Dinner Illustrated

March 5, 2018
This super-accessible cookbook helps busy home cooks prepare simple weeknight meals with recipes that feature step-by-step photo illustrations. With such dishes as ginger beef, ramen noodle soup, and pomegranate chicken accompanied by a warm farro salad, this book highlights over a dozen cuisines—including French, Italian, Mexican, Indian, and Nepalese—that will appeal to a wide range of eaters. The editors include a significant number of vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free recipes, such as quinoa taco salad, black bean and sweet potato tacos with avocado crema, and blackened snapper with sautéed spinach and black rice. As with ATK’s previous cookbooks, this book uses an educational approach by opening each recipe with a handful of helpful notes such as ingredient substitutions (“We like using Asian pear in this recipe for its bright crispness, but Bosc or Anjou pears will also work”) and informative cooking explanations (“Cooking the fish in a foil packet keeps it moist and allows it to pick up the flavors of whatever you add to the packet”). Photographs illustrate each of the steps for every recipe, indicating exactly how to prepare, cook, and plate each ingredient. With nutritional information, a list of pantry essentials, and ingredient prep tips, this book is an indispensable resource for busy home cooks.

June 15, 2018

When you want to whip up a satisfying dinner in less than an hour, turn to this user-friendly collection from the editors at America's Test Kitchen. Formatted for maximum efficiency, it contains 175 recipes for complete meals that don't require separate sides (e.g., beet and carrot noodle salad with pan-seared chicken, chickpea and kale soup, Thai curry rice with cod). Concise ingredient lists that also work as shopping lists complement illustrated step-by-step instructions that are easy to read at a glance. Flavor-packed pantry items (e.g., kimchi, za'atar, tahini, harissa) keep dishes from feeling overly familiar. VERDICT This appetizing cookbook, which can help you plan dinner for a week, blends flavors of Christopher Kimball's Milk Street and Melissa Clark's Dinner with the practicality of Ree Drummond's The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

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