I am ambivalent about cooking. I love eating delicious, made-from-scratch-with-fresh-ingredients, tempting-my-tastebuds food. I hate washing dirty dishes. I love creating something nutritious and tasty that my children with food allergies (and sometimes picky palates) can eat and enjoy. I hate the chunk of time it takes out of my day to come up with something to put on the dinner table. I love trying new foods and recipes, experimenting to see what else I’ll like. I hate getting stuck in a rut with the same five meals on rotation every week. So when I find cookbooks that minimize the aspects of cooking that I don’t like and enhance the ones I do, it’s a pretty easy sell.
“Pure chocolate, without added sugars and fats, is one of the healthiest foods on the planet!”
Chocolate Never Faileth
By Annette Lyons
Anyone who knows me at all knows that I have an obsession with a passion for chocolate. So when I received a review copy of Chocolate Never Faileth I was almost giddy. I started marking recipes I wanted to try and gave up when I’d marked 19 of the first 20.
There are the standard recipes you’d expect to see in a cookbook focusing on chocolate (like a chocolate mousse, a devil’s food cake, and, of course, chocolate chip cookies), but also some intriguingly different recipes (Orange Pecan Whole-Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies, Choco-Breakfast Topping, and Chocolate Lip Gloss, for example).
A useful introductory section provides valuable information on both chocolate and non-chocolate ingredients and definitely should be read before attempting any of the recipes. (It was only after disappointing results with the Double Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies that I read the instructions in the introduction to always use butter at room-temperature. My second attempt at that recipe was much more successful!)
Since I didn’t think it would be very fair to review a cookbook without trying some of the recipes, I got to work. My family definitely appreciated my efforts! The Perfect Chocolate Milk (page 125) was easy, rich and frothy, with just a hint of a nutty flavor from the hazelnut-flavored creamer, and the entire half gallon disappeared amazingly fast! The 3-minute Microwave Chocolate Cake (page 35) is clever — and hits the spot when you need a chocolate fix quick — though you might want to plan on sharing it with a friend. It was awfully rich for one person to eat alone, but I muddled through somehow. My boys were shocked when I served the fluffy but not-too-sweet Chocolate Muffins (page 155) for breakfast one morning and are still asking when they can have “cupcakes” for breakfast again!
One disappointment was the Brownie Bites (page 55). Following the recipe exactly yielded a pile of dry crumbs that just wouldn’t roll into a ball as the recipe promised it would. I sent a short email to the author via her website and — I kid you not — less than 10 minutes later received a personal response with a suggested fix. Apparently a stick of softened butter, or ½ cup of oil, had been left out of the recipe when it was printed, so mark your copies accordingly!
I enjoyed the quirky pairing of lemon and chocolate in the Chocoholic Lemon Squares (page 67). The chocolate crust is a nice foil to the tart sweetness of the lemon filling. The Chocolate Zucchini Bread (page 159) provides yet another delectable way to use up all that squash from our garden. Last, but definitely not least, the Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies (page 51) are the absolute best chocolate chip cookies I have ever baked or eaten, bar none. And I would consider myself a chocolate chip cookie aficionado.
I’m still looking forward to trying the Marbled Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread, the Peppermint Patty Fudge Brownies, the Sinful Chocolate Cupcakes and the Rocky Road Bars, along with almost every other recipe in the cookbook.
The photos in Chocolate Never Faileth are beautiful, but unfortunately only account for about a third of the recipes. I’d love to have seen a picture with each recipe. Ms. Lyon has added personal notes and tips to just about every recipe, with humorous quotes and sayings sprinkled throughout. Also included are valuable sections on specific ingredients, techniques and resources that will come in handy for a chocoholic cook. It’s obviously written for an LDS audience with the allusion to the Relief Society theme in the title and occasional references to the Word of Wisdom — and the lack of coffee or liqueurs as ingredients — but enjoyment of these recipes is certainly not limited to LDS folks.
Chocolate Never Faileth is full of practically irresistible recipes and should reside in the kitchen of anyone who loves chocolate.
“Make sure your family knows that everything else can go to pot (or slow-cooker), but you will always, always have time for your family.”
Slow-Cooker Cookbook
By Debbie G. Harman
Ms. Harman has compiled a good basic cookbook for crock pot recipes. There are, of course, the expected recipes for a beef or pork roast, chicken and dumplings, and meatball appetizers, but also included are instructions for making your own refried beans and cheese fondue, using your slow-cooker as a potpourri pot, and baking bread in your crock pot.
Hamburger Pie (page 40) is a variation on the standard beef roast and vegetables, using ground beef instead of a roast. My tastes wanted a bit more spice — maybe some garlic or at least more pepper — but my kids loved the ketchup-like sauce created by topping the meat, potatoes, celery and carrots with a can of tomato soup.
The Enchilada Casserole (page 46) was a full-flavored layered meal, similar to a Mexican lasagna, and infinitely variable based on your family’s preferences. I used a green enchilada sauce, decreased the onions and increased the olives to fit my family’s tastes and served it with salsa for the grown-ups.
Reaching a little more out of my crock pot comfort zone, I cooked the French Toast Casserole (page 114) one morning. I had to get up a little earlier to make sure it’d be ready to eat early enough that the kids didn’t miss the bus, but it was delicious and they gobbled it up in record time. I also tried the Garden Green Beans (page 97).
Since I’ve always used slow-cookers for main dishes or all-in-one meals, the thought of cooking a side dish was a bit different, but the green beans were so tasty with the flavor of the bacon, onions, and cider vinegar infused throughout, I’ll be using this one again.
There’s a list of other recipes I still want to try such as Spicy Holiday Ham, Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Artichoke Dip, Spiced Cider, Glazed Carrots, Sourdough Starter, Chocolate Molten Cake, and Pumpkin Custard. Yum!
Ms. Harman includes information on other uses for slow-cookers, showcasing the versatility of this kitchen appliance, as well as tips on time management, specifically how to have more time to spend with family.
“Some secrets really are just too good to keep.”
Worldwide Ward Cookbook: Secret Recipes
By Deanna Buxton
As I flipped through Worldwide Ward Cookbook: Secret Recipes for the first time, I started marking the recipes I thought I’d try with sticky notes, but was marking far more than I wasn’t, so I stopped.
There are a few main dishes with the obligatory canned cream-of-chicken (or -mushroom) soup or dry onion soup mix, but I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the recipes are from scratch or with very few processed ingredients.
This is not, however, a low-fat cookbook by any stretch of the imagination. For example, there was quite a bit of cheese, buttermilk, and sour cream included in the recipes, so be prepared to make more healthful substitutions if that doesn’t fit your lifestyle.
This cookbook definitely lives up to the “worldwide” part of its name with recipes from India, Brazil, Denmark, South Africa, and Haiti, just to name a few. I enjoyed the personal notes from the cooks on almost every recipe; it was fun to get a little of the back story. The kitschy hearts, circles, and locks-and-keys graphics were a bit too cutesy for my tastes, but the food photography was mouth-wateringly good. I wish there were photos for every recipe!
When I tested recipes, the Ginger-glazed Salmon (page 153) was first up and it definitely started us off on the right foot. It was so simple, yet packed with flavor, that it’s going to become a regular whenever we spring for seafood. We also tried the Lemon Chicken (page 165) and it was a big hit with everyone in the family, mellowing the tangy citrus perfectly with brown sugar. The last main dish I made was St. Francis School’s Baked Spaghetti (page 136). When my nine-year-old son, who usually subsists on as little as he can get away with eating, went back for three helpings, I knew I had another winner!
For side dishes, I loved the Tossed Broccoli Salad (page 113). The cider vinegar in the dressing and the bacon crumbles mixed in added just enough zip to make the greenery palatable for my kids. We also had Hot-and-Sassy Cornbread (46), which uses creamed corn and turned out wonderfully moist. Next time I think I’ll add an additional jalapeño, though; it wasn’t quite “hot-and-sassy” enough for me.
Dessert-wise, my children loved the Chocolate-covered Strawberry Muffins (page 33). The recipe calls for dehydrated strawberries, but I had fresh ones instead, so I decreased the amount of liquid and they baked up nicely, without being overly sweet. Finally, the Famous Zucchini Brownies (page 215) went over very well and helped me use up some of my abundant garden produce — but don’t tell my kids about the “secret” ingredient!
There are still plenty of the more-than-280 recipes I can’t wait to try. I especially have my eye on the Lemon Zucchini Cookies, Root Beer Pot Roast, Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Caramel Frosting, and Avocado Mango Salsa. Oh, and the entire section of beverages — it’s nice to have such a wide selection of alcohol-, tea- and coffee-free drink recipes for us teetotaling LDS folks to choose from!
*Disclosure: I received a review copy of each of these cookbooks from the publisher.
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On My Bedside Table…
Just finished: Faith behind the Fences: A True Story of Survival in a Japanese Prison Camp by Kelly DiSpirito Taylor
Now reading: For Every Mother by Janene Wolsey Baadsgaard
On deck: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
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Next time we’ll start reading about some different world religions. I can’t wait to share what I’ve learned! Come find me on goodreads.com or email suggestions, comments, and feedback to egeddesbooks (at) gmail (dot) com.
