4 comments about Quick-Simmering Soups (Better Homes and Gardens(R): Fresh and Simple).

1. The books in this series are wonderful. The crab chowder, Middle Eastern sausage and bean stew and curried mushroom tortolloni soup are tasty and satisfying without having to stand at the stove a long time, so you don't have to wait till a day off to make them. Tip: the first time you make them, the recipes will take just a few minutes longer than the book says.



2. My wife often buys me cookbooks that I wouldn't think of, with mixed results. THIS one became an instant favourite. Gorgeous fonts and use of color; perfect layout - mostly a photo on one page (for us visual-oriented males ;-), and the complete recipe on the facing page. Most important: very tasty, visually-appealing, and quick recipes.

   There is nothing in the book that isn't a photograph or recipe, yet I still think of it more as a COOKBOOK than a recipe book -- after you've made a few of the soups, you'll find yourself absorbing and adopting the common philosophy behind all these recipes. Even the photographs suggest new ways of making and serving soup.

   I hardly need the actual book any more -- I just head off to the produce section and grab whatever is freshest and most appealing.

   Favourite recipes? Out of the 60-odd here, I haven't found a dud yet.




3. I like this cookbook so much that I bought a dozen of them to give as gifts to best friends and family. The recipes meet two major needs. First, when I'm exhausted and hungry and want real food, these soups can be made in 30 minutes with a minimum of fuss. Second, the results are amazingly complex in flavor. There is something restorative about the combination of little effort and great results. Don't mess with the recipes the first time around. You'll be surprised how good they are. Some of the ingredients will not be regular inhabitants of your larder, so pick out a few soups you want to try every week and buy the ingredients to have on hand. Because of the short cooking time, the recipes call for fresh herbs added last thing, but if you don't have any just add dried herbs with the liquid ingredients and you will get good results.



4. The soups in this book are delicious, healthy and simple to make. Most of the soups here have a good mix of meat or fish and different kinds of vegetables, are light and healthy, and it's really easy to make. Of the receipes I've tried, it takes less than 30 min prep time after the 3 try (by then I'm familiar with the receipes), and thne just let it simmer. I've tried 5 soups over the past 2 years (I'm not a great cook.) and everyone loved them. My roommate who's a great cook loved my receipes so much so I bought another copy for her as a gift. Also one nice thing about this book, is that there is a color picture for most of the soups, so you can pick out what you want just by flipping through instead of having to read the receipes.

4 comments about Mug 'Ems: Soups & Breads.

1. I purchased all four Mug'em books. They all have some really neat ideas, but be warned that what you give away does not include all the necessary ingredients. With some of them the recipient only needs to add simple things like water and other common household ingredients. Some require the addition of small amounts of things most people don't normally keep in their house and probably wouldn't purchase just for the small quantity needed. Other items require the recipient to add so many things that you might as well have not given the gift to begin with.
   
   I suggest you do a search online for free postings of similar gifts to give in a mug, or purchase the Gifts in a Jar books.



2. This book cantains 21 recipes. There are 6 pages for each recipe--one with the recipe and the directions for making the gift. Next page has the list of ingredinets that are not included with the gift and the directions for using the gift. The next two pages are gift tags with the printed instruction and a form to print the recipient's name and a "You've Been Mugged" label on the gift tag.



3. I originally bought this book for myself. I made Mug Em baskets as unique Christmas gifts. Each included a large mug, the Mug Em ingredients mix, mug em instructions and "extras" needed to complete the recipes. They were such a hit I gave one to my "secret pal" at work with a heart shaped mug on Valentine's Day. She liked it so much she had everyone trying to find out who her secret pal was so she could get the recipes. Of course, a copy of the book soon ended up in her mailbox. Once we revealed our secrets she told me she uses the book all of the time. The Mug Em ingredients mix together with pantry staples make great soups and breads for a quick dinner or to take to work for lunch.



4. I bought the Mug 'Ems Soups and Breads for my son to make Christmas gifts for all of his grandparents. Three of the soup recipes we picked called for Knorr White Sauce which is apparently not available anywhere in the U.S. We were very disappointed in the soups but the book is a great idea and some of the breads sound yummy. We were just looking for simple!

No comments about Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons.

3 comments about Good Housekeeping Blend It!: 150 Sensational Recipes to Make in Your Blender-Frappes, Smoothies, Soups, Pancakes, Frozen Cocktails and More (Good Housekeeping).

1. I just bought this book recently and the recipes are easy to make and DELICIOUS! It has the best frappe's and smoothies recipes i've ever tasted. It also has stuff to cook on the morning like waffles, pancakes, french toast, heavy shakes and it also have flavorful soups, dips and drink(with alcohol) etc etc. The best thing is that the ingredients used are common and you can find them anywhere.



2. We just got this book recently, and it is very easy to use with lots of recipes. One of the great things about it is that it gives you the calories, carbs and protein for each item, which is really helpful for me. There are soups, smoothies, sauces, etc.



3. I bought this book for my daughter-in-law along with a blender which was what she requested for Christmas.
   
   The recipes are not complex and she has tried many of the recipes with her new blender. She says she likes the book because it has breakfast recipes, drinks, and soups.

3 comments about In the French Kitchen Garden: The Joys of Cultivating a Potager.

1. If you are lucky enough to ever meet Gerogeanne Brennan, you know that she is the real thing: down to earth, a gourmand who gardens. You can trust that Brennan speaks from her experience, not from the experience of her "experts."

   In this book Brennan does something unusal that you do not usually find in gardening books, especially ones that are geared for begining gardeners. There are no lists of 10 fool proof plants, nor strict instructions to plant something a specific way on an absolute date or face certain failure. (Honestly, why Martha thinks you have to plant peas on St. Patrick's Day is beyond me.) Brennan instead wants you to understand the philosophy of the potager, and then make your own rules.

   Brennan suggests what you might want to plant in each of the four seasons (wherever you happen to live) and tells you what typically would be planted in a true French potager at the same season; Brennan gives you sources to find these plants; Brennan even gives you an idea of what size pot you would need if you are restricted to balconey gardening. Very thoughtful. Though I have not tried any of the recipes in this book, they are similar to others you can find in her well-received cook books.

   The book itself is small and well made; the paper is heavy. It feels good in your hand. The illustrations are charming without being too cute, and often they illustrate a garden layout that actually makes sense. And of course Brennan's writing is rich and clear.

   This is a good book for a beginning gardener. You will not be dissappointed.




2. My wonderful husband just bought this for me for my birthday and my thumbs are glowing green. (Oh, to be an Alaskan and have a gardening book bestowed up on me in the dead of winter!) The author explains many ideas for gardening in great detail, often explaining what could happen if you do things different ways (for instance, what happens when radishes are grown in hot soil in warm climates vs. in cooler ones.) The illustrations are also efficient in that they are in water colour and show detail where needed and show adequate lay-out.



3. At first glance you might think IN THE FRENCH KITCHEN GARDEN is nothing more than a good door prize. This pretty little book is not very expensive and whereas cheap and beautiful often suggests a void, FKG is packed with all sorts of good ideas for creating your own little kitchen garden. From Ms. Brennan's perspective, the French kitchen garden is a soup garden or potager where one grows vegetables, herbs, strawberries, melons and "cutting flowers, such as zinnias and nasturtiums." She also suggests that although the proper garden would not include trees which shade vegetable plants and flowers and reduce production, occasionally, one includes a fig tree or some other small fruit tree. Generally, the produce grown in the potager is consumed as the season progresses (soup to soup so to speak) with nothing leftover for canning or preserving although some items such as winter squash and potatoes might be stored in a cool dry place for a short while.

   The concept of a year-round garden is European, and therefore a foreign idea for most Americans whose only spring crop consists of daffodils. So among other contributions, Brennan encourages the reader/gardener and/or novice potager to think differently about the use of space heretofore only used to grow a few tomato plants and pole beans. I have been a 3 season flower gardener most of my life (spring-summer-fall) but in recent years have attempted to have a good-looking winter garden. My winter "crop" has been more structural than not, consisting of dried grasses, dried sedum and other "interesting" plant forms that are decaying and bird friendly. Ms Brennan has inspired me to rethink my approach and seek out more information about four-season vegetable gardening. Winter for example is a great time to plant onion sets and grow leafy items in a cold frame. If you're thinking about growing the old-style Victory Garden, or want to know more about the soup garden, Brennan's book is a good place to begin.

3 comments about 400 Best-Ever Soups.

1. The book contains a complete guide to ingredients and how to use
   them. It also gives step-by-step instructions for making your own
   stocks from vegetables, chicken, beef, fish and shellfish. There are also instructions on making the creative garnishes they show
   throughout. At the bottom of every recipe you will find a the
   complete nutritional information listed.
   
   The Contents:
   Introduction, which is quite thorough and then a listing of and information on:
   Vegetables, legumes, meat & poultry, fish, shellfish, pasta &
   noodles, herbs & spices, other flavorings, equipment & techniques, making stocks, thickening soups and garnishes.
   
   Light & Refreshing Soups, Smooth Vegetable Soups, Chuncky Vegetable Soups, Legume Soups, Pasta & Noodle Soups, Chicken & Duck Soups, Meat Soups, Fish Soups, Shellfish Soups
   
   One of the features I appreciate very much is that they show you with photos, such things as how to clean and prepare ingredients, such as raw prawns or squid.....not that I would ever prepare squid...but there you have it if you need it! ;-)
   
   My first try from this book was the Castillian Garlic Soup - I already have several recipes for garlic soup from different regions of Spain, but this one wins overall....!
   
   No step is taken for granted, each recipe in the book will guide you all the way from begining to end, so whether you're a newbie in the kitchen or an experienced cook, it guarantees the end results to be spectacular.
   
   Except that the books are so big and heavy to carry around, I do like this series of Hermes House cookbooks very much. I have resorted to making copies of the pages where the recipes I'm interested in are located and take that to the kitchen instead.
   
   CASTILLIAN GARLIC SOUP



2. I love this book. Its loaded with pictures of each soup. The ingredients are all easy to find. The recipes are 4-6 servings, so you can make a small batch easily or double it for larger batches. Definately worth 5 stars. I just made my first soup and its delicious. This book is going to get me through the long cold winter with yummy, warming soups.
   
   You will definately enjoy this book. Even though I have only made one soup as of this writing, I can just tell that the layout of the book, the easy to following instructions, and pictures make this book a great buy!
   
   Denise, Chesterfield NJ



3. I bought this book because I love soups. In my opinion from the two soups I made (the Pumpkin soup and the butternut squash soup with tomato salsa) this book was made by someone that doesn't know anything about making soups. I followed the directions very carefully and they both tasted horrible. The flavors didn't match each other and both "soups" turned out way too thick to even be called a soup. The rest of the soups in this book are hard to make because there are ingredients I cannot buy in my grocery store. Most of the ingredients are expensive to buy year round and not worth making. Don't buy this book. It's like she purposfully tried to sabotage my soup with the ingredients she wrote in the book. Horrible. If anyone knows a good soup book let me know.

3 comments about 1,001 Low-Fat Soups & Stews: From Elegant Classics to Hearty One-Pot Meals.

1. Like almost everyone else these days, I'm trying to eat right and stay healty. Thanks to this great book, I'm finding it easier to cook low fat meals. This book offers over 1000 low fat soup and stew recipes such as, chowders, different chilis, vegetarian soups, soups made out of fruit, seafood chowder, and my favorite chicken stew. Aside from the american recipes, this book contains popular recipes from countries such as, Asia, the Caribbean, Africa and Europe. The recipes are very detailed and easy to follow. For good tasting and healthy soup recipes, this is definately the book!



2. When I want a quick dinner, or hearty and easy lunch, I pick up this book and wow! How can you miss with over a thousand ideas? The recipes are easy and delicious, and I really appreciate that they are low-fat. I've made several in the slow cooker -- put the ingredients in in the morning, and after work, a delicious hot meal is waiting for me, fragrantly steaming in the kitchen.



3. Even if the recipes weren't low-fat, I would still enthusiastically recommend this cookbook. I have yet to try a recipe out of this cookbook that hasn't been a breeze to prepare and also tastes wonderful.

   Who cares if it is low-fat? It won't occur to you as you try the various soups and stews. Simply enjoy it for the delicious meal that it truly is.

1 comments about Joy of Cooking: All About Soups and Stews.

1. Finally a book on soups that feeds my passion for good soup recipes. This book contains a wide variety of soup/stew recipes. Not only does it contain american homestyle recipes, but it also contains other favorites such as egg drop soup, and other ethinic soups as well. This book is peppered with photos and illustrations that aide you in food preparation, as well as showing you what the final dish will look like. This book is enjoyable and worthwhile if you are a soup lover as I am. The book is very comprehensive, giving a wealth of good soup recipes, as well as pictures, and discussion of various soups, preparation methods and more. With this book you should be able to create some favorites of your own. I highly recommend this book to the soup lover in you.

No comments about Biggest Book of Soups & Stews (Better Homes & Gardens).

1 comments about Soup Bowl.

1. i've tried about six soups so far, some are easy, some are a bit labor intensive, all are incredibly DELICIOUS! every one of them was served to a rave review and a quick grab for pencil and paper so that they could copy down the book's title. If you like to eat soup, YOU MUST BUY THIS BOOK!