Fresh from the Kitchen

Rating:
Summary: A Must for Your Kitchen
Review: It has been a long time since I have found a cookbook as "user-friendly" and fun to work with as Mindy Ganz Ribner's Fresh from the Kitchen. We received it as a gift and it's been a family hit from the first day in our home. Although the author seems to gear the book to less experienced cooks, some of the recipes are not all that simple and it is here that Mindy really shows her stuff. The language is clear; the instructions are comfortingly explicit (including some great illustrations); and you are made to feel as if the author is standing right next to you in the kitchen, ready with both tips and encouragement. The mark of any cookbook is what ends up on the dinner table and we have yet to be disappointed. Although geared to the kosher-observing public, this book includes international dishes along with more traditional, ethnic foods. So far our favorites include: vegetable roulade with mushroom sauce, ground-beef soup, rosemary chicken, chicken livers in wine sauce, glazed corned beef, oriental baked fish, cheese blintzes, yerushalmi kugel, tabbouli salad, marinated peppers, challah and the incredible apple pie. The kids loved Brooklyn's best meat sauce, noodles a la George, vegetable tacos, muffins and two great and easy-to-make cakes, chocolate and marble, which introduced them to the joys of baking. This cookbook makes a great gift, but don't forget to put yourselves at the top of the list. As for our family, we eagerly await the next volume.

Rating:
Summary: A few fresh ideas
Review: Mindy Ganz Ribner's book is definitely geared to first time cooks, so much so that her writing style often feels condescending. She begins her book with a primer for setting up the kosher kitchen. Her tips and suggestions are both clear and helpful. She includes lists of cooking equipment and suggests which ones are needed for which areas of kosher cooking (meat, dairy or parve [neutral]). This introduction makes this book a good gift item for a young bride or a beginning cook with no on-hands knowledge of the laws of keeping kosher.

This is a big book, with over 400 pages and 300 recipes. The recipes are for the most part original and easy to follow. It is her cutesy writing style and habit of giving nick names to so many of her recipes that I found to be a turn off. A few of the cookie recipes I tried were flops and I found the cakes to be more fussy than the end result called for. Overall this is an okay book but not the best of the lot.

Rating:
Summary: A few fresh ideas
Review: Mindy Ganz Ribner's book is definitely geared to first time cooks, so much so that her writing style often feels condescending. She begins her book with a primer for setting up the kosher kitchen. Her tips and suggestions are both clear and helpful. She includes lists of cooking equipment and suggests which ones are needed for which areas of kosher cooking (meat, dairy or parve [neutral]). This introduction makes this book a good gift item for a young bride or a beginning cook with no on-hands knowledge of the laws of keeping kosher.

This is a big book, with over 400 pages and 300 recipes. The recipes are for the most part original and easy to follow. It is her cutesy writing style and habit of giving nick names to so many of her recipes that I found to be a turn off. A few of the cookie recipes I tried were flops and I found the cakes to be more fussy than the end result called for. Overall this is an okay book but not the best of the lot.