Taste of Home Cooking School Cookbook

By Taste of Home

Greendale WI, A Taste of Home/Reader’s Digest Book, 2012

319 pages 400 recipes   Non-Fiction

I love this Taste of Home cookbook. What I like best about the cookbook and the magazine supplements that I occasionally buy is that I seldom, if ever, have to go out and buy exotic spices or unusual ingredients that I would not normally have on hand. Sometimes just looking at the recipes reminds me: “Oh, yeah! I could do that for the party or the family dinner or supper tonight.”

The Taste of Home Cooking School Cookbook follows the traditional Taste of Home pattern: a description for each recipe submitted by a reader with the reader’s name and hometown included, then the recipe. There is a picture for each recipe; something my non-cooking daughter tells me that she has to have in a cookbook. The other major innovation with this cookbook is that nutritional values are included with each recipe—something that has been lacking in the magazine and the supplements. Additionally, it is a very colorful cookbook and is nicely arranged. The index is complete, and categories of recipes are easy to find. These are essentials for a good cookbook in my mind. Interspersed throughout the cookbook are handy tips—tips, I am assuming, that are explained when the cooking school tour comes to town. I have never gone to one of the cooking schools but I have heard others talk about them.

This book came at a good time for me. My husband and I are following the 17-Day diet. (We’re on day 21 and it’s going pretty well). Therefore, the nutritional values on the recipes have been the first thing I have looked at as I read over and tried the recipes. Here are some of the recipes I tried and had success with. The pictures are out of the cookbook…my end results don’t look so glamorous.

 Ginger Chicken (p. 137). This is a regular stir fry recipe except that it used egg white to bind a soy sauce/cornstarch mixture to the chicken before the chicken was fried in the wok. I had never grated a piece of ginger before, and it really added a zip to the finished product.

  Orange Tilapia (p. 185). We found this to be a very good recipe with orange juice and orange peel added to to tilapia, carrots and zucchini, which were then steamed in parchment paper in the oven. We really enjoyed the recipe and I most likely will make it again.

Savory Apple-chicken Sausage (p. 241). We made this for Sunday breakfast. I am on the search for recipes that we can have for breakfast that have the protein but not the fat. This really filled the bill. The apples filled in for the dryness that often comes from ground chicken. This recipe is a real keeper.

 

Sausage Pizza Soup (p. 77). This is what I am making for dinner tonight.  It is very low calorie and low carbohydrate but looks like it will have a good pizza-y taste to it. Only 128 calories a cup.

 I didn’t try any appetizers or desserts because we aren’t eating anything like that right at the moment, but when the 17-day diet has run its course, you can bet that I will be making lots more of the recipes.

Taste of Home test kitchens and many more recipes: http.www.tasteofhome.com

I received this with a couple of other cookbooks from the publicist. More cookbooks postings in the next few days.