Product Description

Cooking can be one of life's essential pleasures, even when you have to put dinner on the table every night. Now, with Mark Bittman's trusted voice as your guide, quick, easy, and fresh meals are always a realistic option.

Presented here are 404 dishes -- 101 for each season -- that will get you in and out of the kitchen in 20 minutes or less. Mark Bittman's recipe sketches provide exactly the directions a home cook needs to prepare a repertoire of eggs, seafood, poultry, meats, vegetables, sandwiches, and even desserts. Add a salad here, a loaf of bread there, and these dishes become full meals that are better than takeout and far less expensive.

These 404 recipes are as delicious and sophisticated as they are simple: Make the most of summer produce with Scallop and Peach Ceviche or Apricot Cream Upside-Down Pie. When the air starts to cool, try Salmon and Sweet Potato with Coconut Curry Sauce or Broiled Brussels Sprouts with Hazelnuts. On a cold winter night, warm up with White Bean Stew served over crusty slices of olive oil-brushed baguette. Or welcome spring with Shrimp with Asparagus, Dill, and Spice or Poached Eggs and Truffled Arugula Prosciutto Salad.

Because good ingredients are the backbone of delicious home cooking, Bittman includes a guide to the foods you'll want on hand to cook the Kitchen Express way, as well as suggestions for seasonal menus and lists of recipes for specific uses, like brown-bag lunches or the best dishes for reheating. With Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express, you can have dinner on the table in not much more time than it takes to read a traditional recipe.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4431 in Books
• Published on: 2009-07-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416575665
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Bittman here offers a sampling of 404 inspiring recipes. But don't expect another How to Cook Everything. This newest is of a different kind—simple and snappy, and rarely calls for measuring spoons. The no-sweat recipes are divided into four sections: summer, fall, winter and spring, capitalizing on the freshest ingredients of each season while whittling down the prep time of ordinarily elaborate dishes like coq au vin and ricotta cheesecake to 10 minutes or less. The book includes a drill-down of how best to stock your kitchen, and given the impromptu nature of the book, the substitution grid proves indispensable. While many dishes are sandwiches, dips or salads, Bittman offers a handful of innovative gems like figs in a blanket and pasta jambalaya, drawing from a diverse gastronomical panorama including Latin, Asian, Mediterranean and Creole flavors. And while quick, Bittman's recipes don't lack his signature creative punch. Lavender-thyme braised chicken, scallop and peach ceviche and a five-spice lobster sandwich will make most readers both salivate and appreciate the ease of his recipes. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Mark Bittman is the author of How to Cook Everything and other cookbooks, and of the weekly New York Times column, The Minimalist. His work has appeared in countless newspapers and magazines, and he is a regular on the Today show. Mr. Bittman has hosted two public television series and is currently appearing in a third.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

The simple format of Kitchen Express belies all that it has to offer. Here are 101 incredibly fast and easy recipes for each season -- 404 in all. The experienced home cook can play with each to great advantage, yet at their core, they're recipes presented in the simplest form possible, understandable and readily executed by anyone who's done some cooking.

As a group, they are precisely imprecise. This is unusual for recipes, but it's long been my belief that the most specific recipes are the most limiting. Specificity is fine for baking, where the chemistry among the ingredients often determines success or failure. But in savory cooking, where amounts can vary wildly -- there's almost never a critical difference between one onion and two: A "head" of broccoli might weigh one or one-and-a-half pounds; a steak may be three-quarters to an inch and a half thick -- to try to force cooks to follow recipes demanding precision robs them of the ability to improvise, to relax, to substitute, to use their own judgment.

Jacques Pepin once remarked to me that the old adage about never stepping foot in the same river twice holds true for recipes also: You don't start with the same amount of ingredients, they're not at the same temperature, they're not the same age or from the same place, the ambient temperature and humidity are probably different, as are your equipment and mood. Everything is different, and the results will be too.

These little recipes acknowledge that up front. I don't really care how much garlic you use in most recipes, so "some" is as good as "a teaspoon." Similarly, garnishes are garnishes: You use more, you use less, you leave them out -- it shouldn't matter. "A carrot" in a soup could certainly be a big one or a small one, and so on. So I rarely give exact measurements, unless proportions are critical.

This style of cooking is about three things: speed, flexibility, and relaxation. If you read one of these recipes, if it inspires you, and if you have the ingredients (or something approximating them) to throw it together -- then go into the kitchen, assemble what you need, and have at it. Twenty minutes later, max, you'll be eating something delicious. What's wrong with that?Copyright © 2009 by Mark Bittman

Customer Reviews

Terrific "busy Mom" cookbook!
I love this cookbook! WOW.

What I love about this book:
1) Recipes are sectioned by season
2) All recipes are written in paragraph form - with very little instruction (a pinch, a splash, drizzle, etc..)
3) At the beginning of the book, he gives you recommendations for a well-stocked pantry (I passed - woo hoo).
4) At the back of the book he provides tables for Kitchen Express Menus - Weeknight Dinner Party, Romantic Supper, Better-than-Chinese Takeout, Kids' night, Room-Temperature Buffet, Finger-food Cocktail Party, and Picnic/Road Trip, Holiday Blowout and Weekend Brunch. Each table is segmented by season - listing potentially an appetizer, main course, salad or vegetable, side dish, dessert.
5) The food tastes great! My very picky eater 4 yr old son loved the Korean Barbecued Beef that I paired with rice and sugar snap peas.

I highly recommend this cookbook.

For those who love Bittman's NYT Express columns.....
....this book is a real treat. I have been collecting the express entries from his "The Minimalist" columns and tucking them into my copy of his fabulous book How To Cook Everything. It's wonderful to have so many great ideas, inspired by the spirit of those columns, in book form. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Bittman, this book is a great introduction to his philosophy of simple, delicious, never boring cuisine. Another winner from one of my favorite food writers.

Simple, fast recipes with few ingredients
I really like the book. I have Mark Bittmans' book "How to Cook Everything" too, which I've always loved. This is smaller but still has a ton of great recipes. This is perfect if you really like quick-cooking dishes. "How to Cook Everything" also has a lot of quick dishes but you have to find them (which takes time - and that's what I'm trying to save). The format is different - just a paragraph for each recipe - but I like it. He always makes everything simple and his dishes are delicious. He's also very practical. He also has a section on what substitutes you can use if you don't have an ingredient. I also have celiac disease and have to eat gluten-free. Most of his recipes lend themselves naturally to a gluten-free diet. He doesn't use processed foods and he doesn't use flour to make a lot of sauces. He might use flour to dredge meats but I usually just skip this step or you can use cornstarch or another wheat flour substitute. His ingredients are just simple, fresh ingredients....and he doesn't use too many.