Customer Reviews

500 3-Ingredient Recipes: Simple and Sensational Recipes for Everyday Cooking

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've tried a few of the recipes in this cookbook and they've all been great. Love the idea of three ingredients--makes it so easy to plan dinner. The recipes are simple but sophisticated. The directions are clear, and I like having suggestions for a few extra ingredients that I can throw in if I have them. Overall, a cookbook worth buying.

Don't be fooled by the title of this cookbook. First, it is filled with exotic and gourmet, not to mention expensive, recipies. The choice of ingredients might be fine if you live in New York or San Francisco, but here in northern Wisconsin many ingredients just aren't available. (And if they were, would you fix squab or fried rabbit for Tuesday night dinner for your family?)

A second disappointment is the copious use of butter, oil and heavy cream.

This is the first time I've ever been so disappointed in a book I ordered that I will be returning it.

The Hildebrand cook book is very useful to me. I'm not a gourmet; I don't even like to cook that much (yet must do it three times a day). Somehow knowing that any of the interesting dishes in this fat book can be created with just three ingredients actually makes me want to whip something up. Even I can manage three ingredients! I like the fact that they include "add it in" items beyond the three. The add-ins are still simple, but make me feel like a real cook, by deciding whether to embelish. This is the only cook book I actually keep on my counter.

This book has wonderful, easy to make dishes that come out looking great and tasting even better.It's a must-buy!

I've used this cookbook many times since I bought it and have been very happy with it! The main dishes I've tried have all been excellent, but haven't taken a lot of effort to make. The authors seem to have a wonderful grasp of what foods go together and what spices make a meal perfect. Definitely a worthwhile addition to my cookbook collection!

I really like this book, and always keep it in easy reach. I already have several favorite recipes, including Ravioli in Sage Brown Butter Sauce (my fav), Dessert Wontons (my husband's fav), and Ham and Swiss Pockets (so easy!). Most of the recipes taste like they were so hard to make, and they weren't -- and I am a novice cook, so if I say it's easy, it is!

As far as an earlier reviewer's complaint about the "copious use of butter, oil and heavy cream," this isn't a Lite Cooking Recipe Book, and it never claimed to be. It claims to have "simple and sensational recipes," and it fulfills that claim just fine. And, by the way, butter? tastes goooood. :)

This is a great cookbook for the beginner and experienced cook. The recipes are easy yet elegant. The variety is excellent.

Lorraine Runde
Stamford, CT

I'm a college student and finally decided to grow up and move away from rice a roni and frozen burritos and start cooking for real, so I got this book thinking that anything with three ingredients has to be simple enough for me to make - especially since it claims to have "simple and sensational recipes for everyday cooking."
Unfortunately this was not the book for me. The recipes are simple enough in their ingredients but not much else. Most of the recipes require expensive specialized equipment such as a dutch oven or food processor which a beginner's kitchen just isn't going to have. and they offer no suggestions for what to do if you don't have all this equipment.
The cooking itself is also very complex and time consuming. While I'm not exactly an experienced chef, I do know my way around a kitchen from helping my mom and two cooking classes I took in high school. But the recipes in this book often require way more skill than the average person is going to have (like making your own pasta noodles), and they generally don't give any explanation of how to go about doing the required tasks so if you don't already know you have to look it up or just wing it.
Also, many of the ingredients are really hard to come by or expensive. The authors refer many times to very specific ingredients that they can get at their local market, but if your area doesn't have the same selection you're out of luck.

I don't want to bash the book too much because the recipes do all sound excellent and if I had the resources and skill to make these I think I would like the book a lot more. Mainly I just think that the title is deceptive because it claims to be simple everyday recipes and I can't imagine anyone making some of these things for anything other than a special occasion.

on a side note - if you happen to love mushrooms this could be a great book for you. however, if you're like me and highly dislike them, I'd avoid this book. The authors are obviously big fans of mushrooms and feature them in a very high percentage of the recipes - and when there are only 3 ingredients you can't really just leave the mushrooms off and still have a complete dish.

Awesome you two Hildebrands!!!!!!!!!!!! Great simple recipes. Useable with small people wanting to help. Delicious and able to create something on a whim with what is available in the house to entertain with also!

Most of the recipes actually have more than 3 ingredients but obviously recipes need more than 3 ingredients to taste like something, but the recipes are mostly tasty just wish they had pics in the book.