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Rating: 
Summary: Revolutionize your cooking!
Review: How did I ever survive before Michele Urvater? I have the old, loose-leaf-bound edition, and it has seen me through many a kitchen crisis! Urvater helps you stock your pantry for tons of delicious, quick recipes. Excellent recipes from the pantry are, for instance, salmon chowder and bbq beans and rice. I have made these dishes a hundred times, and they are always yummy, satisfying, and healthful. Dishes using fresh ingredients are also first-rate. My adoration of this book only has one, slight, qualification: many of the recipes have very salty or sodium-loaded ingredients. But if you don't care for as much salt as Urvater, you can temper the ingredients pretty easily. Special features of this cookbook are: tips on adapting recipes for kids, recreating leftovers into new entrees, and eating seriatim (look it up!). I've always wanted to be the kind of cook who can whip a dinner party for eight with half-hour notice--this cookbook has taken me close to my goal. Be sure to try the chestnut puree dessert, if only to buy those cute cans of chestnuts to make your canned-goods shelves look terrifically chic
Rating: 
Summary: Oh my god!
Review: I found this book in the garbage near my home - I, being half Italian, usually judge someone who claims to know how to cook by whether or not they know what a good pasta sauce is supposed to be like. OK, so here goes an example of one of the frequent disasters in this volume:Meat Sauce
1 onion, 2 bell peppers, oil, 1 lb. of ground meat, 1 28 oz can of plum tomatoes, 1 tsp oregano, salt + pepper. I can already see in my head what a tasteless meaty mess this would make. What, no garlic? No basil? Only one can of tomatoes? Doesn't she know oregano is for pizza sauce? How come I'm not writing these books? A recipe for "white and green seafood pasta sauce" is equally bad, as well as many others - I don't know who is giving raves to these recipes, but I don't wanna eat at their house. Maybe it's because my mom (an Anglo Saxon yet) studied recipes and knew something about cooking that I can be a bit more critical of a book that people who grew up on canned Chef-boy-ar-dee and Spam think is great. Maybe it's because I used to drag out cookbooks when I was a kid and practice with them and know a bit about cooking myself. If you are basically retarded in the area of cooking, I guess any cook book, even this one, looks good. This food is the kind of stuff you can get away with selling to the general public, or serving to guests, in a place like, say Seattle. If you are living in a sophisticated area, don't bother. You'll end up looking like a rube. Or an Englishman.
Rating:
Summary: Oh my god!
Review: I had bought this book with intent to use it when I moved out on my own. When I married I pulled out the book to find new recipes because all I knew how to cook was rice and my husband only knew how to cook macaroni and cheese! It's great! My husband & I went through it looking for recipes that sounded good. The directions are straight-forward and there's no guess work at how long it will take to cook up a meal. We'd be home from work by 6pm and eating by 7pm. We'd take turns cooking and even my husband can follow the instructions. There are tips for what to have in your pantry and what type of pots and pans and utensils you'll use more often. I highly recommend this book to people that are just learning to cook or for those people that love home cooked meals but don't have a lot of time in the evenings. The only reason I didn't give it a full 5 stars is because I have found a couple of recipes that didn't come out right or just didn't taste right at all.
Rating:
Summary: Great for Inexperienced Cooks!!
Review: I have about 10 cookbooks (including popular "The New Basics") and this one is by far my favorite. As someone fairly new to cooking in general, it meets all my major requirements: 1) not too many ingredients per recipe; 2) ingredients you can actually find in the grocery store (or even in the pantry); 3) simple instructions (no fancy cooking skills necessary to produce high-quality end product); 4) recipes don't take hours to complete; and 5) includes suggestions for things to eat with the dish & what to do with leftovers.
I am a slow and deliberate cook, so I generally plan for it to take me twice as long as the timing guideline offered by the author, but even I can pull off most of the recipes in less than 1.5 hours.
Every recipe I've ever tried from this book has tasted delicious. Highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: My Reliable Standby
Review: I'm not a great cook. But, when given a good recipe, I can usually turn out a good dish. However, everything I have made out of this book has to be qualified as an unmitigated culinary disaster. I suppose it could just be me, as other people seem to have had some good luck with this book. But then again, I've had great results with recent forays into Indian cooking armed only with a couple of cook books. So why am I having such problems with Michele's supposedly "easy" recipes? My hunch is that she's leaving crucial information out of many of her recipes--things that, as an experienced cook, she takes for granted, but us less experienced folk don't know about. Today I just spent several hours following to the letter her recipe for spaghetti sauce and ended up with tastleless orange goo. This is typical of the half dozen other recipes I have tried from this book. My advice? Save yourself time on a hectic weekday by leaving this book on the shelf and getting Thai takeout.
Rating:
Summary: A book that will lead you to better eating in less time
Review: Michelle Urvater designed her book for those who want to eat good tasting food, but in less time. She succeeded! She begins her book by making suggestions on how to run a kitchen in today's fast paced world. Take these suggestions! She follows with a number of recipes that use ingredients easily stocked in one's kitchen. The recipes indicate preparation and cooking time, and are carefully layed out for easy reading. She offers creative use of leftovers as well, which become a new, tasty meal in themselves. This book is good for both meat-eaters and vegetarians alike.
Rating:
Summary: A cornerstone of my cookbook collection.
Review: We received this book as a wedding gift and mistakenly ignored it for several years. Two years ago, we rediscovered it and have been using it almost exclusively ever since. An incredible range of recipes, from 30 minute start-to-table meals to more elaborate menus for when you are entertaining. It's a great cookbook for the person just learning to cook as well as the more experienced chef. Michelle includes several chapters on how stock your pantry and kitchen equipment (I never learned that in Home Economics!) as well as well-organized recipes that make menu planning easy. I have given this book as a gift to most of my family - my four siblings and parents, too! I do have one complaint - we've exhausted the recipes in this book! So, am going to buy the M2F Chicken and/or M2F Pasta book to supplement. Hopefully that will keep us for another 2 years!
Rating:
Summary: A cornerstone of my cookbook collection.
Review: We received this book as a wedding gift and mistakenly ignored it for several years. Two years ago, we rediscovered it and have been using it almost exclusively ever since. An incredible range of recipes, from 30 minute start-to-table meals to more elaborate menus for when you are entertaining. It's a great cookbook for the person just learning to cook as well as the more experienced chef. Michelle includes several chapters on how stock your pantry and kitchen equipment (I never learned that in Home Economics!) as well as well-organized recipes that make menu planning easy. I have given this book as a gift to most of my family - my four siblings and parents, too! I do have one complaint - we've exhausted the recipes in this book! So, am going to buy the M2F Chicken and/or M2F Pasta book to supplement. Hopefully that will keep us for another 2 years!
Rating:
Summary: Life Changing Experience
Review: Who knew that one cookbook would add variety to my diet, make me look forward to food shopping, teach me how to make quick, nutritious meals, and enable me to throw a wonderful dinner party! I highly recommend Ms. Urvater's book to anyone who loves food and has a hectic schedule. Her recipes make any novice seem like an expert. They are also Weight Watcher friendly for any members looking for flavor and options. If you are in the market for a new cookbook or if you are looking for the perfect gift, make sure that it is Monday to Friday. The meals will impress family, friends, and most important, yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Life Changing Experience
Review: Who knew that one cookbook would add variety to my diet, make me look forward to food shopping, teach me how to make quick, nutritious meals, and enable me to throw a wonderful dinner party! I highly recommend Ms. Urvater's book to anyone who loves food and has a hectic schedule. Her recipes make any novice seem like an expert. They are also Weight Watcher friendly for any members looking for flavor and options. If you are in the market for a new cookbook or if you are looking for the perfect gift, make sure that it is Monday to Friday. The meals will impress family, friends, and most important, yourself.
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