Plenty of autumn farmer’s market ingredients found in this book – apples, squash, beans, sausage, stews, soups, everything you want on your dinner table when the weather starts to turn a little cooler.  All the recipes take less than 30 minutes to make.  These recipes do depend on shortcuts such as canned biscuits and crescent rolls, canned soup and beans, etc.  However, you have to know that I am not against shortcuts.  Some days you just need a shortcut in order to have the time to sit down to a meal together instead of spending all the time cooking. When my kids were younger and I needed dinner on the table between homework and soccer, a shortcut was better than fast food in my opinion.  We still had plenty of time left for conversation.

“Quick & Easy Autumn is perfect for busy families who want to spend more time enjoying fall fun and less time preparing meals,” says Jo Ann Martin, co-founder of Gooseberry Patch, an independent cookbook publisher headquartered in Ohio’s heartland. “What makes this book special is that each dish is ready in under 30 minutes, or begins with just eight or fewer ingredients. Family and friends will love scrumptious fall recipes like Cherry-Pecan Turkey Breast, Mom’s Butternut Squash Bake and Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle.”

“There’s more than 200 recipes in all for every autumn occasion, from bonfires and tailgating, after-school snacks and Halloween treats, and of course delicious Thanksgiving favorites,” says Vickie Hutchins, Gooseberry Patch co-founder. “Chapters take you from breakfast to dessert and everything in between, plus there’s dozens of helpful tips and inspirational ideas for getting the most from the season!”

MORE GOOSEBERRY PATCH:

Gooseberry Patch is one of the vendors at the Country Living Fair in Columbus this weekend.  Make sure to check them out and maybe find a good cookbook. Gooseberry Patch seems to have one to fit every individual’s taste. Jo Ann & Vickie will be signing books Friday and Saturday, from 1 to 3 p.m.

Gooseberry Patch just reached 80,000 fans on their facebook page, so they uploaded a new chapter to their online Circle of Friends recipe book.  The newest chapter is Burgers with 25 burger recipes.  All of the chapters can be downloaded to your personal computer and printed if you like.

Gooseberry Patch also has calendars with recipes, so if you are looking for a stocking stuffer (though they might not really fit in the stocking), a calendar is a good gift.

Morning television viewers in the Central Ohio area can catch Vickie and Jo Ann on Good Day Columbus on the fourth Thursday of each month at 8:30 and 8:45 am (schedule subject to change). The show airs on Central Ohio’s FOX 28 channel.

Disclosure:  I was given Gooseberry Patch – Quick and Easy Autumn for a review.  The opinions expressed are my own.

I get a kick out of reading what some of my favorite chefs like to say – like Mario Batali and how just a little bit of involving your family in the cooking can turn you into a hero or turns the kitchen into a place everyone feels comfortable.   Then there are famous people such as Stephan King who took over the cooking in his house, and his way of cooking is to turn it down and go a little slower.  I’m always telling my daughter to stop trying to rush the cooking and turn the temperature down a little, so I agree with him on that one.  I also have a mother with a poor sense of smell and taste, which can be disappointing to cook for, though my mom is also on a special diet, so we eat much blander food when she visits.

There are recipes throughout and book suggestions, cooking tips, a cooking play(in the vein of The Shining).  It’s a fun read.  The short essays are the perfect size for a local bus or shuttle trip, or car ride so it’s like a satisfying quick snack instead of a full meal. When I got the book, Mark Bittman was one of the first segments I turned to, he like me, is a believer in cooking simply – you can skip around to your favorites first, or save them for last (best for last).  I’ve been reading a bit every night and recommend it to all of you.  It’s fun to see another point of view and to hear why others took to cooking for fun or as a passion.

Enjoy!  Someday I hope my son will want to explore the kitchen and find his passion in cooking.   After reading this book, it seems like there’s hope, doesn’t it?

Disclosure:  I received the book Man With A Pan  – for a review.  The review is my own opinion.

The Everything Mediterranean Diet Book  – All You Need TO Lose Weight And Stay Healthy -  This book is not just a recipe book.  Written by Connie Diekman and Sam Sotiropoulos the first one third of the book  leads you through the Mediterranean diet and healthy way of living.  What you need to do to live the Mediterranean way.  Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a staple in almost every meal, but there are plenty of other mediterraen must haves like roasted red peppers, red wine, feta cheese, lemons, etc.  There are suggestions throughout on how to lighten up a dish even more – like Chicken Galantine is suggested to be wrapped in Eggplant rather than back in it’s original Chicken skin.  This is a decent guide to help you get through trying to eat healthier and lose weight.

The Everything Raw Food Recipe Book -  by Mike Snyder and Nancy Faass with Lorena Novak Bull.  Raw Food Diets have always been perplexing to me.  I love my food warm and not so raw, so I don’t think I am willing to change.  However, I always say I’m willing to try new things, and raw foods are intriguing as well.  Did you know that dehydrating is a way to get the texture you need without baking or cooking?  I didn’t.  It almost seems like cheating.  The blender is your friend on the raw food diet as it is used in so many of the recipes.  Smoothies are a great way to start, though no one thinks about it being raw food.  I like the recipes in this, and though I don’t think I’m ready to make the switch, this is a great intro to a Raw Food way of eating.  This book also mentions that the Raw Food Diet is a great way to get healthy and lose weight.

The Everything Juicing Book – All You Need To Create Delicious Juices For Optimum Health by Carole Jacobs and Chef Patrice Johnson with Nicole Cormier.  This will be a really great reference book, if you pay attention to all of the ideas about how to work with what ails you, or how to keep you healthy, how to keep you regular, how juice can help you on a regular basis.  My daughter likes to throw everything in at once, but as a juicer I like to highlight particular flavors.  In the Everything Juicing Book you get ideas of mixing and matching, what works, and what might not turn out so well.  Of course, with Juicing you meet those requirements of fruits and veggies with all their vitamins and nutrition a lot easier.  I think I’m going to get my home from college son to find some recipes to work with that cold he’s had, because I think he needs a boost.

Here’s the deal.  The Everything Books want to help us get healthy, so they are offering ebooks online during the month of June for a very low price of 1.99.  We missed last week’s offer because I left town due to a death.  However, there are three more weeks with really good deals to help you get healthy.

The Everything Easy Cleanse Book (June 8-10)  $1.99

To view and download the full, discounted copy of The Everything Easy Cleanse Book, please visit:

Amazon Kindle: http://amzn.to/kJ8Ntp

Sony eBookstore: http://bit.ly/k6Rx9j

Barnes & Noble NOOK: http://bit.ly/lBq7Nn

iTunes/Apple (preview): http://bit.ly/lkkcdk

We’re looking forward to these coming soon.

The Everything Juicing Book (June 15-17)

The Everything Mediterranean Diet Book (June 22-24)

I received the Everything Books to Review without any expectations or remuneration.  The opinions are honest and my own.

Tonight is the end of Mardi Gras – or Fat Tuesday.  The traditions of Mardi Gras originated in the New Orleans area, so I thought New Orleans Classic Gumbos and Soups (Classic Recipes Series) – Recipes From Favorite Restaurants by Kit Wohl – would be a fun book to review today.  If you are looking ahead to next years celebration, and need to figure out what to serve this will be the book to have.

Kit found recipes from her favorite chefs and restaurants all about New Orleans.  This book has the basics to start you out – like what’s the trinity (Oh, oh, I know I know) – to seasonings, how to make a roux, ways to cook ceratin foods and the basic gumbo, and sausage, red beans and rice recipes.  In addition to the ingredients that are normally found in your pantry, you’ll need to expand your freezer to include quail, alligator, turtle, duck and crawfish.  A couple of really neat recipes include the Sweet Potato Soup given to us by Austin Leslie and French Bread and Tomato Soup – which was contributed by Linda Ellerbee.

The book is packed with photos of food, people and restaurants, most taken by Kit Wohl.  While New Orleans Classic Gumbos & Soups is less than 100 pages of which half are photos, it has enough to help you create a fun Mardi Gras dish for your next Fat Tuesday meal.

While these are healthy, they are 15 minute recipes because they use shortcuts.  So canned tuna, canned beans, frozen spinach, etc are used to help cut the time.  I don’t have a problem with that.  However, some of the meals, use shortcuts that means you have to prepare ahead of time, so I don’t know that they should count as 15 minute recipes.  For example  – the Quick Quinoa Burgers uses cooked quinoa.  Not everyone has cooked quinoa sitting around (though I made extra and put it into the freezer so I do now).  Once you have the cooked quinoa the recipe does take only 15 minutes from start (kind of) to end and it was delicious.

Photos are scattered throughout, so there isn’t one photo for every recipe, which is a little disappointing.  I don’t need 14 photos per recipe, but I’d like one.   The index in the back is great though, so that’s a plus.  Besides the recipes I listed, there are soups, salads, main dishes, snacks, desserts, all the things you want to see in a good cookbook.  You may need to pick up ingredients that are not your usual fare.  Artichoke hearts, nuts, seed, beans, fruit, and vegetables  – planning ahead is probably the best way to stock your pantry with the food needed to complete these recipes.  I don’t think you will regret it though.

I think overall, this is a very healthy cookbook.  If you are looking to turn your diet around with healthier recipes, this is a good place to start, especially if you are trying to make a fast after work dinner.  I looked at the recipes and decided that these are all things my kids would have eaten, but they weren’t complainers, they were pretty good about my experiments.  My overall grade is a B (because photos were left out and because I don’t like frozen spinach).  I do think it’s one of the more useful healthy books because a regular person who doesn’t have all day to cook, can put together a healthy nutritious, delicious meal rather quickly – if you have all the ingredients ready.

The three books all have similar formats.  Recipes galore, photos scattered but not for every recipe (my one real disappointment), a very good index in the back.  The authors are different as well as the content.  They are all soft cover, but large, with a nice size print.  I dislike small print on a recipe book.  Nothing is more difficult than trying to read a cookbook with reading glasses while trying to cook without them.

Slow Cooker Winners – 300 Easy and Satisfying Recipes by Donna-Marie Pye- Of the three books, this wins my recommendation for best book for a working parent, or best food to bring to superbowl party.  You know that cooking and preparing doesn’t go on during the game.  You cook it and let it go.  Today we went to my brother in law’s to watch football.  We had errands to run first and I knew we would only have an hour between the time we got back home and we had to leave for the game.  So I put Chipotle Baked Beans and Kolbasz (supposed to be turkey kielbasa, but I used the good hungarian kolbasz) into the crockpot.  Turned out that their planned dinner didn’t work out because the meat had gone really bad, and my crockpot dinner was perfect.  I think crockpot meals are great for working nights too.  There’s a great variety in the meals in this book as well as the breakfasts and desserts.  You could do a whole crockpot day if you had enough crocks in your home. Donna-Marie uses a few shortcuts like adding barbecue sauce and taco seasoning and so do I. This may be the one I use so that my husband avoids those box mix dinner nights.

750 Best Muffin Recipes – Everything From Breakfast Classics To Gluten-Free, Vegan & Coffeehouse Favorites by Camilla V. Saulsbury is a fun book.  Almost everything can be put in a muffin - according to this book.  Breakfast muffins we all know and dessert, too. We don’t have muffins to go on soup but there are plenty in this book to go along with soup.  I’m looking forward to trying out the Pecan Strawberry Jam muffins with my home made jam.  I love that they have Vegan and Gluten Free.  One recipe I tried was vegan, but I didn’t realize it until later when I thinking about the recipe and about how it didn’t have any eggs.  They were delicious and not too dense.  The global muffin section highlights recipes from all different countries.  We even found a Hungarian Hazelnut Muffin.  This is a very cool book.

500 Best Comfort Food Recipes by Johanna Burkhard -  Of the three books listed, this would be the all around useful book that I give to my daughter as she lives without a dorm meal plan.  All of the books have a little bit of everything, but this one isn’t specializing in only muffins, or a crockpot.  This book has all the comfort foods that we love.  The recipe for Sunday Bison Roast with Wine Gravy came from this book and was very delicious. This book has such a wide range of recipes, all the favorites – there are dips, breakfast foods, macaroni and cheese, a section using ground meats such as ground beef, turkey, chicken and veal.  I’m looking forward to trying out the cheddar biscuits. I like that Johanna knows how to add that little extra flavor and doesn’t look for shortcuts, but isn’t making the meal unattainable or difficult.  These are comfort foods at their best.  I’ve got a bison brisket waiting to try out the beef brisket with carmelized onions.  Of the three, this book is probably my favorite – but it will go to my daughter who is just starting out on her own.

Crazy About Cookies is well organized, starting out with the basics, including tools, ingredients, substitutions, decorations, types and techniques, and solutions, including high altitude baking.  Though I didn’t find No-Bake Cookies (we also made them for the party), they have almost every imaginable cookie recipe.   The recipes are written in a clear and concise, easy to follow manner.  I suggest you read the directions all the way through first, and then start.  My daughter didn’t and started creaming the butter and sugar in a small bowl instead of the bigger one I put out for her.  Then she had to move it to the bigger bowl.  Those of us with experience know the dry is added to the wet, and so you cream the ingredients  in bowl that will hold the finished ingredient.  Lesson learned – she actually said the words ” Mom was right.”

The photos of the finished cookies are big and lovely, giving you a good idea of how they should look.  Our Mexican Wedding Cookies looked just like the photo.  The index is by cookie and by certain ingredients.  You don’t need an index for flour, it’s in all of the recipes.  My daughter found the recipe easy to follow and the cookies tasted great.

I enjoy Krystina Castella’s books – she has another that she co-authored with Terry Lee Stone called Booze Cakes: Confections Spiked With Spirits, Wine, and Beer.  I haven’t tried any recipes from this book, but it has the same high quality photos, and step by step instructions, though it is mixing the index that I think is necessary for a good recipe book.   They do give instructions to create some of the liqueurs used in the recipes such as espresso liqueur and Cranberry liqueur, which is helpful when you don’t want to have all the separate liqueurs sitting around in your cabinet.

I was given both Crazy About Cookies and Booze Cakes to review.  My review is my honest opinion.  I rate Crazy About Cookies with an A and Booze Cakes B+ because it doesn’t include an index which I like to see.

The Best of Clean Eating – Improving Your Life One Meal at a Time – is produced by the same people who put out Clean Eating Magazines, which is one of my favorite publications.  Clean eating means keeping the food clean and healthy, while using ingredients mostly as close to their natural state as possible.

They said they built the chapters around the things their readers said they wanted to see most.  These chapters include:

1. Quick and Easy Family Dinners
2. 20 Minute Meals
3. Budget Friendly Suppers
4. Five Ingredient Creations
5. Seasonal Recipes
6. Low-Fat Snacks
7. Recipes for One or Two
8. Holiday Menus
9. Family BBQ Fare
10. Desserts

They’ll tell you the health benefits of every recipe in layman’s terms (meaning we’ll understand it) and bonus info will tell us which vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytonutrients you’re getting and how they’ll benefit your body. The photography is wonderful, there are extras in the book with assembly photos or informational sections on quinoa, turkey prep, how to cook fish, or how to prepare mangoes or avocados.

This book is very close to the magazine, though there are a few recipes that are new to the book and not found in the magazine.  Healthful cooking is the way to go, plus there are some fast and easy, but still very healthy recipes to make your life easier.  I’m all for that.

I took my turkey recipe from this book.  Our turkey was moist and delicious.  It’s called Rosemary Sage & Orange Turkey, however, the aromatics gave only a slight flavor to the turkey and didn’t take away from my husband’s favorite flavor of food – turkey.  I didn’t stuff the turkey, because I usually don’t.  I like to put the stuffing in a side dish and bake it separately.  When you do that, you have to roast your turkey for a little less time.

Rosemary, Sage and Orange Turkey (photo by Yvonne Duivenvoorden)

Ingredients:

• 1 (14 -16 lb) turkey
• 6 sprigs fresh  rosemary
• 1 bunch fresh sage
• 1 orange
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 tsp ea sea salt and pepper
• 12 cups traditional bread stuffing

Instructions:

One: Remove neck and giblets from turkey.  Discard or save for gravy if you wish.  Rinse turkey inside and out with cold running water. Pat dry with paper towels. Place turkey, breast side up, on a rack in a large roasting pan.  Cut rosemary sprigs into smaller pieces. Coarsely chop sage, including stems. Using a vegetable peeler, slice four thick strips of fragrant peel. Place rosemary, sage and orange peel into a bowl. Add garlic, oil, salt and pepper. Mix well. Using your fingers, loosen skin from each breast. Tuck herb mixture under skin.

Two: Lightly pack neck cavity with just enough stuffing to fill (Okay – I skipped two – see book for two).

Three: Lightly brush or spray turkey with a little more oil. (Don’t worry. This won’t add fat because the skin will be discarded later.) Ten pan with foil. Roast in a dpreheated 325F oven for two hours.

Four: Discard foil. Continue roasting (you don’t have to baste) until a thermometer inserted into the thigh registers 180F- this will take anywhere from two to four hours, depending on the size of the bird.  Make sure to check on the turkey after three and a half hours of total roasting time to determine how much more cooking time is needed.  If the turkey starts to brown too much before it’s fully cooked, cover dark spots with foil.

Five: When done, cover with foil and let stand at least 20 minutes before carving. Discard skin and herb mixture and scoop stuffing into a serving bowl before carving.

I was sent the Best of Clean Eating for a review.  My honest opinion is that it should receive an A rating.

There is a short narrative in the front of the book that tells you how Earthbound Farms came to be and their family, but the book isn’t about that.  It’s about using fresh foods, to make some great meals.  Most of these are simple but great flavor combinations.  The ingredients are found in your garden, or the farm market and there are a few I haven’t used before, but most I have .  I love the clean, scrumptious looking photos through out the whole book and talking points about some the lesser known vegetables.  Plus there are plenty of  little information sections about how to live so that it’s better for the environment or letting you know what the options are such as ocean or farm salmon, or which fruits and vegetables end up with the most pesticides and those that are pretty safe.

Browsing through The Earthbound Cook, I found recipes that I could do right away without needing to go to the store.  Myra gives you directions on how to prepare broths, but also lets you know you can use store bought if you need to.  My husband made tonight’s dinner –Butternut, White Bean and Chard Soup using  both canned beans and store bought broth, but our own garden grown chard and thyme plus butternut squash from the farm market.  While the soup had to simmer for a half hour, preparation was quick, so dinner came together rather easily.  I’m looking forward to trying out some of the ingredients I’ve never used before and trying out new flavor combinations.  Besides Salads and Soups, Earthbound cook has Meats and Poultry, Fish and Shellfish, Vegetarian Entrees, Side Dishes, Vegetable and Grain Salads, Baking Bread, Desserts, and Breakfast and Brunch, then Earthbound Cook goes into the pantry basics plus a section on Green Kitchen Design and I’m a lover of a good index, and this one has a very good index.

I recommend this book for your kitchen.  These are great ideas that you can put to use even on busy weeknights when you sometimes feel overwhelmed.  We put our dinner together quickly and easily and I think you can too.

Butternut, White Bean and Chard Soup (6 to 8 servings)

• 1 1/2 tbs canola oil
• 1 1/2 tbs olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups diced yellow onion (1/3 dice)
• 2 celery ribs cut into 1/3 inch dice
• 3 lbs butternut squash peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2 in cubes (about 4 cups)
• 8 cups vegetable stock, chicken wing stock, or store bought low sodium vegetable or chicken broth
• 1 bunch Swiss Chard, ribs discarded, leaves chipped into 1/2 inch pieces (about 4 lightly packed cups)
• 2 cups cooked white beans such as nave or cannellini (rinsed if canned beans)
• 1 tbs chopped fresh thyme leaves
• salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Heat the canola and olive oils in a soup pot or a large sauce pan over medium heat.  Add the onion and celery, and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are soft but not browned, 5 to 8 minutes.

2.  Add the squash and the stock, and bring to a simmer.  Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover the pot, and simmer until the squash is just tender 30 to 40 minutes.

3. Add the chard, beans and thyme and simmer until the beans are heated through, 5 to 10 minutes.  Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste, and serve hot.