Almost from Scratch : 600 Recipes for the New Convenience Cuisine [Hardcover]

Andrew Schloss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 8, 2003

Jars of olive tapenade and capers, containers of hummus and ready-made sauces; these days, grocery stores are full of ingredients that are one step away from becoming a meal. With Almost from Scratch: 600 Recipes for the New Convenience Cuisine, you can transform those gourmet products into gourmet meals with a few simple steps. From Andrew Schloss, the author of Fifty Ways to Cook Most Everything, come 600 recipes for delicious and easy meals that use convenience foods without sacrificing taste.

Using prepared salsas, pestos, high-quality baking mixes, and other packaged items, recipes that once took a whole afternoon can now be assembled quickly and easily. Almost from Scratch makes the most of prepackaged foods to streamline the way home cooks prepare everything from soup to dessert, whether you're making a weeknight dinner for the family or entertaining on a Saturday night.

With recipes for appetizers, salads, soups, sauces, meat dishes, seafood, pasta, grains, stir-fries, vegetables, and desserts, Schloss shows you the never-ending possibilities of cooking with shortcuts.

Sumptuous starters such as Herbed Artichoke Dip, Parmesan Shortbread, Blue Cheese Quiche with Potato Crust, and Tomato Tarragon Tart will be the perfect start to any evening. For a light meal, try Three Corn Chowder, Pizza Rustica, Mango Brie Quesadillas, or Smoked Turkey and Chickpea Chili. For a more substantial dinner, sample recipes such as Deep Dark Pot Roast, Mediterranean Vegetable Lasagna, Dutch Country Chicken and Potato Dumplings, Grilled Salmon with Olive Vinaigrette, and Lemon Pork Chops on Artichoke Bruschetta that will keep your family -- and your taste buds -- happy.

Who knew that decadent, awe-inspiring desserts could be created in a flash using packaged ingredients? Dark Chocolate Soufflé, Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie, Blueberry Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake, and Chèvre Cheesecake with Fig Coulis are just some of the sweets that will wow your guests.

Finally, a sophisticated, gourmet cookbook that allows home cooks to make great-tasting meals without spending all day in the kitchen.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After holding forth on the use of prepared ingredients, spice mixes, sauces and salad bars to produce restaurant dishes at home, Schloss (Using a Pot, a Spoon, and a Pan) explains the necessary ingredients to stock the convenience pantry and what to look for when shopping for groceries. Logically starting from appetizers and spur-of-the-moment snacks and soups, he covers sauces before continuing with meals in minutes and the more usual chapters on chicken, seafood and desserts (he also offers a chapter on meatless dishes). The simple recipes run from the most basic of combinations, such as the innovative Salsa Hummus, which mixes an eight-ounce container of hummus with a quarter cup salsa, to the barely more complicated flavorful Udon Noodles with Peanut Sauce. Drawing on international inspiration and ingredients made readily available by the growing range of products in supermarket aisles-whether it's Hot and Sour Chicken Soup or Curried Rice and Lentils, redolent of the flavor of India-Schloss caters to the increasing familiarity with the variety of flavors and dishes experienced by the consumer who wants to provide quick easy dishes. While this overly simple book is unlikely to appeal to the serious cook, it would make a suitable gift for those lacking culinary confidence or those who are time-driven, and no longer wish to rely on take-out or eating at the nearest fast-food chain.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Serious cooks turn up their noses at recipes calling for a can of soup, usually a condensed cream soup, as an ingredient. Nevertheless, there are times when something from a can or jar efficiently saves time and energy. In Almost from Scratch , Andrew Schloss steers a careful course: each recipe calls for some pre-made ingredient: bottled mayonnaise, canned kidney beans, bottled Chinese hoisin sauce, a jar of curry sauce, pesto from a can, a container of yogurt, a box of frozen vegetables. As Schloss illustrates in hundreds of recipes, these convenience foods can combine with fresh ingredients to make all sorts of appetizers, main dishes, and desserts. Guests need never know that the apple-gingersnap stuffing in their pork chops started out as a box of frozen escalloped apples, boxed gingersnaps, and frozen chopped onions. Schloss gets a lot of mileage out of a can of chunky salsa, its flavorful essence serving as foundation for a host of dips and entrees. Salsas also form the bases for many a barbecue sauce, both spicy and mild. Desserts may start with a boxed cake mix, instant pudding, or frozen puff pastry. Using these shortcuts, as Schloss demonstrates, actually leads to more imaginative cooking, not less. Schloss' approach is also useful to help introduce youngsters to cooking by starting them out with simple combinations of prepared ingredients that require little or no chopping, mincing, or other more advanced food preparation techniques. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (July 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743225988
• ISBN-13: 978-0743225984
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,665,979 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andy Schloss wants everyone to cook more, and he has devoted his career to ease the way. As a well known teacher, food writer, cookbook author, and food product developer, he concentrates his decades of experience to streamline the tedious and illuminate the intricacies that make cooking good food a pleasure and a passion. Andy has authored 17 cookbooks and countless food articles. His first book Fifty Ways to Cook Most Everything was a Book of the Month Club Main Selection. The Science of Good Food (co-authored with David Joachim) won an IACP Cookbook Award, and their book, Mastering the Grill was a NYT bestseller. His latest books Fire It Up, a follow-up grilling guide written with Joachim and Homemade Soda are being published in the Spring of 2011. Schloss is the culinary creator of Cookulus: Ultimate Recipe apps, and the developer and manufacturer of the popular line of seasoning blends, Chef Salt. He is a past president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and lives outside Philadelphia with his wife, Karen, and their incredibly well-fed dog.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Save time w/o sacrificing taste, March 11, 2004

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Del (United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Almost from Scratch : 600 Recipes for the New Convenience Cuisine (Hardcover)

I checked this book out from the library last week and logged on today to buy it. Sure, I know how to roast my own peppers and simmer my own stock, but I don't have the time or inclination to do that every night of the week. Mr. Schloss has a book full of delicious recipes that only take a few minutes to throw together. So far we've enjoyed ziti with tomato and olive relish, jerk pork ribs grilled with yams, cream of pumpkin soup with Asiago cheese (okay, I used Parmesan instead) and red tandoori chicken thighs. Last night at the table my daughter said, "You mean this chicken came out of the same book as those ribs? It must be a magic book." I like the wide selection of cuisine types, too.

Note: Some of Mr. Schloss's "essential convenience pantry" ingredients can be expensive, but I appreciate his argument that it's cheaper than buying a pantry full of speciality spices, etc that you can't use every day. I also appreciate the brand recommendations.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No more fast foods, August 16, 2004

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a Dallas reader (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Almost from Scratch : 600 Recipes for the New Convenience Cuisine (Hardcover)

I also went to my library for this one first. What a great book--it's on order now. At first glance I thought, "Whoops; strictly gourmet and not what I'm looking for." However,after sitting down and slowly going through the book, it is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Wonderful biscotti out of corn meal mix, and the recipe can be adapted by using slightly different ingredients each time. How many times have we bought a specialty ingredient for a recipe, using part of it and eventually throwing the rest away? Thanks to this book, we can now use up the remainder. I love the way multiple recipes throughout the book use the same specialty ingredients in completely different ways. What a treat -- I can only say YUMMMMM!!!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hungry Grad Student, December 30, 2004

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Shane McDaniel (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Almost from Scratch : 600 Recipes for the New Convenience Cuisine (Hardcover)

My sister-in-law received this book for christmas and since then we've had something from it every night including yummy pork chops coated in stuffing, a rice chopped clerey and carrots side, salsa meatloaf, and more. I am a graduate student and get little variety in the food I 'cook' and will be buying this to make quick good meals instead of meal in a can.