Showing posts with label Inkling Cooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inkling Cooks. Show all posts

Inkling Cooks: Clean Eating for Busy Families: Revised & Expanded by Michelle Dudash

Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Title: Clean Eating for Busy Families: Revised & Expanded
Author: Michelle Dudash
Genre: Cookbook
Publisher: Fair Winds Press
Date: March 5, 2019
Length: 192 pages
Review copy from NetGalley
Satisfy your whole family with nourishing meals they’ll love. In this revised and expanded version of the top-selling Clean Eating for Busy Families, you'll find even more recipes and photos, streamlined weekly grocery lists, and practical tips for healthy family eating.

All parents know what a struggle mealtimes can be—you want to prepare healthy dishes for your family, but picky eaters, busy schedules, and way-too-long cooking times and ingredient lists always seem to stand in your way.

Clean Eating for Busy Families takes the challenge out of putting delicious food on the family table on a nightly basis by providing you with a clear plan for dinner success.

How does this book work?

It’s Quick: From easy sautés and casseroles, to slow cooker and one-pan meals, all the recipes you’ll find inside list both mode and length of cooking time, so there’s no time wasted trying to calculate the timing for your schedule. Plus, most recipes can be prepared in 30 minutes or less!

It’s Clean: The ever-growing “clean food” movement, which focuses on a healthy, whole foods-based approach to eating, lies at the foundation of this book, so you can be sure you’re feeding your family the very best. From wholesome ingredient lists to nutritional analysis on every recipe, you can feel confident that every meal you prepare is both nutrient-rich and calorie-conscious. Options for plant-based, gluten-free, and dairy-free alternatives are also listed wherever possible.

It’s Green: Featuring eco-friendly tips, along with information on how to go green while shopping and cooking, you’ll find it a cinch to keep your family happy and stay eco-conscious.

And most importantly…it’s delicious! From Orange Peel Chicken & Broccoli Stir-fry with Brown Rice to Baja Fish Tacos with Pico de Gallo and Summer Berry Slump with Vanilla Greek Yogurt, you’ll enjoy night after night of delicious home cooking—without any of the hassle. Get started creating new and exciting dishes for your family today!
Description from NetGalley
I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting a lot from this cookbook. I've been trying a lot of vegetarian books lately in an effort to add more variety to our dinners. The kids and I aren't big meat eaters, but nobody seems to like brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes as much as I do. I requested this galley in hopes of some good vegetable recipes and with serious doubts about the 30 minute promise. In fact, I'm pretty sure I rolled my eyes.

I was so wrong! Within the first two minutes of reading I had already bookmarked 7 recipes. I had no idea what clean eating was, I assumed it was just another complicated diet plan. Turns out clean eating is simply the way I cook, but really sticking to whole and minimally processed foods. My parents cooked most things from scratch. We didn't even have a working microwave. (It took years for me to stop using the microwave as a breadbox. It drove my husband nuts.) I do try to play close attention to ingredients but I'm not perfect. I have an emergency bag of chicken nuggets in the freezer, Kid 1 loves those crappy individually wrapped cheese slices, and I'm pretty sure Kid 2's beloved granola bars are toxic. Clean Eating for Busy Families is a nice stepping stone to accessible healthy meals. That being said, I didn't invest a lot in new ingredients, I used what I had, bought one or two "special items" and substituted where it made sense.

Also, apologies in advance for the boring food photography. I'm literally plonking the plate on the table to photograph as my husband and kids wait for me to finish so they can sit down.

Inkling Cooks: Dessert For Two by Christina Lane

Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Add to Goodreads Shelf
Title: Dessert For Two
Author: Christina Lane
Genre: Cookbook
Publisher: Countryman Press
Date: February 3, 2015
Length: 230 pages
My dad gave me this book for my birthday
Who doesn't love towering three-layer cakes with mounds of fluffy buttercream? Who can resist four dozen cookies fresh from the oven? Wouldn't you love to stick your spoon into a large bowl of banana pudding? What about the leftovers? Dessert recipes typically serve eight to ten people. Finding the willpower to resist extra slices of cake can be difficult; the battle between leftover cookies and a healthy breakfast is over before it started. Until now. Dessert for Two takes well-loved desserts and scales them down to make only two servings. Cakes are baked in small pans and ramekins. Pies are baked in small pie pans or muffin cups. Cookie recipes are scaled down to make 1 dozen or fewer. Your favorite bars: brownies, blondes, and marshmallow cereal treats are baked in a bread loaf pan - which happily serves two when cut down the middle. Newly married couples (and empty-nesters) will be particularly enthralled with this miniature dessert guide. To everyone who lives alone: have your own personal-sized cake and eat it, too. 
Description from Goodreads
My son is a ridiculously picky eater and putting together school lunches for him is very stressful. In order to keep my son from getting bored, I'll alternate his sweet and savory snacks during the week. Typically this means I make two desserts over the weekend, package up what I need for lunches, and then give the rest to coworkers on Monday. (This prevents my husband from snacking when he gets home and ruining his dinner and making me angry.) I first ran across Lane's blog when I found her 1 Dozen Cut-Out Sugar Cookies recipe on Pinterest (they're also in the book). This isn't my favorite sugar cookie recipe ever, but I love that it makes a small batch of tasty cookies, the dough doesn't go in and out of the fridge 50 times, I don't have loads of leftover icing, and it's easy. And that's the great thing about this cookbook, I can easily try out different desserts without using loads of ingredients and making huge messes. If the kids don't like it, I'm not stuck with 24 cupcakes or an entire cake they don't want.

Inkling Cooks: My Sweet Kitchen by Linda Lomelino

Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Add to Goodreads
Title: My Sweet Kitchen
Author: Linda Lomelino
Genre: Cook Books
Publisher: Roost Books
Date: February 7, 2017
Length: 176 pages
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
With an offset spatula laden with buttercream in one hand and a camera in the other, Linda Lomelino has made her mark as one of the most exciting recipe creators and food photographers in the world. My Sweet Kitchen, Linda's third cookbook, is bursting with many of her favorite recipes for cookies, cakes, pies, cupcakes, donuts, spoon desserts, and other sweet delights.

Linda's desserts are renowned for their elegant blend of classic flavor combinations and unexpected style. Along with nearly 50 original recipes, the book also contains three chapters chock-full of tips on how to bake, decorate, style, and photograph your own creations at home.

Linda Lomelino openheartedly shares her secrets for successful baking, telling us what we should always keep in our well-stocked pantries for best results. What should we prioritize when baking complex cakes? Is it best to use a kitchen scale to weigh ingredients? (Hint: "accurate measurements" and "yes"!) With her trademark atmospheric photographs, every recipe in the book comes to life. Linda also shows us how to pipe icing, frost cakes, decorate with edible flowers, style food to be shared (and "liked") on social media, and even how to tell if we should invest in a new camera to take food photography to the next level. If you have even the slightest sweet tooth, this book will hook you.
Description from Goodreads
This is a delicious looking book and with recipes even a novice banker could tackle. The whole cookbook is just so pretty that I was a little intimidated at first. Was I going to have all of the equipment and space needed while children ran around trying to “help”? Did I need to go to a specialty grocery store to find ingredients? Was I going to have to babysit the bake through each step of the process? Nope, turns out these recipes were totally do-able with limited counter space. I could have half my attention on the baking and the other half on the kids. The ingredients weren’t expensive and could be picked up at my local store. Anything I felt was too "specialty" to bother with was easily substituted. I tried some of the recipes and my family loved them. Kid 2 and my dad especially loved the chocolate chip cookies. (Kid 2 loved everything, I had to take more pictures than anticipated because the corners always seemed to have blurry hands in mid grab.)

Recipes are a range of easy to fiddley, but nothing too overwhelming. I tend to save more involved recipes for holidays when I have more time. My dad is retired, has discovered baking, and LIVES for fiddley. This book is right up his ally and he's now going through Lomelino’s recipe blog. He’s ready for berries to be in season because he really wants to try her Barry Galettes recipe.

Snatching hands aren't staged. Also, that copper colored table was
not the best background for a chocolate cake.

Powered by Blogger.
Back to Top