4 comments about 500 Soups: The Only Soup Compendium You'll Ever Need.

1. A London-based food writer and editor, Susannah Blake's "500 Soups: The Only Soup Compendium You'll Ever Need" is one cookbook that truly lives up to its title! Featuring five hundred different kinds of soup, each with clear, easy-to-follow instructions that include tips on accompaniments, garnishes and toppings, "500 Soups" also includes an informative and comprehensive introductory section covering all the preparation and cooking in essentials such as soup-making techniques, equipment, soup stocks, and even troubleshooting. With variations on each of the showcased recipes and more than 120 full-color photographs illustrated a diverse variety of savory soups, "500 Soups" is a true gem of a cookbook and a welcome addition to personal and community library collections. It should also be noted that there are five other highly recommended '500' cookbook titles available from Sellers Publishing: "500 Chocolate Delights" (9781569069943, $15.95); "500 Pies & Tarts" (9781569069844, $15.95); "500 Appetizers" (9781569069769, $15.95); "500 Cupcakes" (9781569065976, $15.95); and "500 Cookies" 9781569065921, $15.95).



2. I am looking forward to trying all these soups.
   I do like how fast Amazon sends out my orders.



3. This and the other "500 ____" books are fun. I'd recommend them as a cute set for a graduation or shower gift. Not too sophisticated...



4. I have tried about 10 soups so far from this book, and all of them have been fantastic!! The instructions are easy to follow and the pictures make you salivate in anticipation. A must have for any soup lover!!!

1 comments about The Waldorf School Book of Soups.

1. I'm surprised by how much I actually turned to this book for recipes time and time again! I highly recommend it for families who want to eat healthily, waldorf or not!

5 comments about Braises and Stews: Everyday Slow-Cooked Recipes.

1. I have found Tori Ritchie's "Braises and Stews" to be just the book for me. I grew up in the midwest (Chicago) where braises and stews were the staple of winter cuisine.
   
   My Irish heritage was certainly front and center in my grandmother's and mother's kitchen. And what else is easy to make for five boys (the famous Loarie Boys of the Northshore)...a slow cooked stew or braise!
   
   Ritchie provides 74 recipes using beef, pork, fish, lamb, and poultry. She also covers the basic equipment needed, cuts of meat to buy, and the essential ingredients.
   
   This book is really a hoot for those longing for a great stew or braise. I am now fully prepared for my brothers' next visit.



2. What a great book! I am making the meat dishes every weekend for the past month or so, and I haven't been disappointed yet. The "Pub Ribs" dish is simply great when paired with the Chedder Mash Potatoes dish, also found in the book. Just delicious so far! Unlike many cook books that seem to go out of their way to be overly complex, the ingredients and preparation techniques are very straight-forward.



3. This book is one of the few cook books that provides really practical and great receips. It covers the basic meat groups and provides good instructions and simple ingrediants. I particularly like the Lamb Shanks with white beans(WOW) and the Asian beef ribs. I bought one for our daughter and am now buying 2 for gifts for our friends.
   
   I love my new Strub oval dutch oven pot and enjoy using this book. Buy the book and WOW your family and friends.



4. I've been making braises and stews for many years now and found this to be a rewarding book. While simple in approach and ingredients, the results from the recipes I've tried have all been good to very good. Under the vegetable section, the green beans with dill was especially good. Whether for the beginning, or advanced, cook I can recommend this book. For the beginner, it's a good place to start; and, for the advanced cook, these recipes can provide something to build on and "fine-tune".



5. For anyone interested in slow cooking using "dutch ovens" this cookbook presents easy, flavorful recipes. From the beginning chef to more advanced, all the recipes are straight-forward and easy to manage. The author's addition of how to make various side dishes and seasonings is especially useful and worth making.

5 comments about Soup: A Way of Life.

1. Because Ms. Kafka was at Vogue for so long, I assumed (wrongly) that this book would be divine. I have made about 5 soups from this book, 4 of which my husband simply refused to eat. Even her basic stock recipes are insipid. Her little family anecdotes are maudlin, but with the advent of Martha Stewart Omniverous er, Omnimedia, and her magazine perfect life and self-congratulatory writing, maybe I'm a tad cynical. Support your local economy and dine out at your favorite restaurant. Skip the soup course.



2. This cookbook is lovely to look at and has nice vignettes about the author and her love of soup. However, the recipes were not my cup of tea. Too many of them contained either fish of odd ingredients that I would choose to avoid (e.g., oxtail). As a result, I have made few of these recipes.



3. I was suspicious of this woman when she wrote a food column for Vogue magazine and praised iceburg lettuce. Always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt, I tried 4 recipes from this cookbook. They were appalling and even my dog Zeke, the most undiscriminating gourmande on the planet, wouldn't eat them.
   (Good dog.)
   



4. I love to cook, and am an avid "Roaster", partly due to Kafka's roasting book. I have had great luck with this book, especially the recipe for bread soup, and with the bouliabase. There are few secrets, just use good fresh ingredients, and taylor the soups to suit your taste.



5. Barbara does a great job of pulling together a wide variety of soups that have never failed me from the simple country tomato, to the hearty beef stew to the hot and sour or the exotic Tom Ka Coconut Soup. The backstories and the basics lend to its completeness and character. This will be a staple in my cookbook library for life.

5 comments about Daily Soup Cookbook.

1. I have owned this soup cookbook for many years and recently purchased it for my parents who love soup. The vast selection of receipes are all broken down into groups such as vegetarian, meat, pasta, tomato etc. this is a great way of having a craving for a particuliar king of soup then looking up all the additional options you can make based on that craving. If you are a soup lover all year round this is the only soup cookbook you will ever need.



2. I had sworn not to add any additional cookbooks to my collection. I came across this one and broke my own rule to myself and have been glad that I did. This is a perfect cookbook. I've found that for my lifestyle, soups is the way to go, and none of the recipes has been a dud. Quite the opposite. I have decided to go through the entire book and do every recipe in the book.
   
   Many of the recipes call for the use of thyme leaves, an herb that I had not used much. I am now very comfortable with it and appreciate the flavor that it brings to these recipes.
   
   Tried so far with great success: The cream-less asparagus soup ( buy frozen asparagus, don't try to peel and chop 2 lbs. of fresh asparagus...takes too long), Cuban black bean ( I had three cans of black beans and one can of chick peas from a close-out sale ...so I left out the salt that the recipe calls for and substituted the already prepared beans. Note: there is a minor flaw in the recipe. First, it has been proven since the book was written that you can add salt to the beans, the beans won't toughen from the salt. But tomatoes or other acids do toughen beans and I wouldn't add any tomatoes, canned, fresh or otherwise until I was certain my beans were cooked and tender), French onion soup (really good. I roasted my onions in the oven per the instructions).



3. We've loved almost every soup we've tried. Now that we've learned how to make substitutions (like Swanson's broth as opposed to homemade, etc.), many recipes are very simple AND just as tasty. If you truly love soup, this cookbook is for you.



4. I love this book and have given it as a gift. Although I knew my way around the kitchen, thanks to The Daily Soup, now I know my way around soup. The book is readable and fun, taking any mysteries out of soup-making and encouraging improvisation. I also like its variety with some simple soups (like Tomato Basil--made surprisingly--without basil) and some more unusual (like Moroccan Chicken Curry with Couscous).



5. I decided this winter that I was going to learn to make spectacular soup. I always wanted to be one of those women who could just pop over with some chicken noodle soup for a sick friend or family member. My mom makes great soup just by fiddling around with this and that, but I've never learned the art. Therefore, my soups were always bland since my msg allergy prevents me from throwing in a bouillon cube and calling it a day.
   
   When my family got sick, I decided to try my luck at soup making again, this time with my Daily Soup Cookbook chicken noodle soup recipe (a variation on their chicken matzoh ball soup). Wow, was it ever great - without making any adjustments to the recipe! I went through the trouble of making my own stock (using the Daily Soup recipe with a wonderful technique I learned for broth making from "The Perfect Recipe" by Pam Anderson, which involves sautéing the chicken pieces with onion before simmering them) and then turning that stock into soup. My whole family was making yummy sounds, and they didn't stop when I tried two more recipes, the Beef Barley soup (a variation on their Chicken Barley) and the Winter Minestrone soup. Finally, I had soup that was as good as my mom made!
   
   I made the broth and the soup in the same day, so it was quite time consuming. I would highly recommend making the broth on one day and the soup on another. I don't think the soup would be quite as delicious without homemade broth, but I still think it would be lots better than my previous homemade attempts.
   
   I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn how to make really great soup.
   
   (review by Mrs. Scott)

1 comments about Mollie Katzen's Recipes: Soups: Easel Edition.

1. Mollie Katzen's Recipes: Soups is produced in an interesting format. It's a small ring-bound book tucked into a board sleeve so it'll sit well on a shelf. Once you take the book out, you move a couple of things around, tuck one thing into another, and you end up with an easel. The idea is that you set it up so it only takes up a few inches of counter-space and your recipe ends up standing up in front of you, making it easy to read while you cook.
   
   In this it works fairly well. The angle is fairly steep, so you'll need to set it down on a perfectly level surface or risk pages falling closed on you. I also felt that this worked better for cooking than for looking through the cookbook to find recipes, which was a bit more awkward. And once you've set it up as an easel, it'll never quite collapse back all the way again; while you can slip it into its sleeve to fit on a shelf, at least, it's still a bit awkward to work with in other ways. Other folks might find this format perfect; it just didn't quite work for me.
   
   The handwriting font is attractive, but when it comes to cookbooks my personal preference is for something plain and clear. There are no photos, but I tend to think photos are pretty unnecessary with soups. The directions are clear and simple; these are not overly complex recipes.
   
   The table of contents and index are quite handy; the ToC lists recipes in order, while the index lets you look for things by ingredient, both of which are useful.
   
   It seemed to me that the flavors in these soups weren't balanced entirely well. Some seemed under-seasoned while others seemed over-seasoned. The spices in the curried squash soup smelled to-die-for while cooking, but the soup was flavored strongly enough that I found it a bit unpleasant, and that's unusual for me (I'm a flavor junkie!). I also found some of the soups didn't reheat very well (without mentioning this in the directions), which is a tad unusual for soups.
   
   The soups aren't vegan, as a number of them use dairy, but it would be simple enough to substitute soy products and the like.
   
   
   If you're die-hard looking for a source of healthy, vegetarian soups, this is certainly a good option. As a cookbook in general, however, I'd say it's good but not great. On the other hand, many of the things I wasn't so fond of will be taste-dependent.

5 comments about Emeril's There's a Chef in My Soup! Recipes for the Kid in Everyone.

1. The recipes were not very good and the book was very annoying. When I made the mac&cheese it referred me to the Bam seasoning. It's basically this mix that uses every spice and you don't even end up using most of it so i just threw it out. The book gave me a headache reading it and nothing rly tasted that good



2. Overweight and Diabetic!
   
   The amount of sugar and fat in this cookbook is appalling in this day and age.
   
   My mom bought this cookbook for my 7 year-old daughter. Unfortunately, I can't just throw it out because my daughter thinks it special, obviously. I pick and choose the recipes and then adjust them -- big-time.
   
   We just made the peanut butter cookies. Even with all-natural, unsweetened peanut butter and 1/2 the sugar (sucanat) they were still appallingly sweet. I can't imagine for one minute using trans-fat high-sugar peanut butter and then dumping another 1 cup of processed white sugar in there. Blech!



3. My 6-year-old started wanting to watch Emeril a few months ago, he's hooked on Emeril's general goofiness I think, so we decided to try one of Emeril's cookbooks to get my son a little more interested in real cooking instead of pretend cooking.
   
   I felt like we'd gone to a kids restaurant and got real food instead of the kids menu, this book is really a solid cookbook despite the silly title - I think we're 7 for 8 on recipes we will make again and my son has tried some new foods too!



4. I want to say that my daughter loves this book and so do I. I like the fact that it is big and gives step by step instructions. We have tried many of the recipes and she has been able to cook with just me looking over her shoulder. I plan on purchasing one for my nephew, because he is learning to cook and he likes Emeril's show.



5. My kids love this book so much they read it daily when they received it for their birthday. I like it too - good simple recipes.

5 comments about The Big Book of Appetizers: More Than 250 Recipes for Any Occasion.

1. I was so pleased with the last book that these authors wrote that I really looked forward to this book. It is very well thought out in it's presentation of recipes and handy tips, and the recipes themselves are to die for. What I especially like about this book is the "Find it Fast Index", which breaks down the recipes into several categories from "Quick and Simple" to "Freezer Friendly" and several in between. It also has a very helpful Menu Planning Chapter for those of us who appreciate help in figuring out what to serve with what! I am still working my way through the recipes, but my favorite right now is Pear, Gorgonzola and Hazelnut Bundles. It is so delicious, and so quick and easy to prepare. I really like the variety of recipes, all the way from Nachos to more sophisticated recipes. The icing on the cake is that this book has been nominated for the best book in America in the Entertaining Category of the James Beard Foundation Awards, which is the equivelant of the Academy Awards, so I must not be the only one who loves it. I'm glad it's being recognized for the great book that it is!



2. Just got it and very impressed with recipes, breadth of ideas, and innovativeness. And don't take my word for it: This cookbook was one of three in this category nominated for a James Beard Award!!! Didn't win but a wonderful honor for these up and coming cookbook authors.



3. This book has more than 250 recipes but not a single photo except the cover. I am sorry, but I don't care how good those recipes are because I need beautiful photos of each dish to make me want to cook. I put this book back on amazon for sale as soon as I got it.



4. I am an avid party giver and always appreciate a good cookbook for those miniature 'meals' I like to serve. This book whacks a punch and has some wonderful recipes that are both delicious and easy to prepare. Great addition to anyones collection.



5. There are plenty of good recipes in a well organized format in this cookbook. The recipes are relatively simple and include "make ahead" suggestions to assist in party planning. I tried a couple of them recently for a big party and the ones I made were excellent. The major drawback for me is that there isn't a single photograph.

4 comments about Delicious!.

1. Duck, Squirrel and Cat previously encountered in Cooper's Pumpkin Soup (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1998) and A Pipkin of Pepper (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2005) want to make pumpkin soup but they do not have a ripe pumpkin. They look in a recipe book and then make fish soup, and cat says, "It's scrumptious!" Squirrel says, "Nutritious!" but Duck says, "YUCK". They also make mushroom soup but Duck still says, "YUCK". Duck refuses to eat beet soup because it is pink and when the soup spills on the counter, the friends quarrel just as they did in the first book. A humorous parallel story shows some bugs enjoying the discarded fish soup and muttering about the waste, " Think of the starving poor" then drilling a hole in the kitchen sink pipe so they can siphon future discarded soup. The mixed media illustrations are brimming with color, movement and humor and the characters sparkle with personality. The three animals sit together and leaf through a cookbook, Squirrel and Cat rest their heads on their paws while Duck turns a page revealing a picture of a snail. The final double spread shows the three friends holding their spoons and happily sharing a big bowl of orange vegetable soup. A recipe for beet soup is included.



2. This book is wonderful for getting kids to see all the wonders and secrets that books can hold. The secondary story of the bugs is amazing. It also adds a touch of adult humor. The rhyme makes it captivating for kids to hear read aloud or it can help them in reading it themselves.



3. It's lunchtime in the old white cabin but Cat, Duck and Squirrel haven't got a ripe pumpkin for the Pumpkin Soup in Helen Cooper's Delicious! Can they substitute something else? There are possibilities, but Duck won't consider them - so how can they find a new dish to share? Recipes and fun culinary insights abound in a fine, different story of sharing.



4. The 3rd in a series, this book is very sweet. The illustrations are works of art & bottom line, it makes my son happy.

5 comments about The Everything Chinese Cookbook: From Wonton Soup to Sweet and Sour Chicken-300 Succulent Recipes from the Far East (Everything Series).

1. In The Everything Chinese Cookbook, Chinese cuisine expert Rhonda Lauret Parkinson has developed a truly "user friendly" specialty cookbook which is ideal for the novice kitchen cook wanting to prepare and serve traditional Chinese dishes as part of a family dining experience. With an informed and informative introductory chapter on getting started with respect to Chinese cooking, individual chapters are devoted to dipping sauces, appetizers, soups and salads, rice and noodles, beef dishes, pork entrees, chicken and other poultry, tofu and eggs, fish and other seafood, Chinese vegetables; desserts and snacks. An ideal introduction into the kitchen mechanics of preparing popular Chinese dishes, The Everything Chinese Cookbook is further enhanced with two appendices: "Putting It All Together" and "Glossary of Asian Ingredient". The Everything Chinese Cookbook will take even the most amateur kitchen cook and show how to deliver expertly prepared and palate pleasing Chinese fare for ordinary daily dining or those special celebratory dinners with a true Chinese flair and expertise.



2. This book is pretty good for beginners like me ..it's so informative on the cultures and what to do but ..there's no illustration of the food itself how it would look like when it's done...so basically having to guess what it looks like ,however it definately teaches me how to make the food from dim sum but and it's pretty simple and easy but the ingredients are sort of hard to get ...in all like i said it's a good book .



3. The thing about this book that distinguishes it from other Chinese cookbooks, is that is had ALL the recipes I was looking for (e.g., black bean sauce for noodles, Dan Dan, Singapore noodles, sweet and sour shrimp, etc). The only downside is that the author decided to make some of the dishes lighter (e.g., not having the shrimps dipped in batter and fried for the sweet & sour shrimp) - which I think should go into a different kind of book than a general Chinese recipe book as this. However, to me that is something that can easily be corrected without exercising too much imagination.
   
   I've flipped through many Chinese cookbooks, and this is the only one that I've bought.



4. I highly recommend this Chinese cookbook. I don't know if I just lucked out when selecting it, but I will tell you it was put together very well by Rhonda Lauret Parkinson. It is packed full of recipes we have all heard of and feasted on at the tastiest restaurants. For example, I became really excited to learn how to make Honey Walnut Prawns, a dish that my husband and I really enjoyed at our favorite chinese restaurant in an area we long since relocated from. We hadn't been able to find a restaurant that served them since then--not until very recently. And I have to say, hands down, the recipe in the book is far better than the dish we had in Seattle. Also, I love all the tips she gives because I find them extremely helpful.



5. I picked this up from the library thinking to use it as a starter cookbook before moving on to a better one. It turns out that I really like it. I was a bit intimidated by Chinese cooking but the organization and layout of this book made everything so very easy. I looked at a few other books but finally decided to buy this one.