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Summary: For Busy Cooks
Review: If you like to entertain and have little time, this is the book for you... Great recipes using easy to find products that help make you look like you slaved all day in the kitchen.. Sandra Lee has found creative and glamourous ways to minimize the time we spend making food for friends and family. Her research into using the best ready made food items available to put together and enhance the tried and true recipes make even a novice cook look like a pro. The photography by Maryellen Baker, Ed Quellette and Joe Buissink which is placed right next to the recipe, is magnificent and gives presentation ideas to perfection. Plus the pictures are so beautiful you want to make the item on every page. Kudos go to Hilary Hollingshead for her great layout and Denise Vivaldo for the fantastic food styling. I love the wine and music suggestions after many of the recipes which add an extra touch to each presentation. Sandra has done her research and has a great follow through with her newsletter and web magazine, even including a prepaid postcard to extend the ideas and keep her format of a new way to cook. ongoing.Congratulations to a charming and caring young woman who has done an amazing job in giving home cooks a non intiminating boost and a new direction to make delicious meals for everyday and special occasions.
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Summary: The good life to go
Review: If you're a die-hard cook who loves spending your life in the kitchen, you'll find little use for this book. If you, like most of us, would rather spend time savoring a meal than cooking it, you'll buy this book and beg Sandra Lee for more.
Refreshingly, this book makes good on its promises - quick and marvelous and nothing is made from scratch. It goes even further to meet the demands of the more discriminating palate - that food be innovative and attractively presented.
The book is so artistic it wouldn't be amiss on your coffee table. It is a trifle large for the kitchen, but its generous size is more than made up for by its pleasing format. Each recipe receives two pages, with a gorgeous, full-page color picture on one side and the recipe on the other. Recipes range from everyday comfort food to glamorous meals for special occasions, with individual sections for snacks, appetizers, cocktails and desserts. The Banana Foster's Pie alone is worth the price.
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Summary: A real world solution
Review: In a perfect world, I would cook wonderful home-cooked meals every night. In a perfect world, I would only use fresh ingredients. In a perfect world, I wouldn't care if it took 3 hours, 8 pans and 40 ingredients from 3 different stores. Unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world. In the real world of two hard-working parents, demanding children and constant time pressures, this book is a lifesaver. I can thumb through it and find a recipe that we all like and that I can pull together quickly. A good dinner in 30 minutes, 1 pan, 5 ingredients from 1 store. Now that's real world.
Rating: 
Summary: Advertising
Review: It is one brand name after another, don't waste your money.<br />
This book has more fluff then recipes that you can use everyday, plus it will not save you money with all the package and can food you have to search out and buy.
Rating:
Summary: Advertising
Review: It is one brand name after another, don't waste your money.<br />This book has more fluff then recipes that you can use everyday, plus it will not save you money with all the package and can food you have to search out and buy.
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Summary: YOU GO GIRL!!!
Review: Ms Sandra Lee tells it like it is. In today's fast paced fast food world this book is a find. Great tasting food on the table in less time then it takes to stand in the takeout line and only a few dishes to wash. And the food is good enough for company and cheaper then Chinese. This woman has her pulse on the times. Its about time!!
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Summary: Goof proof cooking!!
Review: My mother always told me I should learn how to cook. Guess what, mom? I finally have - thanks to Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade. The recipes are not a lot of work and using name brand products simplifies it even more. It is practically impossible to screw up. It would be nice if more of the recipes were low fat, like the dijon chicken and mushrooms, but overall YUM!! I did use low fat cream cheese and sour cream in the morning glory fondue and it was still delish. Thanks, Sandra!
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Summary: This is Great! Get Real...
Review: Okay, let's face it, it's all about time and there's just too little of it. With this cookbook, not only can you recapture some of that time but you can also serve up some absolutely scrumptious meals and snacks. I know the purists all rave about the use of packaged prepared foods, but come on, who today has time to cook from scratch? Statistics prove that fewer people cook from scratch and get bland, pedestrian fast food, with Semi Homemade Cooking anyone can be a ten minute maestro of the kitchen.
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Summary: What a Breeze and Meals that Please!
Review: Sandra Lee is known to audiences nationwide from her appearances on the QVC shopping channel and numerous network and cable television programs. Her Semi-Homemade solutions have also been featured in People, Redbook, Better Homes and Gardens, Traditional Home, Country Home and Victoria. She has also appeared on NBC's Today. FOX's Good Day LA and Good Day New York. Sandra Lee is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals She also studied at the acclaimed Cordon Bleu. When selecting a cookbook, normally I will buy cookbooks that promote "cooking from scratch." This is the first cookbook that claims that "Nothing is Made from Scratch." What Sandra means is, you will still be cooking, just parts of the recipe are "convenience/prepackaged foods" or packet mixes. This slices time off making cakes for sure! Firstly, these recipes looked far too easy and so I was a bit skeptical. Secondly, I don't normally buy anything not in its raw state. Buying "pancake mix" was new to me. Heading home from the grocery store, I almost felt a little sinful. This cookbook contains 101 recipes such as Pumpkin Cinnamon Pancakes, Southwestern Turkey Chili, roasted Pepper Soup, Kahlua Tiramisu and Berry Cookie Cobbler. You will find recipes for appetizers, soups, salads, main dishes, desserts, snacks and even treats you can make for your pets. The beauty of this cookbook is almost more in the "Semi-Homemade" techniques than in the actual recipes. Technically, you can adapt these recipes for your own use in many ways. Tonight I made the "Steak Pinwheels with Sun-Dried Tomato Stuffing and Rosemary Mashed Potatoes." In the recipe, it calls for sun-dried tomatoes that are not packed in oil, but I just used the ones I had in oil and reduced the amount to 2 tablespoons chopped sun-dried tomatoes in oil. The Stove top stuffing mix I found was only 6 ounces, but the recipe called for a 6.6 ounce box. It still worked fine. Instead of just salt and pepper on the skirt steak, I used garlic salt and freshly ground Tellicherry peppercorns. Ok, so I cheated and made the potatoes from scratch because I had potatoes I needed to use up. Then, for desert, no lies! I waited to make the desert until "after" dinner. This was new. I didn't feel stressed at all. I took the pound cake out of the freezer, cut it into cubes and drizzled the rum-butter sauce all over the cake. Yum! Then, for an added touch, you can mix in some frozen raspberries with the jam. I also used frozen raspberries on top and added whipped cream. The "Raspberry Trifle with Rum Sauce" is absolutely delish! She doesn't say to use whipped cream, but Trifle without whipped cream just isn't the same. So, to explain how much time I saved, I made the recipe in about 10 minutes. Since the vanilla pudding was already cold and the frozen raspberries cooled down the entire desert very fast, I could have served this almost immediately. Not having to make the pound cake was a real treat and hey, I didn't even have to make custard. My husband absolutely loved the Trifle and the gravy for the Steak Pinwheels. I was queen of the kitchen! The full-color, full-page photographs are really tempting. Unlike other cookbooks, the food I made actually did look exactly like the pictures. Each recipe has time estimates and suggested brand-name ingredients. If you are looking for a cookbook for entertaining, this one has some excellent time saving ideas. I noticed that Sandra also suggests you plan your entire week's menu in advance. This is a great time-saving idea and has worked for me for years! Keeping "staples" on hand is always useful. Contents Include: Grocery Shopping - Hints and Tips to get you in and out of the store fast. Brand Names, Prepping, Cooking, and cooling Times, Budget, Leftovers, Storage, Music Some Examples of the Recipes: Breakfast - Muffins, Crepes and Country Biscuits and Gravy Lunch - Curried bowtie Salad, Beefy Stew or Gnocchi Dippers Dinner - Dijon Chicken and Mushrooms, Meaty Microwave Lasagna, Tropical Salmon Desserts - Vanilla Cream Pie, Bananas Foster Pie, Rum Cake Appetizers - Sesame Chicken Drumettes, Italian Fondue, Smoked Salmon and Olive Blini or Oriental Pork Wrappers Soups & Salads - Roasted Pepper Soup, Cheddar Potato Soup, Bay Shrimp and Avocado Salad, Spicy Crab Salad. Snacks - Caramel Popcorn, Hummus Pitas, Bagel Chip Dip Gravies & Sauces - Sherry Mushroom Gravy, Pesto, Hollandaise Sauce Pet Foods - Bone-Nanza Bones, Healthy Hound Stew, Kitty Katafornia Rolls Sandra starts each chapter with a note about the recipes to follow. There is a full index, but each chapter also has its own contents page. Semi-Homemade is for any cook who is looking for "shortcut" strategies. You really can make delicious meals in "minutes." If you are looking for more leisure time, but want to still enjoy home-made meals, this might be for you. If you are looking for low-salt, low-fat cooking, I think you could adapt many of the recipes by purchasing low-salt beef stock or mixes that say low salt. With prepackaged foods, that has to be a consideration. Although many of the recipes are healthier because she uses techniques that make them low-fat. Like her "Healthy Onion Rings" that are made in the oven. I can't wait to make the Tropical Salmon and Pumpkin Cinnamon Pancakes. A cookbook to make your life easier! Really inspired me to get back in the kitchen and have some fun. It was like a cooking holiday!
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Summary: This Book is the Best! JenniferB,Dayton
Review: Semihomemade really is quick and easy. I was suprised at how good my food turned out. Hooray, someone who finally "gets it". I was also shocked to see that my book came with a free subscription to a Web Magazine that is full of great how to for everyday. Best [random dollar amount] I ever spent! Good for me, good for you.
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