I really wanted to love this book and I watched the whole series on tv. I use the recipies for dinner parties a lot. Even as an experienced cook, it takes me around 2 hours to do any one of these. I find I get more frazzled by the way meals are laid out, than if I just had three or four separate recipies. My guests are always impressed but its a lot of work.
My husband and I tried a few of the complete meals (two cooks together) and could barely get a complete meal done in an hour. And after we ate, we looked at our kitchen and sighed...so many dishes to clean :(
However, I've taken to cooking just pieces of the meals, and those do seem to be doable in less than an hour, with many tasty results so far.
I got this as a gift from my SO, she like the "meals" aspect, and nearly all have a 'dessert'. But I too find the recipes in this cookbook frazzling, the kitchen a mess with dishes, the ingredients are a bit expensive really (I certainly couldn't affort to do these everyday, and really I have to question some of the methods here (turn on broiler full blast, put in empty sheet pan and let it warm up? I don't think so.). One recipe I have made a couple of times is the Crusty Cod. Comes out wonderful really, the flavors, the textures, everything go so well to gether. Another one I've made was the Beef Hash, nothing special, but it was fun and came out ok, except again the use of the broiler gets things smoking pretty good, and I simply didn't have time to get the salad done when everything else was done. Not sure the who what when and where the recipe testing prior to publishing. I also have Jaime At Home which gets more use, more so in the summer when my garden is rolling along.
I really wanted to love this book and I watched the whole series on tv. I use the recipies for dinner parties a lot. Even as an experienced cook, it takes me around 2 hours to do any one of these. I find I get more frazzled by the way meals are laid out, than if I just had three or four separate recipies. My guests are always impressed but its a lot of work.
However, I've taken to cooking just pieces of the meals, and those do seem to be doable in less than an hour, with many tasty results so far.
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