Cooking For Two 2013: The Year's Best Recipes Cut Down to Size Author: The Editors at America's Test Kitchen | Language: English | ISBN:
B00FEIQ95I | Format: PDF
Cooking For Two 2013: The Year's Best Recipes Cut Down to Size Description
Have you written off many of your favorite dishes like chili, lasagna, beef stew, and most desserts just because you’re cooking for two and think these are crowd-only dishes? Do you love risotto and pot pie but don’t want to be stuck eating leftovers for a week? Have you ever tried scaling back a recipe, only to be disappointed with the results? In Cooking for Two 2013, the fifth installment in this annual recipe collection, the editors at America’s Test Kitchen have selected the test kitchen’s favorite recipes of the year and reengineered them from the ground up to serve two. Inside you’ll find more than 150 test kitchen recipes cut down to size—from casseroles, pasta, and roasts to one-dish meals, dinner from the grill, and even slow-cooker suppers. Sides, baked goods, and desserts are here, too—perfectly portioned so you’re not faced with waste.
So what did we learn while remaking our recipes to serve two? Some were easy enough to scale down, but many required innovative solutions. Cheesy, hearty lasagna is the epitome of comfort food—but making the sauce and boiling the noodles before assembling and baking the whole thing is tedious and time-consuming. To streamline ours, we reached for no-boil noodles and traded the slow-simmered tomato sauce for a speedy no-cook sauce and the usual ricotta filling for an easy, but flavorful, herbed Boursin cream sauce. Nixing the large casserole dish in favor of a loaf pan gave us a petite lasagna that was just the right amount for two, not a whole tray for 10. For a scaled-down take on another family favorite, we swapped the loaf pan for a skillet and used it to bake two mini meatloaves, which cooked through in a fraction of the time and developed a nicely browned crust thanks to the pan’s low sides.
Slow-cooker dishes for two? There’s no reason why the for-two table can’t benefit from this handy device as much as larger households. Smaller, 3-quart slow cookers are also compact, hogging less counter space than larger ones. Now you can come home to such deeply flavorful, fuss-free dinners as chicken Provençal and smothered steak.
Just because there are only two at the table doesn’t mean dessert is off-limits. Scaling baked goods can be tricky—dividing baking soda and baking powder doesn’t guarantee success. But with smart strategizing and hours of tinkering, we pulled off a host of desserts and baked goods for the
for-two table—from nutty Cranberry-Pecan Muffins and moist, tender Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake to rich and decadent Crème Caramel, Individual Chocolate Fudge Cakes, and more.
Leftover ingredients are often unavoidable when it’s just two for dinner. Instead of letting that half a can of diced tomatoes or pinto beans litter your fridge, turn to our “Use It Up” recipes sprinkled throughout—recipes like Easy Tomato Chutney and Mexican-Style Pinto Bean Salad.
In short, Cooking for Two 2013 is the answer to “What’s for dinner?” when you don’t have four to six at your table. Inside you’ll find many weeknight classics along with fancier, special-occasion dishes to please you—plus one. Our recipes may be scaled down in size, but they deliver big on flavor.
- File Size: 28573 KB
- Print Length: 304 pages
- Publisher: America's Test Kitchen (November 27, 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00FEIQ95I
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,947 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #44
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Meals
- #44
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Meals
I received my book yesterday, and not have not yet cooked anything from it. That said, the recipes are typical of the previous volumes of this book. They have similar steps and the ingredient mixing is familiar. There are a couple recipes I've seen that look very similar to previous recipes (Chicken with Israeli Coucous is one) but it's just slightly different to not be a complete knock-off.
Before I get started ... I work 12 hour shifts and I get home at 7:30 PM. I often prep parts of the dinner ahead of time (if I can) otherwise, I start the recipes from the beginning around 7:30 and usually by 8:30 PM we're eating. This is recipes that involve baking, skillet cooking, etc. I tend to not be gun-shy about trying any of them at that late hour. I'm NOT an expert cook by any means. I just follow the directions and get it done.
Here are the chapters:
The Main Course
One-Dish Suppers
Pasta For Dinner
Vegetarian Suppers
Dinner off the Grill
Light and Fresh
Express Lane
Slow-Cooker Favorites
Side Dishes
Baked Goods and Desserts
Express Lane is new to the series and it's similar to previous editions "One Big Roast" section, but uses pre-cooked foods as the main ingredient. It has 4 recipes for each ingredients. The ingredients are: Rotisserie Chicken, Chicken Sausages, Precooked Shrimp, Cheese Tortellini, and Canned Beans. Each segment has recipes that utilize each of those ingredients. Most are fairly basic and not complicated like a pasta salad with shrimp, or skillet tortellini with mushroom cream sauce. It's called Express Lane for a reason.
This book makes cooking for two fun and educational. Cooking for Two: 2013 is part recipe book, part textbook, part consumer shopping guide. It's everything you'd expect from the cooking staff at America's Test Kitchen. Home cooks of all levels will learn something because this book takes readers behind the scenes of each recipe, describing the trial runs of the dish and the strategy of how each recipe came to its final version. These introductory notes are what make this cookbook stand out. "Notes from the Test Kitchen" are sidebars with even more tips such as how to avoid the pitfalls of baked fish, how to create ridges on gnocchi, and short product reviews like the best flour tortillas, long grain rice, and grill tongs. Patient cooks who really want to learn cooking tips and tricks will soak up the information in these sections before diving into the recipes.
The well-written recipes are easy to follow without the introductions, but the extra information is like having a personal cooking lesson with the pros. Cooks will appreciate the accessibility of each recipe most of which are only two to three steps. Many of the ingredients are kitchen staples so there's little need to purchase specialty items you'll only use once. In fact, the book has a smart shopper's guide highlighting recipes with common key ingredients. Among the recipe categories you'll find: slow cooker dishes, lighter fare, express meals, desserts, pasta, and vegetarian meals. Don't skip any sections of this book because you'll surely find the cooking tips useful in other dishes.
I was ecstatic to receive this book and you will be, too. It will make a wonderful gift for two-person families, and even single friends who want a little food leftover for the next day.
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