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| The Quick Recipe (The Best Recipe Series) | 
 enlarge | Creator: Editors Of Cook's Illustrated Magazine
Publisher: Cook's Illustrated
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy Used: $2.37
You Save: $27.58 (92%)
New (29) Used (41) Collectible (1) from $2.37
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 192646
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 454
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.1
Dimensions (in): 10.6 x 8.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0936184663
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.555
EAN: 9780936184661
ASIN: 0936184663
Publication Date: March 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 16 | | NEXT » |
 This book is a nightmare September 9, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
There's no proper index for the recipes, so it's very hard to find what you're looking for without reading, and memorizing THE WHOLE BOOK.
The fonts are very small, and very hard to follow (and I have a perfect vision).
I didn't even bother to read ONE recipe through.
All in all, will never use this book to look up a QUICK recipe. Will use it to stop doors, kill pests, press wrinkled papers, and dry flowers.
Best cook book I have used to date!!! May 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am not one of those cooks that can come up with something off the top of my head. I have used hundreds of cook books and as soon as I started using this book, my husband noticed immeditately. He has loved 98% of the recipes. The only recipes I do not recommend is the ones using lentils...very bland but otherwise..every piece of chicken has been perfectly moist...steak..juicy. It gives you ideas for side dishes to go along with the entry. Recipes typically take about 1 hour. If you can not dedicate 1 hour to good and delicious balanced meal perhaps you should not use this book. For the first time meals feel complete, My mother couldn't stop talking about my cooking for days after cooking for her via using recipes from this book. It also gives you best brands for optimal flavor. Not low fat!!! Lots of recipes call for butter...but I've revamped some of them and cut some of the fat. I deffinitely will be purchasing other books by them!!!
 Great results without the hassle. August 28, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have tried many of these recipes and found them all to be nearly perfect. Ingredients are readily available, prep time is short and easy. Workable recipes for busy people.
Great book! October 2, 2006
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
I have tried a handful of recipes so far and haven't had any problems with them. My absolute favorite is the Banana Muffins (I've made it at least 10 times!)....people rave about them and I have to constantly give out the recipe. I've tried lots of banana muffin recipes, but it is by far THE best and the only ingredient I don't usually have is buttermilk, but I am finding it should be a staple for cooking! I tried the Cranberry Cornmeal Cookies yesterday and they were great. I love that they made the recipe makeable with only a bowl, whisk, and wooden spoon. No mixer required. I look forward to making many more of the desserts in the book and also more of the entrees that make my mouth water. A really good book for a cook like me who isn't a novice, but doesn't know many of the reasons why we use certain cooking techniques.
I will be giving this book to my family members for Christmas this year!
 Great Cookbook, (but not quick or easy) May 16, 2006
This is another cookbook compiled by the editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine. Like the magazine and previously published cookbooks, this is a wonderful cooking reference book with detailed explanations for what, how, and why regarding food and its preparation. The editors' and chefs' primary purpose is to create recipes that yield the most perfect culinary masterpiece, and then accurately explain to the kitchen cook how to recreate said culinary art. Everything--time, convenience, ease, efficiency, and health or reasonable caloric content is sacrificed for the sake of flavor--even in this cookbook titled The Quick Recipe.
Like previous Cook's Illustrated cookbooks, this one defines the standards the editors used in the search for the best recipe that would yield the results they were looking for. I enjoyed reading this cookbook like the magazines and other books Cooks Illustrated has published as a reference book, much like a cooking encyclopedia. I learn a lot about food and why certain ingredients do the things they do, why other options are better, worse, etc. I like these books mostly because of what I learn about food, and because I like knowing how something works, why it works the way it does, and why they established the standards they did.
According to these authors, an hour in the kitchen preparing a meal is quick. Considering that many of the recipes developed in their test kitchens require considerably more than that, an hour is reasonably quick--for them, but maybe not for us. To the modern cook, even a homeschool mom like myself, quick means start it, but not have to supervise it. Quick can even mean using a crockpot--even though it takes all day long to cook, the prep time is generally 20 minutes or less ,and dinner's ready when we are. We have softball, t-ball, gymnastics, Bible class, and piano lessons. The editors are completely honest in the intro: They refuse to sacrifice quality of flavor for ease and time in preparation. Their goal was to create near perfect recipes requiring around ten ingredients (give or take) in about an hour.
I like my dinners to taste good, be healthy, and flavorful. Some of the methods and steps they require are time consuming and superflous in my opinion since my results didn't yield significant enough difference from the traditional methods to be worth the effort. Some of their suggestions were fabulous, and I've been able to improve other recipes by incorporating their methods. The bottom line is that their standards for taste are considerably higher than mine usually need to be, and I suppose our pallets are so plebian that we don't notice a significant enough difference between the belaboured method and the efficient one. Lengthy ingredient lists don't scare me off, neither does tedium necessarily if I have time to accomplish it. But the issue is time, and tedium is antithetical to efficiency. As far as I can tell, the prepackaged consessions for the sake of time largely include canned chicken broth, frozen peas, frozen pearl onions, the occasional rotisseri chicken and canned beans (pintos, cannellini, red, black and kidney--not green or wax). All else starts with raw material. I generally do not use prepackaged mixes or canned food, anyway, because my standards for a meal also include the number of calories and nutritional value. Prepackaged foods and sauces are generally very high calorie, high sodium, high preservative contents for a small portion.
Though I normally start from scratch, I have become efficient enough to throw a good dinner without spending an hour cuffed to the stove. The recipes here are generally tedius, requiring several steps and specific timing. Neither fast, nor easy. For example, several recipes for vegetables only reqire 20-25 minutes, which seems reasonable in the beginning. Except that upon further examination, you realize you have to attend those vegetables for every one one of those 20-25 minutes. You can't multi-task--start the meat, start the vegetables, supervise the kids setting the table, wash the dishes you've used so far, turn/stir the meat, glance at the side, toss the salad, wipe off a countertop, get the drinks, stir the vegetables again, and get it on the table. You have to baby the dishes along from start to finish.
My two biggest complaints about a this cookbook labeled quick is that it calls for ingredients not generally found at a Wal Mart Neighborhood Market, or even hit or miss at Albertsons, and many of the recipes are not kid-friendly at all. I try to make things all of us will like and barring that, at least tolerate. We're talking green vegetables versus dessert, here. I make my kids eat three bites of everything. I try to have at least one thing on their plates that they like or is "normal." Let's face it: Radicchio and arugula are acquired tastes. Cilantro and curry are popular right now, but most kids don't really like them, and this cookbook has several recipes calling for them. The reasons I expect common, kid friendly ingredients in a cookbook labeled quick are because making a special trip somewhere for an uncommon ingredient is time consuming, and the majority of people looking for a quick recipe cookbook are doing so because they have kids, extra curricular activities and little time to prepare perfect culinary masterpieces. For those without children or with grown children, if they want taste-perfection in very little time: THEY EAT OUT!
I like this cookbook because of the information within. I admire the standards, goals, teamwork and tenacity in accomplishment of the Cook's Illustrated team. This is another good cookbook from them. However, the majority of the recipes require time and attention not common to most quick cooking recipe books. I give this cookbook only 3 stars because I think the title is misleading, some of the steps in the recipes are superflous for weeknight family dinners, and some of the ingredients are rather esoteric.
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