Product Description

How to escape the cooking routine of the same old dishes, meal after meal.

Many home cooks are stuck in a food routine that includes preparing the same 10 or 15 recipes over and over again, week after month after year.

2500 Recipes, the ideal guide to escaping that routine, offers 50 recipes each for foods ranging from snacks and sandwiches, to chicken and ground meat; from shellfish to grains; from winter vegetables to summer fruit. There's also a special section of dishes for special occasions.

Consider this common scenario. There is a chicken waiting to be roasted for dinner. Stop. Go the chapter that has 50 recipes for roast chicken. Each one is different. Most important, there are sure to be a few that are more interesting than that old reliable one prepared out of habit -- too often a bad habit. Without doubt, there will be dozens of recipes based on ingredients commonly on hand to please cook, family and guests. There's even a chapter with 50 scrumptious recipes for burgers and hot dogs. Each one is sure to delight.

All the recipes are quick, and most use just a small number of ingredients. But each recipe includes a "power flavor" that's easy to obtain and easy to incorporate into cooking routines. Examples include oils, herbs, olives and sun-dried tomatoes.

There is also an entire section on basic cooking techniques and preparations, featuring seasonings, marinades, sauces, dressings and machines.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1003070 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 600 pages

Review
This is a user-friendly collection that does not require trips to gourmet shops in search of difficult-to-find ingredients. (Larry Cox Tucson Citizen )

This compendium is way better than good. It's superb. (Marlene Parish Pittsburg Post-Gazette )

This book is jam-packed with thousands of recipes that are easy to follow and find because [it] is well organized (South Florida Sun-Sentinel )

You'll never want for a basic recipe when you have this cookbook on your shelf. (Rainbo Electric Reviews )

About the Author

Andrew Schloss is a well-known teacher, writer and food industry consultant. The author of 10 cookbooks and countless food articles, he is a past president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Ken Bookman is a writer and editor as well as the former food editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is also the co-author of six cookbooks.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

This is one cookbook you'll use constantly. It won't be like so many others on your cookbook shelf, those that make you feel you've gotten your money's worth if they add just a recipe or two to your occasional repertoire. Mark our words: a couple of years from now, this book will bear the scars -- dog-eared pages, marginal notes, food stains -- of a cookbook used often. That's because it's geared not for special occasions but for every day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack time, bedtime. You'll find dozens of recipes that talk to you. We're confident that you'll talk back.

Give the book its first test right now. Flip at random to any page, and once you're there, place a finger randomly on any recipe. With so many recipes in this book, we're not going to guarantee that the one you're pointing to will appeal to you. But we will say that, if it doesn't, the one above it or below it probably will. And that's our point. If you're like most home cooks, you're probably stuck in a food rut that has you preparing the same 10 recipes over and over again, week after month after year.

Does anyone need 2,500 recipes to get through life? Of course not. The reason we've put together a book containing so many recipes is to show you how easy it can be to introduce variety into your meal planning. After all, the more ways there are to escape a rut, the more likely you'll be to escape it.

Here's a common scenario: You've just bought a pound of chicken breasts, several fish fillets, a couple of pounds of ground beef or a few baking potatoes. And you wonder what you might do with them tonight. All too often, the decision takes only a few seconds, and then you prepare dinner the same way you've prepared it for years. Will it be good? Maybe. Will it be inspiring? Probably not. Will it be boring? Almost certainly. Can we help? Absolutely.

Here's how. Say you've got a chicken that's waiting to be roasted for dinner. Stop. Turn to page 271, where you'll find a full chapter of recipes for roast chicken. Fifty recipes, to be exact, and just about every one will be different and more interesting than what you might prepare out of sheer habit. If some don't appeal to you, if others appeal but call for an ingredient you don't have, if a few involve extra time that you can't spare tonight, you'll still find a few dozen recipes that can get you out of a cooking rut. You'll end up with a dinner that will have you eagerly looking forward to your next roast chicken, and that chicken will be different from this chicken.

Or take some other part of your cooking repertoire. You've got a nice fire going in your grill. Could you make the same hot dogs and hamburgers you've made for years? Sure you could. But you don't have to. Instead, turn to page 128, where you'll find 50 recipes for burgers and hot dogs that are well within your reach.

What's the secret? Thought. Here's an exercise that will take almost no time but that can reward you for years to come. The next time you order pizza, ask yourself why you got the toppings you got. Here's a possible answer: "I like the way pepperoni works on a pizza. I like how the soft, melted cheese contrasts with the crispy pepperoni." That answer reveals more than just your favorite pizza topping. It also reveals your feelings about contrasts and textures, and that information can be used on many other foods. So do it -- and put this book to work.

This book has a parent. The parent book, Fifty Ways to Cook Most Everything: 2500 Creative Solutions to the Daily Dilemma of What to Cook, was published way, way, way back in the early 1990s. The parent-child metaphor is not perfect, since we are both the parents and the kids. But it's pretty good in that, just as in real life, the parent magically gets wiser as the years go by. We've made a huge number of changes since Fifty Ways was published, but we also recognized that some things shouldn't change.

The most significant constant goes to the premise of both books: that everyone has cooking ruts to overcome, that a vast number of easy recipes is the best way to conquer them, and that those recipes have to be written with the kind of brevity that will fit a reader's life.

But the changes are significant too. We've updated almost every recipe, we've tinkered with just about every one, we've expelled a bunch, and we've added new ones. Nasturtium blossoms are gone. Canola oil is in. And while we still steer clear of the granulated cardboard ingredients we've come to abhor, we've recognized and used the many fine and convenient products that have come into the food markets

Almost all of the recipes are still quick, and therein lies another of our secrets. When recipes use just a small number of ingredients, each of those ingredients has to work harder than normal. You'll see recipe after recipe that relies on what we call "power flavors" -- oils, herbs, sun-dried tomatoes, olives. These ingredients are easy to obtain (you probably already have a lot of them) and easy to incorporate into your cooking. This book will show you how. You'll find common ingredients, but in unexpected places. And you'll understand that the central point of this book is not the 2,500 recipes we've given you. It's number 2,501, which we think you'll be inspired to create.

Customer Reviews

FIFTY COOKBOOKS IN ONE!
10/3/2007
2500 RECIPES:
EVERYDAY TO EXTRAORDINARY
By Andrew Schloss with Ken Bookman


A Review by Mary Martindale

This is a great book to consider giving to those just starting to keep house, for it's many cookbooks in one. First, it teaches basic techniques (Schloss terms it The Toolbox), tools and tips for making marinades, sauces and dressings, even explains small appliances one might want to acquire for their kitchen. Next, it covers 36 categories of food and gives 50 different recipes for each category. Some of these categories, or really many cookbooks, as mentioned earlier are: Snack Plates, Sandwiches, Stir-Frying, Soups, Chili, Pizza, Rosas Whole Chickens, Meatless Dishes, Summer Fruit, Breakfast, Cookies, Drinks and a whole lot more. In addition, Schloss includes his "Special Occasions" section covering topics such as Entertaining, Romantic Recipes, Health Food, Homemade Gifts and more.
"Mark our Words:" states Schloss, "a couple of years from now, this book will bear the scars -- dog-eared pages, marginal notes, food stains," and more. He's probably quite correct about this.

Below are some examples of wide varieties of recipes in their category:
LITTLE PLATES:
Hot Pepper Pecans, Eggplant Bruschetta, Bagna Caoda, Smoked Salmon Mousse
GRILLING:
Chili Grilled Lobster, Lamb and Leek Kebabs, Grilled Chilied Shrimp, Grilled Potato Chips
HEATLESS COOKING:
Gingered Mango Soup, Tomato Dill Salsa, Three-Can Salad, Mexican Serviche
PASTA:
Feta and Artichoke Sauce, Tomato Sauce with Tequila and Cream, Quick Meat Sauce, Smoked Salmon, Caviar and Cream Sauce
GROUND MEAT:
Wild Mushroom Sausage Patties, Ham and Cheddar Meatloaf, Apple and Bacon Turkey Loaf, Turkey Fennel Potstickers, (also dipping sauce for Potstickers)
FISH:
Curried Grouper Chowder, Salmon Serviche, Escabeche of Sole, Grilled Tuna and Roasted Papper Salad
GREENS:Rub Salad, Spinach Pilaf, Chard with Chorizo, Kale with Sausage and Apple
WINTER VEGETABLES:
Gorgonzola Gratin, Mashed Potatoes with Yogurt and Herbs, Buffalo Fries, Creamed Parsnips
ENTERTAINING:
Anise Tea Eggs, Blue Cheese Grapes, Eight-Hor Brandy Cheese Cake, Pepper Peanut Shrimp
LOW-CALORIE RECIPES:
Flounder and Salmon Steamed in Romaine, Artichoke Ratatouille, Venison in Mustard Cruise, Mussels in Tomato over Orzo
HOMEMADE MUFFINS:
Brown Sugar Pecan Muffins, Currant Carrot Muffins, Lemon Yogurt Muffins, Walnut Fig Sinkers
How did Schloss arrive at 2500 recipes? Simply, he has included easy-to-follow recipes, 50 categories of food, 50 recipes in each. Best of all, none have very long lists of ingredients. This is a whole lot of cookbook in one volume only one-and-one-half inches thick!
Marty Martindale operates FOOD SITE OF THE DAY.

I Love This Book
First and briefly, a drawback: there are no pictures. My partner, who does most of the cooking, will usually not pick up a cookbook without a tantalizing photo of a dish. But. After I made him make a few of these recipes he was hooked. So am I! Part of the beauty of the book is that the authors give variations on a theme. For example, you've got your basic meatloaf. Then you've got instructions to swap out a few simple ingredients, and you then have recipes for Apple Sage Meatloaf, Sweet & Sour Meatloaf, Turkey Cornbread Meatloaf, etc... and a lot of the recipes are like that! So easy too! And amazing variations on Meatless dishes as well!! Pick this up. Now. And send a copy to your mother while you're at it.

A New Recipe A Day For EIGHT YEAR IN A ROW!!!
I've never seen a book that contains two-thousand five-hundred recipes in it! Well, yeah I have--THIS ONE! WHOA! There are FIFTY chapters with FIFTY recipes each that run the gamut when it comes to cooking--from snacks to grilling and stir-frying to stews and fish to fruit and chocolate recipes to homemade pies--and would make the cooking king or queen in your life a very happy person. From simple to complex, these recipes will keep that cook in your life quite busy (enough new recipes to have one brand new one every single day for the next EIGHT years!!!).