Today, most family is cutting down times to cook, therefore One-Dish is the in things. I advise you all that to cook more steam & boil food for great health.
The Return of One-Dish Family Meals
By JULIA MOSKIN
WHAT do home cooks want? If the new crop of fall cookbooks is anything to go by, they want 30-minute recipes with no more than three ingredients that can be wedged in between soccer practice and family therapy appointments.
On the other hand, they also have a bottomless appetite for stews, braises and casseroles that take hours or even days to produce and are elegant enough for cozy dinner parties.
A recent, feverish week of recipe testing yielded no less than 10 new recipes I'd happily make again, nothing too ornate, everything at least good, and a few simple greats.
Art Smith became famous as Oprah Winfrey's personal chef, and his first book, "Back to the Table," (Hyperion, 2001) made him the self anointed spokesman for the American family dinner. His latest effort, KITCHEN LIFE (Hyperion, $18.95), screams accessible, especially to women: Mr. Smith includes an intimate, Cosmopolitan-style multiple-choice quiz about your cooking habits.
In trying not to scare anyone, Mr. Smith suggests some unnecessary shortcuts like using salad dressing mix instead of dried herbs and keeps ingredient lists short. But the recipes I tried, including a Greek lamb salad and cauliflower and Parmesan soup, are functional and tasty. The book's best innovation is plus-size master recipes called "Kitchen Workhorses," like Italian pot roast or a seven-pound pork loin that are repurposed into other dishes.
The inexhaustible editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine recently turned their energies to a category they call COVER AND BAKE (America's Test Kitchen, $29.95) which includes stews, braises and casseroles, and throws in some soufflés and curries for good measure. Most of all, it's an attempt to rescue the casserole from the dustbin of history and to make one-dish dinners a reality for average cooks, with honest ingredients and detailed make-ahead instructions.
No dish is beneath their notice: chili mac, usually a combination of canned chili and instant macaroni and cheese, is transformed by a quickly simmered tomato-beef sauce and a crusty lid of melted cheese. Their higher-end dishes are less alluring — does the world need a casserole version of chicken divan? And because the flavors are determined by a panel of tasters — which means pleasing the maximum number of palates with a lowest common denominator of flavor — dishes tend to be underseasoned. Read More...
The New York Times > Dining & Wine > The Return of One-Dish Family Meals
The Return of One-Dish Family Meals
By JULIA MOSKIN
WHAT do home cooks want? If the new crop of fall cookbooks is anything to go by, they want 30-minute recipes with no more than three ingredients that can be wedged in between soccer practice and family therapy appointments.
On the other hand, they also have a bottomless appetite for stews, braises and casseroles that take hours or even days to produce and are elegant enough for cozy dinner parties.
A recent, feverish week of recipe testing yielded no less than 10 new recipes I'd happily make again, nothing too ornate, everything at least good, and a few simple greats.
Art Smith became famous as Oprah Winfrey's personal chef, and his first book, "Back to the Table," (Hyperion, 2001) made him the self anointed spokesman for the American family dinner. His latest effort, KITCHEN LIFE (Hyperion, $18.95), screams accessible, especially to women: Mr. Smith includes an intimate, Cosmopolitan-style multiple-choice quiz about your cooking habits.
In trying not to scare anyone, Mr. Smith suggests some unnecessary shortcuts like using salad dressing mix instead of dried herbs and keeps ingredient lists short. But the recipes I tried, including a Greek lamb salad and cauliflower and Parmesan soup, are functional and tasty. The book's best innovation is plus-size master recipes called "Kitchen Workhorses," like Italian pot roast or a seven-pound pork loin that are repurposed into other dishes.
The inexhaustible editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine recently turned their energies to a category they call COVER AND BAKE (America's Test Kitchen, $29.95) which includes stews, braises and casseroles, and throws in some soufflés and curries for good measure. Most of all, it's an attempt to rescue the casserole from the dustbin of history and to make one-dish dinners a reality for average cooks, with honest ingredients and detailed make-ahead instructions.
No dish is beneath their notice: chili mac, usually a combination of canned chili and instant macaroni and cheese, is transformed by a quickly simmered tomato-beef sauce and a crusty lid of melted cheese. Their higher-end dishes are less alluring — does the world need a casserole version of chicken divan? And because the flavors are determined by a panel of tasters — which means pleasing the maximum number of palates with a lowest common denominator of flavor — dishes tend to be underseasoned. Read More...
The New York Times > Dining & Wine > The Return of One-Dish Family Meals
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