OurColony.net

The Minimalist Cooks Dinner

Customer Rating:
The cover was a little more worn then I would have liked, and not glossy like the library book I had (was hoping it would be glossy, but it could just be a different release), but overall good condition. I am glad to have this cookbook, it has lots of yummy recipes.

Not bad for a book of quick recipes

Customer Rating:
The book provides a number of good recipes that can be easily made. The short stories to the left of the recipe itself helped a lot to explain the history or key points of cooking for the dish, and the hints to alternate the recipe to your liking was helpful too. Overall the book gives excellent suggestions for quick dinners after a long day of work. The presentation of each recipe was clear and well done.

However I felt that some of the recipes were a little too simplistic, having maybe 2 main ingredients and then a short list of seasonings. I can prepare (excluding cook time) all of the recipes in under 20 minutes tops. I wish there were hints in each recipe to make it slightly more complex and even tastier, should the reader wish to take it up a step on some nights.

Good idea -- BAD recipes

Customer Rating:
I'm a fairly novice cook, but I can follow a recipe as well as anyone, and I've had excellent results from other cookbooks. I just CANNOT get anything from this cookbook to taste good, and after patiently trying several different recipes (some multiple times), I have completely given up on it. My best results were passable; the worst were inedible.

The yogurt marinade for the "Tandoori Chicken" was absolutely atrocious, and tasted nothing like real Indian food. Cooking times are consistently off -- if Bittman tells you that your chicken will be cooked through in 5 minutes, expect it to still be raw after 10. Furthermore, the recipes may be "simple" in the sense of having few ingredients and short cooking times, but they are not at all durable. Give your dish a bit too much time or heat (even if it's what the recipe calls for!) and you end up with an inedible hunk of leather.

Tonight was my final attempt. Cook minced onions on high heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally? Mine were carbonized in 3 minutes, and I just gave up and called in for pizza.

If you have plenty of cooking experience, and can improvise successfully around a recipe that's simply a rough outline -- rather than, well, a recipe -- then you may get decent results from this book. However, if you're the type of cook who expects to follow a recipe to the letter and get good food, then stay away from this book.

Tasty + fast = perfect.

Customer Rating:
This is an incredibly wise cookbook -- and wisely laid out. All the recipes, like everyone else has been saying, have tips and modification hints. Not a one of the recipes feels cramped, like happens so often, but neither is any space wasted, like in many other thick-spined (and thick-headed) cookbooks. And have I mentioned that they're tasty & fast recipes... hence perfect?!

The Cranberry Pot Roast makes me swoon and long for fresh cranberry season (I do the browning and the saucing in skillet, and the cooking in my crock-pot for 6hrs); the Salmon & Leeks is deliciously bracing; and the Fresh Corn Chowder is wonderful, though I do add an extra helping of onions and tomatoes. Every time I tell my older sister, who's far more conservative about food than I am, that a new recipe's from this book, she consents to try it -- and almost always loves it!

I haven't used any of Bittman's other books, but this one's definitely going on my wishlist. It rocks.

excellent collection

Customer Rating:
Like the companion volume, "The Minimalist Cooks at Home", this is an excellent collection of recipes. His hints on techniques are very helpful, and his recipes use good ingredients and result in clear, strong, delicious flavors. If you're a vegetarian, this isn't a great choice, but otherwise, this is one of my two favorite cookbooks. We have 50 or so cookbooks, but this and "The Minimalist Cooks at Home" are the two I use the most. His recipes make sense, and they don't waste your time or effort.