap or wax paper and roll into a long oblong shape. Think of a sushi roll. Place in the freezer for about an hour or until firm. Then slice into pieces and serve with desired dish.

butter ingredientsmixing the herbs inrolled up butter

“Hot Butter” with Red Pepper & Garlic

This works especially well to spark up roasted and steamed vegetables.

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1-3 cloves minced garlic
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
Red chili flakes or dry-roasted chili peppers crushed
1/4 teaspoon salt
Few grinds black pepper

Lemon and Dill Butter

A terrific topper to grilled or pan-fried fish.

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1½ tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill weed or 2 teaspoons dried

Caramelized Shallot Butter

This one is especially nice on roasted vegetables. Steak with Herbed Butter

1 stick unsalted butter
2 large shallots, finely diced (1/3 cup)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Heat 1 tablespoon of the butter in a small saucepan or skillet over medium-low heat until melted. Add the shallot and cook, stirring frequently, until deeply browned about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the thyme. Cool completely. In a small bowl, combine the shallot mixture with the remaining 2-1/2 tablespoons of butter and the lemon zest. Stir to blend well. Lightly season to taste with salt and pepper. Shape into a log as above.

Cognac-Sage Butter

This one is best made with a mixer to emulsify the liquid with the butter

1 stick unsalted butter
1/4 cup tablespoons cognac
1 teaspoon chopped sage
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
Grinds of black pepper

Bleu Cheese and Garlic Butter

This one is the bomb on grilled steaks.

1 stick unsalted butter
1/4 cup blue cheese
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
Grinds of black pepper

Orange Dijon Butter

This version is terrific on grilled or baked chicken

1 stick unsalted butter
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 teaspoon orange zest
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
Grinds of black pepper

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July 27, 2012 · 11:26 am

Review: The Julia Child App

Just in time to celebrate her 100th birthday, a Seattle-based company has released an app featuring 32 recipes from the classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, plus clips from the DVD version of “The Way to Cook,” plus other content, including excerpts from the book. It’s $2.99 from iTunes and available on the Nook, too.

A lover of all things Julia, I tried it out on the iPad 2. The simple, classy design easily navigates among the 32 recipes. Each provides an image of the finished dish, the ingredients, equipment, tips and a brief video of Julia in action. Rounding out the content is a surprising amount of text lifted directly from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, among them tips on making stock, equipping a kitchen equipment, a primer on wine and even a glossary of cooking terms. There’s also a charming piece by her longtime Knopf editor, Judith Jones, on the story behind the book.

In terms of the recipes themselves, it was a walk down memory lane of my days at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. The recipes mirror the core curriculum of the Basic Cuisine course. Included are basic sauces such as bechamel, sauce brun and vinaigrette. Then it moves onto classics such as bouef Bourguignon, blanquette de veau, poulet roti, suprêmes de volaille, and pate de canard en croûte.

The videos included are short, yet highly educational snippets from her 1989 series, “The Way to Cook,” now available on DVD. (Judith Jones served as executive producer.) Watching Julia demonstrate searing beef or whisking up a hollandaise reminded me why she was such a great teacher: she was a great explainer with an understated sense of humor who was enthusiastic about every detail of cooking. “When my mother was growing up in the wilds of northern Illinois, you couldn’t get decent lettuce except in summer,” and then it was mostly iceberg, Julia says during her vinaigrette video. Then she exhales, ”We are so lucky now!” and cheerfully showed off a variety of lettuces, including some “lovely” romaine.

While it’s handy to have a great sample of classic recipes together, the videos make this app worthwhile. It’s hard to resist her unspoken cheer of “You can do it!” My husband Mike was ready to pounce on the Vitamix to make a batch of fresh mayonnaise. Or, as Julia said it, maay-OH-naze.  

The app has some sweet touches, such as a button that lets you hear Julia say the name of the dish in French. You can hear both her pride and precision as she carefully announces “beouf bourguignon.”

From a functional standpoint, it’s straightforward, with an easy-to-navigate format. (Some users have reported on iTunes that the app runs slowly, or they had trouble with the videos. I didn’t encounter any such problems using it on the iPad 2, but didn’t try it on the iPhone or Nook.) The division of the instruction from the ingredients list requires an extra click, and the length of the recipes means a fair amount of scrolling. This isn’t a problem if you’re browsing, but might be annoying when you’ve got dirty hands and need to have to click or scroll in the middle of making a recipe.

One thing that may feel a bit “dated” to modern cooks is the casual employment of butter – lots of it. After a couple weeks at LCB, I thought nothing of using a stick of butter in a recipe. (I also gained a dozen pounds.) I’ve long since given up using copius doses of butter in my own cooking. While nothing can replace the classic butter-dense Hollandaise sauce the way Julia demonstrates, I lean toward more heart-friendly options, such as this recipe from EatingWell.com.

The bottom line: This doesn’t replace owning a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but for $2.99, it’s definitely worth it to have a mini French cooking class led by Julia on a device you can actually take shopping and then set on your kitchen counter. If you ever wanted to study at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, but don’t have the $11,000 USD for the Basic Cuisine course, this inexpensive app offers a great primer. Of course, it also lacks the hands-on instruction from French chef and living in Paris, of course. It’s available for a limited time, so if you want it, go download it now.

If you’re vaguely interested in this app, I highly recommend the DVD collection of The Way To Cook. It’s Julia at her finest: funny, educational and highly watchable, plus it explores basics from knife skills and sauteeing, and reaches beyond French cuisine.

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July 29, 2011 · 6:11 am

Fish en papillote

Cooking en papillote (French for “parchment”) is a wildly overlooked method of cooking in America. It’s an easy method for a quick weeknight dinner that’s also elegant enough for guests. The smell that escapes when the package is reason enough to try it. This works well for salmon and mild-flavored white fish such as snapper, cod and so on. The best part? No dishes. Just throw the paper away. To assure thorough cooking, fish fillets or chicken breast slices less than a half-inch thick. This works best in parchment paper, but you can also use aluminum foil. Choose ingredients to get a flavor you like. For instance, to get an Asian flavor, use sesame in place of olive oil, add lime, cilantro and ginger to the package, and possibly finely sliced water chestnuts.

You’ll need 2 (10 x 12) inch pieces of parchment. I prefer to use the unbleached variety on the roll; it’s available at most supermarkets for less than $3. You can use foil, but don’t use too much vinegar or wine as it may react with the aluminum. Don’t use wax paper; it will become gummy and sort of “melt,” and frankly, no one wants wax with their chicken. Serves two.

Ingredients
2 (4 oz.) piece of fish or thinly sliced chicken breast
4 teaspoons olive oil
Few sprigs of fresh herbs (dill, basil, thyme, rosemary) or a ½ teaspoon dried
1/4 cup of white wine (or water)
Few thin lemon slices
Pinch of cayenne

Garnish (optional): About ½ cup of vegetable for flavor and garnish: shallots, onion, garlic, zucchini, carrot, broccoli, fennel, mushrooms, etc. each finely chopped or sliced

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 Celsius. Fold each sheet in half.On one half of each paper heart, drizzle half the olive oil (two teaspoons per sheet) and add generous pinches of of coarse salt and pepper. Add the fish and turn over to coat. Place herbs, lemon and vegetables on top of the fish and drizzle some wine over each. Crimp the edges of the parchment or foil and shut carefully to avoid allowing any liquid or steam to escape from the package during cooking. Place the packages on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes. Allow to sit at least one minute, and then open carefully.

Other good papillote recipes:
-Food 52: Shrimp and roasted tomato fettucine
-French Cooking for Dummies: Whole trout in foil
-Sophistimom: Chicken in paper

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March 25, 2011 · 8:29 pm

Recipes & Fundamentals: Using a Whole Chicken

On Wednesday I bought a chicken on sale for 99 cents a pound, and cut it up, shaving off the breasts to reserve the back for stock. It left two hearty chicken breasts nearly 14 ounces each, or about eight servings in all. I cut up the back, roasted it to a dark brown, then added it with half an onion, all the skins from the onions I’ve used in the past week, a garlic clove, a carrot and a celery stalk in an eight-quart pot to yield about three quarts of stock after a few hours simmering.

Here’s what I made with the rest of the chicken:

Chicken braised with apples: I kept the legs and thighs intact, and braised them with a simple mirepoix and a diced apple and potato, and two cups of the chicken stock. Cost: $3.60 for four servings. (Lunch Wednesday and Friday)

Thai chicken curry with cabbage, asparagus and cherry tomatoes: We used the remainder of the coconut milk and curry paste plus started to clear out the remainder of our vegetables plus eight ounces of diced chicken breast. Served with leftover brown rice, cost: $2.78, four servings. (Dinner Wednesday, lunch Thursday)

Sautéed chicken with garlic, with risotto with lemon and peas: I thinly sliced the breast into four-ounce servings and lightly sautéed with some garlic and seasoned it with some of the cajun spice I bought earlier this week. Since I knew I’d have stock, I bought 1 ½ cups of Arborio rice and made risotto. I had bought a bag of peas for the week, so I added that along with 1 ½ quarts of the chicken stock and a quarter of a bunch of parsley. I didn’t use parmesan cheese, and instead flavored the end result with the juice of a half lemon (25 cents). Cost: $4.22 for four servings. (Dinner Thursday, risotto will be part of lunch Saturday).

Chicken pot pie. I made a biscuit-style crust (with a bit of Italian seasoning bought in bulk), made my own cream of chicken soup and the rest of the stock along with a package of frozen mixed vegetables ($1.50) and another bit of the parsley. In the bulk section, you can buy flour as needed, which is good for budgets but also good if you don’t bake often. Cost: 3.92 for four servings, although we ate all of it since we skipped breakfast. (Lunch Friday)

Observations: You can do a lot with a whole chicken, especially if you know how to cut one up. But this challenge — especially with a budget of $12 a day — isn’t necessarily that challenging for someone like me. I have a car, time to plan, ready access to a grocery store, quality pans and utensils, plus – this is crucial – I know how to cook.

If I couldn’t cook, to stay in budget I might be more likely to graze the dollar menus at fast food places, or buy what seem to be inexpensive boxed options at the grocery store. Yes, ramen is cheap, but it’s not exactly nourishing. Even more challenging is that the average person receiving food assistance in this country doesn’t receive the maximum possible ($7 per individual, $12 per couple), but rather $4.43 per day, or a bit more than $1 per meal. (I kept that as a goal for all of my chicken-based meals.)

In my project for the next book, one of my volunteers was on food stamps. She didn’t have a car and lived nowhere near a grocery store, and she had poor cooking skills. When I first met her, a common dinner were frozen mini pizzas on sale at a grocery store outlet. Cheap? Yes. Nourishing? No. Realistic what people on food stamps eat if they can’t cook? Absolutely.

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March 23, 2011 · 4:18 am

Recipe: Cabbage & Chicken Stir-Fry

 

 

 

 Breakfast: A simple omelet that we shared with a bit of asparagus, a few cherry tomatoes and basil (from my plant). Cost: $1.74.
 
Snacks: We finished off our cottage cheese today, made a dent in our applesauce and a box of Ok-Mok crackers. Total cost for the day for meals, snacks, coffee at breakfast and dinner for our friend: $11.26 Observations: This week I’ve realized how reliant I am on what’s in my fridge for small, yet critical additions of flavor. For instance, the stir fry is definitely brightened by the addition of Sriracha, but on this budget, we would have to justify that cost of buying the whole bottle, even if we’re just spending a few cents worth of the actual goo on our food.  I’m glad that we’re also also not reliant on sweets. In the past year, Mike weaned himself off sodas. If I needed a daily candy bar or we were big soda drinkers, that could quickly replace some of the food in our diet. In the past year, we’ve been careful to cut our sugar intake and ratchet back our portions. We eat less food, but better quality and frankly, it’s been as good for our budget as our waistlines.  

Recipe: Carrot and Rosemary Soup

The basic method for this soup can be applied to many vegetables. You can substitute in cauliflower, broccoli or squash for the carrots, for instance. If you don’t have leeks, use more onion. One tip for making this even more economical is to use the water leftover from cooking potatoes or pasta in place of stock. (Although you can make homemade chicken stock virtually for free if you regularly utilize whole chickens.) If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can simply mash the vegetables which will be decidedly more rustic. Serves four.

1 1/2 tablespoons oil or butter
1 medium onion, chopped (about 1 ½ cups)
2 leeks, chopped
¾ pound carrots, chopped to a small dice (about 2 cups)
1 large fresh rosemary sprig
1 bay leaf
1 ½ quarts chicken or vegetable stock
1/3 cup quality yogurt (optional)

Add the olive oil or butter to a two-quart or larger saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion, leeks and carrot and toss with the olive oil. Sauté until softened about five minutes to six minutes. Add the rosemary and the stock and bring to a boil, then cover and reduce the heat to simmer. Cook for about 25 minutes or until carrots soften and remove from heat.

Discard the rosemary and the bay leaf. Add about a cup of water to the soup, and then puree with an immersion blender, in a blender or a masher until smooth. Add in additional water if necessary for desired consistency. Check the seasonings, adding salt and pepper to taste.

Recipe: Cabbage and Chicken Stir Fry

This is an easy weeknight dish. It’s also versatile. Try it with pork, beef or shrimp. You can add in a few extra veggies, perhaps those leftover green beans or a bit of broccoli? Just don’t omit the trio of the garlic, onions and cabbage as they’re key to the flavor.

1 ½ tablespoon oil such as coconut, olive or canola
8 oz. of skinless chicken, thighs or breasts, cut into 1-inch hunks
1 medium yellow onion, sliced thin
A handful (about eight) cremini, baby bella or white mushrooms, sliced
1 teaspoon red chili flakes
6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
½ head of green or savoy cabbage, chopped into bite-sized pieces
1/3 cup white wine, chicken stock or water
8 cherry tomatoes
Coarse salt, fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Optional garnishes: Fresh lime, Sriracha (hot chili sauce), chopped basil

Heat the oil in a three-quart or larger saucepan over medium-high heat. Season the chicken pieces with a bit of salt and pepper. When hot, add the chicken and cook until browned and slightly cooked through, about three to five minutes.

Add the onions and mushrooms and cook until starting to soften, about three minutes. Add the chili flakes and the garlic and continue to cook, stirring regularly until the onions start to brown, about three minutes. Add the cabbage, tomatoes and a pinch of salt and a few cracks of pepper and cook for about three minutes until it softens. Add the wine, stock or water and then cover and let it cook for about eight minutes.

Taste, and add salt and pepper if needed. Serve with the additional garnishes of fresh basil, lime slices and hot chili sauce and with a side of rice, if desired.

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March 21, 2011 · 8:00 am

Two People, $12 Per Day For Food

So yesterday, Mike and I started our annual Hunger Action Week cooking strategy. As part of our agreement, we will eat $12 per day at home, the amount that couples receive on food assistance.

Breakfast: Mike started the day by making bread using the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day strategy. Homemade bread is one of the greatest money-saving strategies and the no-knead versions offer the chance to keep the dough in the fridge for up to two weeks, making homemade bread nearly a convenience product. It contains only four ingredients – flour, water, salt and yeast. Estimated cost per loaf: About 60 cents.

One of my chefs at Le Cordon Bleu once commented that as long as a person can make an omelet, he or she would never go hungry. At about 30 cents for eggs and a dab of oil or butter, it’s hard to beat the nutritional impact of omelet. (Check out this video of Jamie Oliver making the perfect omelet.) We shopped for some of our ingredients in Chinatown on Saturday and found mushrooms on sale for $1.49 per pound and a big package of hothouse cherry tomatoes for $1.50. I made one big omelet with four eggs, split it between us and added in mushrooms and a small handful of cherry tomatoes. Cost: About 60 cents for the eggs, 60 cents worth of mushrooms and 60 cents worth of tomatoes, or $2.20, or $1.10 per serving.

Lunch: Asparagus is seasonal now, and we found it for $2 a pound at our International District grocer. We bought a pound. We used about half of it and paired it with romaine lettuce ($1 for two heads) and handful of frozen peas ($1.69 for a 10 oz. bag) with a simple vinaigrette and crumbled whole wheat crackers on top in lieu of croutons. Cost: $3 for the salad, about $1.50 per serving.

Dinner: Our supermarket had fresh sausages on sale for $5 per pound, so we bought half a pound. (A serving of protein should be about four ounces.) I bought a bag of prepared sauerkraut for $2.15. I browned the sausages and added the sauerkraut. Normally, I’d use a few spices or dark beer to add additional flavor, but we skipped it. Not shown: Two handfuls of steamed kale. Cost: $1.25 for sausage, $1 each for sauerkraut and 60 cents for the kale, so $5.70, or $2.85 each serving.

Total for the day: About $12

Observations: Fresh produce is tricky, and getting good deals requires careful shopping, and in many places, there’s simply no access to such resources. Not to mention, organic? Forget it. It’s worth seeking out farm stands and ethnic grocers for good deals. Even cheap coffee is expensive, so I skipped my morning cup. I opted for a single cup of inexpensive boxed tea, but realized that’s an investment, too, one that I’m not sure I’d make if it meant giving up “real” food. I normally would have added a handful of nuts to the salad for some protein, but I didn’t due to cost. I feel a little guilty that I used my existing oil and vinegars, but I did factor them into the cost of each meal.

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March 16, 2011 · 6:52 pm

Hunger Action Week: Will you take the challenge?

When people think about the “poor” or the “hungry,” it’s often a vague concept that leads to visions of hollow-cheeked Third World children.Here’s a fact you may not know. About one in six people in the United States don’t have enough to eat. The shifting economy prompted the largest percentage of Americans in history to apply for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps). In February, the figure hit about 44 million people. The “hungry” may be your neighbor or suffering from unemployment, or your cousin the single mother struggling to pay for rising health insurance bills and still put dinner on the table for her kids.

Hunger Action Week is about empathy in action. Simply put, it’s an effort to see what it takes to eat for $7 per day, the amount that those on SNAP receive. Some beneficiaries have additional money for food, others use food banks and many cook more creatively. What would be your strategy? Why not try it for a week and find out?

I’ll be taking the challenge and writing about it next week. The one rule that I break is that I use food I own as I don’t want to waste perishables, but I figure out the cost if I purchased it new.

Hunger Challenge rules:

  • Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner spending only $7 per day.
  • Salt and pepper don’t count but all other seasonings, cooking oils, condiments, snacks, drinks, and everything else do.
  • Don’t use food you already own.
  • Don’t accept food from family, friends, coworkers and others. Not even the free samples from Costco!
  • Try to include fresh produce and healthy protein each day.
  • Keep track of expenses, food choices, and recipes and share your experiences on United Way of King County’s blog. They will have a prize for the best recipe.

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February 16, 2011 · 10:47 am

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

Ok, so it’s official. Here’s the cover and the final title of the new book. Although originally titled Changing Courses, it has been shifted to The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How Nine Culinary Novices Transformed Into Fearless Home Cooks. The book will debut in October 2011, and I’ll be on book tour most of the autumn. The book follows a project in which I tried to understand why people don’t cook at home. I enlisted a group of volunteers who let me pry into their fridges and cupboards and then, after a series of cooking lessons, agreed to a year’s worth of follow up. The results were both intriguing and surprising. But more than that, the project pushed me to think about what I believe not as someone trained in a culinary school, but as a home cook nourishing people I care about.

If you’re a journalist or blogger and you’d like to be added to the review copy list, drop an email to the KCCC team. We’re developing a full web site to go hand-in-hand with the book, including videos and lessons for home cooks. I’ll be announcing more events as they develop.

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December 27, 2010 · 8:40 am

Ratio

The more that I study why and how people cook at home, the more that I understand the importance of a book such as Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking (Scribner, 2009). Noted food writer Michael Ruhlman lays out a simple premise: If you understand the fundamental ratios for some basic culinary tasks ranging from biscuits to stock to vinaigrette, the less a cook has to rely on recipes. After all, the same formula lies behind simple oil and vinegar dressing and the fancy raspberry balsamic fig concoction that you’re shelling out good cash for at the supermarket.

I’m not anti-recipe by any means. But less confident cooks often become enslaved to recipes, in part due to fear of “messing up” dishes with even minute substitutions. Learning to cook via ratio provides a tremendous amount of freedom and economy in the kitchen, never a bad thing.

Why it’s important: Embracing the concept of ratios and taking risks provides in cooking may feel intimidating at first, but can yield a greater sense of freedom, power and efficiency.  Taking the time to internalize a basic technique is the first step in finding the confidence to vary on it based on what you’ve got on hand.

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· 8:39 am

How to Cook Without a Book

Along the same lines of Ratio, there’s How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart (Broadway, 2000) by Pam Anderson, author of The Perfect Recipe series. Each chapter focuses on a classic technique. Each includes a step-by-step narrative on the method, offers a recipe to demonstrate the technique and then provides multiple, yet simple variations. An unusual twist is that each chapter starts with a mnemonic rhyme such as this one for sauté:

“Heat butter and oil, swirling them around,
Add meat, seasoned and coated, and cook until beautifully browned”

A busy mother herself, Anderson focuses on the kinds of food real people eat everyday: salads, pasta, tomato sauces, chicken, potatoes and simple vegetables. At the heart of her message: Learn one technique, cook anything. For example, if you can sear a steak, you most certainly manage to sear hamburger, pork tenderloin, salmon, fish steaks and scallops. Once you get the gist of making a green salad and simple vinaigrette, the exercise no longer requires a recipe; instead, it becomes an exercise to clean out those random vegetables.

Why it’s important: In my cooking project, several people commented that they wished they were the kind of cook who could look in their fridge and just come up with dinner. That’s the goal of this book. As a side note, I recommend all of her books, notably The Perfect Recipe for Losing Weight and Eating Great, one of the books that I keep in my kitchen. It features a collection of simple, quick yet healthy recipes for normal people with busy lives.

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