Product Description

With Cover & Bake, the editors at Cook’s Illustrated set out to revive the venerable casserole. From Turkey Tetrazzini and Chicken Divan to Crab Imperial and Hoppin’ John, casserole cooking represents the ingenuity and practicality of the American cook. In Cover & Bake, the editors set out to investigate the old standards and in the process have re-imagined the art of the one-dish meal to meet the demands of today’s cook.

Here you will find classic assemble and bake casseroles like Macaroni and Cheese and Creamy Chicken and Rice as well as more inventive dishes like Mediterranean Chicken Bake and Polenta Casserole with Italian Sausage. We’ve experimented with techniques that allow you to cook everything in just one pot where possible, avoiding the need for hours of preparation and clean up just to get a casserole in the oven. And nearly every recipe can be made ahead allowing busy cooks to serve these wholesome dishes on a busy weeknight.

Looking beyond what most people consider to be a casserole, the editors offer a rather original take on the subject with inventive skillet "casseroles," slow cooker meals that are really worth serving, pot pies with multiple topping options (many of which you can make ahead), oven braises and stews that cook in a low oven for hours so you won’t have to stand over a hot stove, and breakfast and brunch dishes that can be assembled the night before.

In addition, this book contains all the relevant tastings and testings conducted in America’s Test Kitchen. Learn which casserole dish is our hands-down favorite. Are all storage containers created the same? Want to know which slow cooker has the best combination of features?

In short, Cover & Bake is filled with 200 one-dish meals for everyday cooking. We’ve made these casseroles a whole lot better tasting while making sure that what everyone loves about casseroles remains – the fact that they are practical one-dish meals that require a minimum of fuss and last minute attention.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32180 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 338 pages

Review
". . . .makes one-dish dinners a reality for average cooks, with honest ingredients and detailed make-ahead instructions." -- The New York Times, December 8, 2004

From the Inside Flap
No potluck dinner or church supper would be complete without Baked Ziti or Tuna Noodle Casserole. But are these dishes ever as good as they sound? More often than not, the noodles are dry and crunchy, the sauce lackluster, and the overall dish, well, passable at best. And while everyone loves the idea of a one-dish meal that is made ahead and pulled hot and browned from the oven, the reality is often disappointing.

With Cover & Bake, the editors of Cook’s Illustrated set out to revive the venerable casserole. This kind of cooking is uniquely American, and many recipes have deep roots in regional traditions. From Turkey Tetrazzini and Chicken Divan to Crab Imperial and Hoppin’ John, casseroles represent the ingenuity and practicality of the American cook. But over the last 50 years, many of these classics have taken a turn for the worse as busy home cooks, pressed for time, turned to sorry shortcuts like processed foods to make things easier. For Cover & Bake, the editors tested new versions of old standbys and in the -process have re-imagined the art of the one-dish meal to meet the demands of today’s cook.

Here you will find classic assemble-and-bake casseroles like Macaroni and Cheese and Creamy Chicken and Rice as well as innovative dishes like Mediterranean Chicken Bake and Polenta Casserole with Italian Sausage. The key to making these recipes work, apart from using the freshest of ingredients, is to use high heat and shallow baking dishes that allow you to put already cooked ingredients into a hot oven for a short period of time so that their flavors can meld without overcooking. We’ve experimented with techniques that allow you to cook everything in just one pot whenever possible, avoiding the need for hours of preparation and cleanup just to get a casserole in the oven. And nearly every recipe can be made ahead, allowing home cooks to serve these wholesome dishes on a busy weeknight.

Looking beyond what most people consider to be a casserole, the editors offer an original take on the subject with inventive skillet "casseroles" (Skillet Lasagna and Beef Stroganoff), slow-cooker meals that are really worth serving (Curried Chicken with Potatoes and Peas), pot pies with multiple topping options (many of which can be made ahead), oven braises and stews that cook in a slow oven for hours so that you won’t have to stand over a hot stove, and breakfast and brunch dishes that can be assembled the night before, allowing you to relax along with your guests. For every type of one-dish meal, we have given you practical tips and techniques along with step-by-step illustrations that make the process easier. For instance, in the slow-cooker chapter, there is a detailed guide to using slow cookers effectively based on our extensive testing, along with specific tips, such as how to arrange vegetables around the edge of the slow cooker so that they will cook all the way through.

In addition, this book contains all the relevant tastings and testings conducted in America’s Test Kitchen. Learn which baking dish is our hands-down favorite. Are all storage containers created the same? Want to know which slow cooker has the best combination of features? We’ve done thorough research into each of these topics (and more) and recommend specific kitchen items (yes, we name brands) that deliver superior results. In Cover & Bake, you will learn which brand of chicken broth tastes best, how to buy canned tomatoes that taste almost as good as fresh, and how to choose among myriad brands of rice, pasta, and noodles when you’re in the supermarket. Starting with the right ingredients and the best possible equipment makes all the difference, so we have made sure to give you the information you need to be successful in the kitchen.

Cover & Bake is packed with more than 200 recipes for one-dish meals for everyday cooking. These practical recipes will allow you to get dinner on the table with a minimum of fuss while still serving up a fresh-tasting meal.

Founded in 1980, Cook’s Illustrated magazine is renowned for its near-obsessive dedication to finding the best methods of American home cooking. The editors of Cook’s are also the authors of a best-selling series of cookbooks (The Best Recipe Series) and a series of companion books to the America’s Test Kitchen public television show (which reaches 2.4 million viewers per episode). Filmed in America’s Test Kitchen (a 2,500-square-foot test kitchen in Brookline, Massachusetts), the show features the editors, test cooks, equipment testers, science experts, and food tasters from the magazine’s staff.

Customer Reviews

Practical Cooking for Busy Households
I love to cook. I love to eat good food. But, I have a job, a preschooler, an old house, elderly relatives that need my help...the list goes on. Life is too busy for all of us and we are all guilty of making poor food choices because of our lack of time.

I'm not going to repeat the praise offered by other reviewers; I concur with all of it. The reason why people should buy this book (or give as a gift) is because each and every recipe has detailed instructions for making these dishes ahead of time and refrigerating or freezing them. Most of the dishes can be frozen for at least one month, many for two or even three months. And, best of all, they taste great no matter when they eat them.

This cookbook has made my busy life simpler. I love to share good food with my friends and family, and Cover & Bake makes that easy to do. I have relied on recipes from Cook's Illustrated for years and now, when I'm at a time in my life where time is scarce, I can continue to produce great food in a short period of time.

Just a sampling of how I've been able to utilize this book:
1. Spend one day every month preparing 4-5 casseroles that go straight into the freezer.
2. Make one "fresh" casserole each week that is eaten right away.
3. Prepare the food for a party 2-3 days in advance so my final hours before the party are focused on cleaning up after my preschooler!
4. Share one casserole each week with elderly relatives; I can even make up individual sized portions easily.
5. Made a few casseroles for a friend's freezer while she was recuperating in the hospital.
6. Shared a few casseroles with a friend who was at home with her new baby.

This is a great cookbook to have, and great cookbook to give away. I am excited by it.

The Best of the Best
I own all 12 volumes of the "Best Recipe" cookbook series as well as all other volumes issued by Cook's Illustrated. I purchased all of them as they were issued. When the fourth volume in the Best Recipe series, "American Classics", was issued, their began to emerge complaints concerning Cook's repeating recipes from volume to volume.The tacit accussation was that Cook's was dishonestly repackaging already published material for additional profits. The review by Hoc Stercus, below. seems to be levelling this same accuasation at the current volume, "Cover and Bake". I would like to put this notion to rest once and for all. Each of the issued volumes (as does "Cover and Bake") has presented a plethora of new recipes and useful culinary information. They have also included pertinent recipes (and other information) tested and presented in previous volumes in the series, as they should. For example the best recipes for stove-top and baked macaroni and cheese were presented way back in the first volume of the series. Since the subject of "Cover and Bake" is just these sorts of recipes, would it be fair of Cook's Illustrated to omit these classic casserole recipes and refer the reader to a previous volume ? This would be the height of dishonesty and profit grubbing. Or do you think perhaps that Cook's, for the sake of novelty, should offer a recipe for mac & cheese other rthan the best the've developed to date? When I want the best recipe for fried chicken, I would be disappointed if it did not appear in the volume "American Classics" simply because it was published at an earlier date in the first book in the series. I expect such classic recipes to appear in all of the volumes to which they are appropriate. There is inevitably some overlap in volume coverage (e. g,. mac & cheese is a casserole and an American classic and a pasta dish. It should and does appear in all of those volumes). It is a matter of convenience and honesty that Cook's does not force the reader to purchase additional volumes just in order to aquire all of the recipes in a given area of the individual cook's interest. If one does have all or many of the volumes in the series, should you really have to use detective work in order to determine in which of the 12 volumes the best recipe for brownies might be? It should be in every volume in which the recipe is appropriate. Thankfully it is.

As an avid home cook and having been associated with professional cooking, in one form or another, for over thirty years, I cannot recomend this cookbook (or any other in "The Best Recipe" series) too highly. Though my library contains well over 1,000 cookbooks, the cookbooks in "The Best Recipe" series are the ones I most highly recommend. I have by now cooked hundreds of recipes from the volumes in this series and have never met with any thing but absolute success. The instructions and testing information for each recipe are so thorough and detailed, that even in areas where you might differ on matters of purely subjective taste (degree of spiciness for example), you'll know precisely the adjustements that need to made without fear of jeapordizing the outcome of the recipe as a whole.

Anthony Bourdain, in his excellent, but rigorous and highly professional new French bistro cookbook, "Les Halles, recommends only three "Source Materials" as further reading. One by Joel Robuchon, another by Paul Bocuse, but also "The Best Recipe-Cook's Illustrated".

If you are interested in casseroles and other one pot dishes that are as easy to prepare as they can be, without compromising taste and having to resort to questionable and unneccessary prepackaged ingredients then do not hesitate to purchase this book. You will be well rewarded, not only because you'll have at your command the multi-tested best classic and neo-classic recipes possible, but also because of all the useful testing results for common supermarket items and kitchen equipment and appliances that you'll have at your disposal

A Rare Disappointment from the Cooks Illustrated Series
I usually rave about Cooks Illustrated books because they are the best all-around cookbooks out there, but I have to rant a little about this one. The idea behind Cover and Bake is to improve on classic casseroles by getting rid of sub-par ingredients like cream of mushroom soup and pre-packaged bread crumbs, and simplifying cooking procedures so as to allow as much one-pot cooking as possible. The people at Cooks Illustrated make a lot of references to "Tuesday night dishes," i.e., main courses that can be prepared, cooked and served quickly and don't result in a lot of clean-up.

This, however, isn't that book. The dishes that look so quick and easy when you watch them on America's Test Kitchen aren't so quick and easy at home because they have someone else to pull the leaves off of enough fresh tarragon that they have 3 tablespoons ready and waiting when they start cooking their Chicken with Spring Vegetables. When at home you have to trim and cut the chicken, pull the leaves off of the tarragon and chop them, wash and cut leeks, carrots, and asparagus and measure out cream (rather a lot of it) and chicken broth as well as various spices, and make home-made bread crumbs in the food processor, it all adds up to several hours of preparation before the casserole even makes it into the oven, and along with the casserole dish itself, you end up with a dutch oven, food processor, cutting board, knife and several prep bowls to clean. You can make the basic dish in advance, but you still have to wait for the mixture to chill down before you can put it in the refrigerator, and you have to leave it out at room temperature for an hour before you can put it in the oven. Yes, it tastes much better than the chicken casserole you would make with precut pieces of chicken and cream of mushroom soup, but unless you make it on a weekened and have someone to take it out of the refrigerator for you before you get home from work, it's not a quick and easy weeknight dinner.

As mentioned by someone else, this also isn't healthy eating. Most of the dishes have cream or cheese, and vegetarian isn't a word the folks at Cooks Illustrated seem to have learned, although the dishes seem to have a lot of mushrooms. Even the side dishes aren't truly vegetarian as a lot of the recipes in the book use one form or another of pork for seasoning, or otherwise rely on cheese or cream. For a book called Cover and Bake, I certainly expected at least some recipes which make star use of grains, rice, beans and vegetables, which are nice to have even for meat eaters. Those also aren't here. These are basic beef, pork, chicken and fish with rice and/or potatoes and they are hearty dishes. The side dishes are basically rice dishes to serve with the meat.

Don't get me wrong -- the resulting food tastes good. But their "paella," for instance, bears no resemblence to paella. It's shrimp with tomatoes and rice and while it's quite tasty, for an expensive dish, it just isn't the star it ought to be. When you make a dish that calls for 1 1/2 pounds of extra large shrimp, which is going to run you at least $25, plus the costs of the other ingredients, the dish should be more than tasty -- it should be spectacular. No one is going to complain about this dish, but it's doubtful they are going to rave about it either.

On the plus side, everything is extremely easy to prepare, especially if you like making food that serves 4-6 people and makes use of 9"X13" baking dishes, dutch ovens, and large skillets. There are, as always, plenty of useful illustrations, and the instructions are easy to follow. I'll use this cookbook since I still like the idea of dishes I can make over the weekend and keep in the refrigerator for several weekday uses, but it's not going to replace Cooks Illustrated's New Best Recipe or The New Basics or other recipe collections I own. This is really for people who like chicken and rice, beef and potatoes and other combinations that classically go into casserole dishes with thick and creamy sauces. If that describes you, this book is probably a 5-star book for you. Otherwise, you may search hard for recipes that sound worth the trouble.