COOKBOOK REVIEWS

I'm not sure where to start this thread, but "Recipes" seems to be the best place.

Have you a cookbook you've read, received, or been given lately, that you'd like to review?

I'd like to start off with one. I'm lucky enough to have access to a HUGE library system, that gets in a lot of new books. Some months back, after hearing about this book on some tv show, I thought I'd order it from the library.

Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld, $24.99 in US, $28.95 in Canada. 204 pages, 73 recipes.The premise of the book is to add pureed vegetables and/or fruit to various recipes of all parts of a meal, for those who won't eat their veggies or need /want the nutritional boost. 

The pictures are wonderful, and the explanations at the beginning of the book would be useful to a beginning cook.  There are tips from "experienced" mothers. None of them seemed to me of any great value to me, but they might be to a less inventive cook.

I spent about a half hour going through the book, one end to the other. Although some of the ideas were good ones, and some of the information was useful, it sure wasn't worth the purchase cost. Most experienced cooks know about using applesauce in baking, and recipes such as pumpkin muffins are easily found online. Other recipes, such as lasagne, with added pureed spinach, cauliflower, or squash, to me just seems to be logical. The few novel recipes I found were Tofu Nuggets, and Chocolate Cake with Beet Puree. Most recipes used the pureed vegetables with strong flavored ingedients, such as tomato or chocolate, to hide the taste.  Many used the purees to add texture, such as the "Buttered Noodles", using yellow squash in place of a cream sauce.

I don't think this is the kind of recipe book that would earn a position of great value in anyone's recipe book collection. The mother of young children who doesn't already do a lot of her own cooking from scratch is not likely to gain a lot from such a book, IMHO. 

Do we need a rating system? If I had to, from 0 to 5 stars, I'd give this one a low score. 

ViolaB 

I just went through the 'Holiday Celebration 2007' cookbook that Taste of Home puts out. I got it at the library, and I thought it was very nice. I think that it is worth the price, if you like fixing holiday meals. It had a lot of good ideas in it also for decorating.  I would give it a   4 in rating.

 bump

It just goes to show you that it only takes one person to think it's a good idea...  I think I saw the same show (probably a morning news show like Today or Good Morning America or something like that. Anyway, I got the impression that some producer who doesn't have time to cook for her kids fell across this book and thought it was spectacular. I've glanced through the recipes and, like you, I wasn't impressed.

I like reading through cook books for inspiration more than for direct recipes. I've got loads of them, but I rarely follow a recipe to the T. Oh well, I don't starve so I guess that's OK.

Thanks for the post. Hey Jet!

 Thank YOU

I am the same, reading recipes for ideas, but when something is hyped the way this was, one expects something better.The concept of it was good, but the result is sadly lacking, IMHO.

ViolaB 

Viola, there was a review of that book in our food section a few weeks back and they came to the same conclusion.   I haven't had a chance to glance at it, but sounds like you're pretty much 'right on'.   Thanks!