Customer Reviews

The Minimalist Cooks Dinner: More Than 100 Recipes for Fast Weeknight Meals and Casual Entertaining

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Like the companion volume, "The Minimalist Cooks at Home", this is an excellent collection of recipes. His hints on techniques are very helpful, and his recipes use good ingredients and result in clear, strong, delicious flavors. If you're a vegetarian, this isn't a great choice, but otherwise, this is one of my two favorite cookbooks. We have 50 or so cookbooks, but this and "The Minimalist Cooks at Home" are the two I use the most. His recipes make sense, and they don't waste your time or effort.

Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" is a treasure trove of vegeterian recipes, including tons of recipes for cooking legumes, grains, and vegetables. Unfortunately, those sections are all missing from "The Minimalist Cooks Dinner," which is essentially about cooking meat, poultry, and fish. Vegeterian Bittman fans would be better off sticking with "How to Cook Everything" and/or trying out "The Minimalist Cooks Vegetarian."

My usual routine was to open a can of sauce and throw it over spaghetti weeknights, and then make something fantastic (and complicated) on weekends. Not anymore. Although the recipes in this book are delicious, easy and quick, the real value for me was in the technique lessons he sneaks into every recipe (like searing and steaming chicken breasts) and the encouragement to create your own variations of the recipes. I also liked his flavor combinations- he includes some that I've never tried before as well as the classics, but they've all been very tasty.

I can't recommend this book enough. I also liked "The minimalist cooks at home".

Life can get hectic, and like most young singles, I rarely find time to cook for myself. When I do try new recipes, I often find them good, but too time-consuming for cooking for one. This cookbook changed my way of thinking. I can cook quick and healthy meals that taste great in less than 40 minutes. Each of Bittman's recipes includes suggestions for saving time, complimentary wines, and side dishes to serve. This makes me seem an excellent hostess when I try his suggestions!

We love to cook, but often don't have the time to prepare complex meals. Fortunately, Bittman's _Minimalist_ has allowed us to expand our culinary horizons, without a great deal of effort.

The Roast Salmon Steaks with Pinot Noir syrup was marvelous. The salmon and Pinot sauce worked well together; the easy-to-cook syrup would work well with a variety of meats. The recipie called for only 7 ingredients, and preparation was a snap.

I'm not usually an eggplant fanatic, but the Chicken Breast with Eggplant, Shallots and Ginger was really tasty. Once again, preparation was painless, the list of required ingredients was short, and the results were impressive.

As other reviewers have noted, this is *not* an encyclopedic, Joy of Cooking-replacement, but is rather an excellent way to expand your cooking repertoire with quick, healthful dishes. We haven't been disappointed yet.

This cookbook is a must for those who want a refreshing, tasty meal but do not have the hours, or the energy, to spend in the kitchen. If you work outside the home or if you live alone and do not want to go to all the effort of preparing a time-consuming meal for one, you will find the recipes here are just what you are looking for. There is plenty of flavour in each of the dishes and the wonderful part is that most recipes can be prepared in approximately thirty minutes. No more frustrated children (or cranky husband) asking, "When will dinner be ready - how much longer?" These recipes are a cinch to prepare and soooo delicious! This book is highly recommended and most deserving of a five-star rating.

Why do you want to buy a cookbook? If you're a restraut chef or caterer who needs to add several very high quality, very repeatable recipies to their menu, then this book is likely not your best choice. However, if you're an ordinary person who buys what's on sale at the grocery store, wants to emprovise to use what they've got in the refridgerator, and doesn't mind an ocassional dish coming out only so-so, then this is a very good book. It doesn't include instructions for everything (like Joy of Cooking or How to Cook Everything), but does include about 200 very good recipies, each with explanations of what purpose the ingredients serve and suggestions for substitutions, ways to kick it up a notch, or skimp on prep time. That's what makes this such a useful book.

Before I had a baby 19 months ago, I was interested in recipes with maximum ingredients and complicated preparations. There was usually a 50/50 chance that it would taste good enough to cook again. After the baby, I stopped cooking altogether. I have started again with this book. The recipes are uncomplicated, and the results are sublime. I am eternally grateful to Mark Bittman for bringing joy back to my cooking.

The recipes alone deserve 5 out of 5 stars. However, since I own both HTCE and the two Minimalist volumes, I was chagrined to find overlap between HTCE and each of the Minimalist books. The Minimalist books do not overlap.

Save your money-- I recommend only buying HTCE. If you are interested in the other non-overlapping recipes, borrow the book from friends or libraries.

The Minimalist cooks dinner has a much more user-friendly layout, organization than HTCE and the first Minimalist book. An ideal Bittman cookbook would be all of the recipes from his books together, with the layout and organization of this volume. That would be a truly incredible cookbook, but alas, I keep on dreaming...

Everything's changing! Nothing stays the same. Old patterns dissolve and new ones appear.

I could never leave my old Fannie Farmer, though I've flirted often with some more current titles. Now it looks like I'm going to be making major life changes in terms of Who Hold My Attention in the Kitchen.

Forget that he kind of looks like me... that just makes it wierd. But this guy has a great approach to easily whipping up great meals without angst and with very modest effort. And he's holding my attention in the midst of a life that's changing faster than Imelda swapped shoes, or ZsaZsa changed husbands.

After cooking a lot of family meals in more or less the same fashion for more than a decade, I feel a little like a traitor to someone somewhere because this guy has my total focus at mealtimes. And my husband, Wolf, who tends to be something of a discriminating diner, as well as a competitor in the kitchen arts, has nothing but praise.

Buy this book! Try all the recipes. I'm only partway down the path, but I'm not looking back.