Description:
Recipes that can be thrown together in 20 minutes or less with no more than five ingredients--that's the quick and the easy of Jane Butel's Quick and Easy Southwestern Cookbook. "The two pillars of the cuisine," she writes, "are chiles, which provide the personality, and corn, which provides a great deal of the structure." Jane Butel provides the know-how. That includes how to reduce fat, plan a week's worth of cooking for a family, find ways to speed the process, and stock your pantry so you have on hand what you need to get that Southwestern flavor you are looking for. Among the 14 chapters, you will find recipes for main dish salads, wraps, Southwest seafood, sauces and salsas, desserts, fast-cooking meat dishes, quick-action poultry, and vegetarian dishes. Try the Beef Enchilada Bake. It's a casserole combination of browned ground beef, red chile sauce, tortillas, chopped onion, grated cheese, and lettuce and chopped tomato for garnish. It cooks in 17 to 20 minutes. The Scallop Tostado Salad looks tempting. So does the Swiss Chard-Wrapped Salmon, a dish that includes chipotle chiles and slices of lime. Jane Butel has taught Southwestern cooking for years in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so these recipes are tried and true. Home cooks looking for something new for weeknight dinners will enjoy a little chile-and-corn infusion from Jane Butel. --Schuyler Ingle
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