Weekend Cooking- Come Home to Supper by Christy Jordan

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food. 

Come Home to Supper by Christy Jordan
Published by Workman Publishing ISBN 978-0761174905
Paperback, $16.95, 320 pages

The premise behind Christy Jordan's newest cookbook, Come Home to Supper, is the importance of the family gathering together every night for supper. Her mother told her that you can learn the most interesting things from your children at the family supper table.

I firmly believe this; my husband and two sons and I tried to eat supper together as often as possible and it is also a great way to teach your children proper table manners. Even though my sons are in the twenties, we enjoy having Sunday dinner together when we can.

Jordan's book includes 200 recipes in the traditional categories of Beef, Chicken, Pork, Salads, Breads, Casseroles, Desserts, etc. She adds some interesting side bars about family trips, mealtime conversation starters and sweet remembrances of her grandparents. The family angle adds a lovely dimension to this book.

Come to Supper is geared towards people who probably have not been cooking much for their family, more advanced cooks will already have many of these dishes in their repertoire. Jordan covers many of the basics, with a Southern flair to her dishes.

She did have several recipes that I would like try, including:

• Beef Patties With Ketchup Gravy (my guys would love this!)
• House Autry Pork Chops
• Old Fashioned Sticky Chicken
• Italian Beef Sandwiches
• Chocolate Sundae Cake

I like that the recipes don't call for ingredients that most of us don't already have in our pantries. She uses saltine crackers, Italian dressing and makes lots of BBQ-flavored dishes. She includes a Mix and Match Casserole Chart, listing ingredients and the different ways to combine them to make several casseroles. 

Jordan uses her slow-cooker frequently, and this will be helpful for those people who don't have lots of time in the afternoon or evening to cook a meal. She also has two pages- one for Sunday Menus and one for Weeknight Menus- that will help pull the entire meal together.

At the end of the book, Jordan gives recipes for things like Cream of Mushroom Soup, BBQ Sauces, Simple Marinara Sauce, and Homemade Whipped Cream. This is perfect for those of us who don't like to use processed canned foods and wish to control salt and preservatives in our diets.

Workman always does a wonderful job with their cookbooks. This book is a bargain at only $16.95 list price, you get 200 recipes; you won't find that in many places.

Here is Christy Jordan's recipe for

Granny’s Oven Fried Chicken

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup plain bread crumbs*
• 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup Italian dressing
• 3-4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Lightly spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.
2. In a shallow bowl or pie plate, stir together bread crumbs, cheese, parsley flakes, garlic salt, and pepper. Pour Italian dressing into a separate shallow bowl.
3. Dip each chicken breast into the salad dressing to coat both sides, then dredge it in the bread crumb mixture and transfer it to a plate.
4. Place chicken breasts in the prepared baking dish and bake until they are cooked through, 30-40 minutes.

Christy Jordan's website, Southern Plate, is here. 

 rating 4 of 5

Weekend Cooking- The Mom 100 Cookbook by Katie Workman

The Mom 100 Cookbook by Katie Workman
Published by Workman Publishing ISBN 978-0-7611-6603-0
Paperback, $16.95

Subtitled 100 Recipes Every Mom Needs in Her Back Pocket Solutions For All The Cooking-For-Two-Kids Dilemmas That Everyone Faces Every Day (whew- that is a mouthful!), this is a well-organized book filled with solutions to moms' problems.

Every mom wants to feed her children healthy, home-cooked meals, and Workman's book can help with that often-overwhelming process. She starts with basic information, like 5 Basic Tips for Getting Your Kids to Eat More Things, and 17 Amazing Ingredients, olive oil and canned tomatoes among them.

Each chapter starts with a dilemma- Enough with the frozen chicken nuggets is one. Then Workman gives  a number of solutions to the dilemma in the form of easy to make recipes. Some of the solutions include Roast Chicken Several Ways, Lemon Chicken, Barbequed Chicken, Homemade Chicken Tenders, and Taco Night. 


The recipes are easy to follow, and on the right margins she includes Cooking Tips (don't be afraid of the broiler), Make Ahead (broil the chicken and make the sauce a day ahead) and What the Kids Can Do (let the kids juice the lemons, combine the ingredients for the sauce, shake it up, and pour over the chicken), all for Lemon Chicken.


Another interesting aspect of the book is what she calls A Fork in the Road Recipe.  At the end of those recipes is a little box that gives you an alternative way to cook the dish. In the Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas recipe, if your kids don't like things spicy, you can cut back on the chili powder and garlic in the enchilada sauce. You can also use different baking dishes to make the enchiladas; one with enchiladas with the spicier sauce and one with the less spicy sauce.

There are so many recipes in this book that I would try, even though my kids are all grown and will eat pretty much anything. Shrimp Risotto, Fork-in-the-Road Chicken Kebabs, and Vegetable Frittata among them.

There are lots of photos, and Workman walks you through every recipe step-by-step. It's a terrific resource for those who are intimidated by cooking or think it's too difficult. (You can make nutritious meals for your family, even if you have picky eaters.) It also has appeal to the more experienced cook who is looking for easy, classic recipes. And at $16.95, it is a real bargain.


Workman has a website for this book, click here for more information.

rating 5 of 5

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food!

Weekend Cooking- Bean by Bean- A Cookbook

Bean by Bean- A Cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon
Published by Workman Publishing ISBN 978-0-7611-3241-7
Softcover, $15.95

I have seen other reviews of this book, and my curiosity was peaked. My family doesn't eat lot of beans, but I would like to incorporate more of them into our diet. (I like black beans, refried beans, kidney beans, white beans myself.)

This is a comprehensive book about beans. The author starts with Bean Basics, discussing the many variety of beans and the basic cooking methods for each type: what to look for in a good green bean, shell beans and how to cook them, soaking beans- whatever you need to know about beans is covered here, no more need to fear them.

The ten chapters cover such topics like Hummus & Starters, with such recipes as Gotcha-Hotcha Sweet-Smoky Cocktail Peanuts, Hillbilly Hummus (made with peanut butter!) and Greektown Dip from Chicago's Greektown.

Soulful Simmer Soups is a great chapter that covers the world of beans literally. There are Middle Eastern Bean Soups (Spicy Syrian-Style Lentil Soup), African Bean Soups (Nigerian Seed-Thickened Beef & Shrimp Soup Stew), Asian Bean Soups (Thai Hot & Sour Soups), Indian Bean Soups (Sambar), European (Hungarian Green Bean Soup), and the Americas (Day after Thanksgiving Turkey, Wild Rice & Rattlesnake Bean Soup).

Of course there are many chili recipes, curry recipes and a chapter on skillets and stir fries that contains an interesting vegetable hash recipe I want to try.The last chapter has desserts, with Julie's Peanut Butter Cup  Brownies that looks good and I never would have thought I'd find in a bean cookbook!

I like that each recipe has symbols next to it that states whether it is compatible for vegans, vegetarians, gluten-free diets or has meat in it. That makes it easy for anyone with dietary restrictions or preferences to quickly see if the recipe is for them.

The only negative I have is that there are no photos of recipes in the book, but it is a substantial book, and I guess that photos would add to the heft of the book.

If you like beans or would like to add more beans to your diet, this is the cookbook to pick up. I can't imagine that there is any information about beans that I would like to know that is not in this comprehensive, 175-recipe book.

rating 4 of 5 stars

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food!

When Parents Text

When Parents Text: So Much Said...So Little Understood by Lauren Kaelin & Sophia Fraioli
Published by Workman Publishing ISBN 978-0-7611-6604-7
Paperback, $10.95

If you have kids, chances are you have texted them. My kids got cell phones when they were in high school, and it became so easy to stay in touch with them via text. They didn't have to interrupt what they were doing or act like their parents mattered to them in front of their friends.

Two twenty-something women, Lauren Kaelin and Sophia Fraioli, started talking about the goofy (dorky?) text messages their parents would send them, and so they started a website- When Parents Text. They encouraged other people to submit texts from their own parents, and the site became so popular, they now have compiled a book When Parents Text- So Much Said...So Little Understood.


This book had me laughing all the way through it; it reminded me of S@#* My Dad Says. They organize the texts by categories, like "N00bs", which are texts that make no sense (usually done by parents just learning to text and unable to clearly see what they are texting), "Master Class", which consists of texts done by expert texters, complete with fancy emoticons, and "Pets", which the authors have determined have become very important to parents who suffer from "empty nest syndrome".

The emoticons really floored me. I had no idea that there were so many parents out there who spent so much time creating elaborate emoticons, which do nothing more than exasperate their children.
)8( is an angel sent to watch over one mom's adult child.
Bow tie man :-)8 is big one too.

My favorite though is Booty Shake- (_/_) (_\_) (_/_) (_\_) (_/_). Thank goodness there is handy glossary at the end to guide newbies through the new language.

This one, titled I.Found.u., hit home for me.
MOM: It's 3am where r you?
(20 minutes later)
MOM: Please let me know what's going on. R u OK?
(5 minutes later)
MOM: I. Found.u. You r in bed. I didn't hear u come home. I was so worried! Glad we R all safe and sound. Love u.
This is funny to me because when my son was a senior in high school, I sent this same text. I received a reply that he was sound asleep in his bed and had been home for HOURS. Oops, my bad.

I'm telling you, I LMAO reading this book. (Look it up if you don't know). This book will appeal to parents and grandparents, (there is chapter on grandparents texting too), as well as the kids they text. You will know who is reading this book in your house because you will hear bursts of laughter coming from whomever has the book.

I have to admit that I am afraid to check out the website in case any of my texts are there. I have sent some really crazy ones while walking around NYC without my glasses on.

rating 4 of 5