The Soup Mix Gourmet: 375 Short-Cut Recipes Using Dry and Canned Soups to Create Everything from Delicious Dips and Sumptuous Salads to Hearty Pot Roasts and Homey Casseroles [Paperback]

Diane Phillips, celebrated cookbook author, culinary school instructor, and brand spokesperson, presents a pantry full of helpful, timesaving suggestions in The Soup Mix Gourmet. Packed with over 375 recipes, the book uses soup mixes, starters, and pre-made condensed soups as key components for all of the dishes, making them easy and quick to prepare. But her recipes should surprise and delight even those who enjoy spending hours in the kitchen. The use of Lipton Savory Herb with Garlic makes a nice rub for a Holiday Standing Rib Roast, while Campbell's Condensed Cream of Chicken soup creates an appealing element when used in Chicken Piccata. Lipton Onion Soup is mixed with sour cream for a chip-and-dip staple; Top Ramen Salad is suggested for potluck dinners; and Beef and Onion Soup enlivens the standard pot roast. For every vegetable, pasta, meat, and marinade, there appears to be a soup mix destined to enhance it. With the time saved in this comprehensive and inventive book, the family and guests may slow down enough to actually enjoy a meal. --Teresa Simanton

In this hearty compendium, Phillips (Pot Pies) spins that original humble time-saver, the Campbell's soup can, into a surprisingly pleasing array of dips, salads, pastas, sauces, casseroles and even in an act that might seem redundant soup. Phillips doesn't stop with Campbell's, though, listing a dozen dry mixes from such big labels as Knorr and Lipton that she is "never without." Phillips makes a point of creating recipes with fresh ingredients, using the soups merely as a seasoning element. (Many of them would be quite delicious without using soup mix at all.) On the other hand, those fresh ingredients require prep work that can all but eliminate the timesaving factor of the soup mix. The book retains a distinct vintage whiff: those who reminisce about the 1950s will be glad to see Chicken Divan, Hawaiian Chicken and Tuna Noodle Bake recipes they can "be proud to serve your family or the boss." The more contemporary-minded will enjoy Tomato-Basil Bread and Herbed Goat Cheese Potato Pie. Despite its title, the book is not for true gourmands, who will view with skepticism Phillips's claim that salmon with three packets of miso mix is "very close" to the signature miso-glazed cod at New York's Nobu restaurant. But for those new to cooking, soup mix may well be the miracle ingredient that makes an intimidating ordeal seem easy and quick. This fearless tome may show them that a straight and friendly path to the kitchen lies through the pantry door.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

The recipes in The Soup Mix Gourmet, in some ways the antithesis of Haedrich's book, use both canned soups and packaged soup mixes. Phillips (The Perfect Mix) developed hundreds of recipes based on these products, from five versions of famous onion soup mix dip to Seafood Lasagne to Beef Burgundy. She is obviously a good cook, but some of the recipes seem as if they would be better off without the soups or mixes, which usually contain both lots of salt and chemicals; e.g., it seems a shame to add a dried soup mix to a salad made with expensive, and flavorful, Stilton, roast beef, new potatoes, and fresh chives or to a pasta primavera full of fresh vegetables and herbs. The soup chapter may be the most successful, with ideas and recipes for jazzing up the canned or packaged products before serving them. And the recipes are not always quick some of the ones that include the mixes need several hours or more of standing time. Buy for demand.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Mainstream short-cut cooking at its best, with 375 recipes that use dry soup mix or canned condensed soup as a key flavor ingredient.

Diane Phillips is an esteemed culinary educator, James Beard Award-nominated cookbook author, product spokesperson, and consultant to the food industry. Fondly known as The Diva of Do-Ahead, she has taught her tremendously popular do-ahead entertaining classes for more than 15 years in cooking schools nationwide, selling out in markets from the Midwest to the Bay Area. Focusing on breaking down each recipe into do-ahead steps, she allows home cooks to prepare for a party without having to stress over complicated last-minute cooking. The first of her entertaining classes, Do-Ahead Thanksgiving, was covered by the Associated Press in 2003. Phillips imparts her imaginative, timesaving cooking techniques and her keen sense of aesthetic cuisine at prestigious cooking schools throughout the country such as Draeger’s, Sur La Table, Ramekins, and Viking Culinary Centers. She teaches classes for Christmas, Easter, picnics, tailgates, bridal shower luncheons, brunch, and other kinds of entertaining.

She attended Le Cordon Bleu and has been a spokesperson Turning Leaf Vineyards, Lipton Recipe Secrets, Pepperidge Farms, and Cabot Creamery, and has appeared on numerous radio and television programs. She is the author of several cookbooks, and lives in San Diego, California.