Beer - A Cookbook: Good Food Made Better with Beer [Hardcover]

Adams Media (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 18, 2012

Crack It. Cook It. Eat It.

Contains 40+ damn-good dishes made with your favorite ingredient: beer.

• Spicy Beer-Soaked Shrimp
• Sauced Meatballs
• Drunk Cheddar Soup
• Pub Chops
• Beer-Buttered Steak
• Tailgate Salmon
• Three-Beer Chili
• Chocolate Stout Lava Cake

Product Details

• Hardcover: 48 pages
• Publisher: Adams Media (May 18, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1440533709
• ISBN-13: 978-1440533709
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #635,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kimberley Willis lives with her husband Steve near the small town of Clifford Michigan. They have a small farm with an abundance of animals, including two mini-horses and 15 dogs, and gardens. Kimberley also works for the Lapeer County Extension office as a home horticulturist and teaches and coordinates the county Master Gardener Program. Kim also enjoys cooking, photography and reading. Kim and Steve have 3 grown children and 8 grandchildren.

Kimberley has written two books; The Complete Idiots Guide to Country Living and Raising Chicken for Dummies. She is the country living and gardening writer for Detroit Examiner. You can read her articles there at
www.examiner.com/x-22968-Detroit-Gardening-Examiner or
www.examiner.com/x13632-Detroit-country-living-examiner

You can also read her articles on a wide range of subjects on Helium ( www.helium.com)or at her blog www.gardeninggranny.blogspot.com or see the feed here of newer blogs.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Full of weak sauce June 12, 2012

By I loves me some Amazon

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

As a massive lover of beer (both imbibing and cooking with it) I was truly excited about this book's potential. I waited by the door and mauled the delivery man with a giant hug. I had the fridge stocked with beers of various styles, ready to immediately partake in some cooking magic. Alas, my smile vanished once I opened the box.

The recipes are organized in a meaningful manner, e.g. "Starters", "Sides", "Main Dishes", and "Desserts." They're also ranked with three levels of difficulty, although I'm not entirely sure what criteria was used to make those decisions. They're ALL easy.

The book is printed on thick cardboard, the kind used in children's books. I guess this is good if you're drinking the beer while cooking and make a big mess, but it just feels chintzy. On the good side, the spine is bound in such a manner that the book holds itself open at whatever page you're working with.

While every page has a picture, there are no pictures of the actual recipes. None. Nada. Zip. The publishing page at the front says it all: "Interior photographs copyright istockphoto." Heck, some recipe pages have a picture of a DIFFERENT meal entirely. For example, the effort- and baking-free recipe for Beer Balls has a picture of baked dough balls on a cooking sheet. This is immensely frustrating for a cooking book -- there should be a picture of what you're making, or no picture at all.

The recipes themselves are insanely simple, even the ones classified as "hard." Perhaps my expectations were unreasonably high, but I was hoping for some exciting and novel new recipes to try, not just another "beer fondue" and "beer beans" recipe. This is a good book for a college dorm room, perhaps.

Personally, I do not recommend this book. You can get the same content (perhaps better) by just performing a web search for "beer recipes."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars It was a learning experience. September 19, 2012

By F. D. Gillett VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I won't say that I frequently add beer to food I'm preparing but have added beer to a recipe now and then in the past. This cookbook did open my eyes to some additional possibilities that I had not considered before. On the other side, there were a few recipes I flat wouldn't consider making.

If I were more of a beer aficionado I would most likely have enjoyed the recipes a bit more but I have to admit I'd prefer an iced tea or coffee over an iced beer on a hot day. In several recipes the beer taste came through too strongly for my personal preference. Yet in others the tastes blended together very well. Since I'm not a big beer drinker I couldn't follow the author's suggestions for use of some more unusual beers since I wasn't willing to buy something that might end up being tossed out.

For the recipes and information (the author seems to be quite knowledgable on the subject of beer) provided in the book I would give 4 stars maybe deducting 1/2 star for the lack of pictures of the recipes in the book. But, the book feels and looks cheap. I've seen other reviewers comment it has the feel of a cardboard child's book to which I agree. Although I like the concepts of the recipes I wouldn't even give this book as a gag gift because it looks and feels just plain cheesy and cheap, not the sort of thing I want to be known for giving. That's the reason for a 3-star rating.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Cute Gag-Gift, But Pretty Chintzy Cookbook... September 18, 2012

By Mercedes L. Johnmeyer TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I got this cookbook thinking there would be a few recipes in it that my husband would enjoy, being that he, like most men, enjoys beer. I was wrong. This is a sloppy collection of recipes that are so simple and boring, it almost seems like an insult to the reader.

Each recipe is given a rating of E (easy), M (Medium), and H (hard) to give the reader an idea of the difficulty. It's a joke. It's GOT to be. Every recipe in this book is easy to make, even for someone who doesn't get in the kitchen very often. For instance, 'Mini Beer Dogs', which is just cocktail weenies rolled in biscuit dough with a mustard sauce, is rated as M. Really? Someone actually said "Well, this recipe can get a little tricky, people having to roll a cocktail weenie in biscuit dough then sticking it in the oven...let's rate it as 'Medium'"?!?

And the photos are hit-and-miss. Sometimes you'll get a beautiful picture of what the finished product is, other times, like for the 'German Noodle Salad', you get a SUPER close-up shot of the crumbled bacon on top of the dish (at least that's what I think it is. It looks more like French's Fried Onions, but since they're not in the recipe, I'm assuming it's crumbled bacon). Is it so hard to include a photo of each recipe? Well...it was rated an 'M', so maybe the cook just couldn't handle the difficulty level, and that's all the photographer was able to salvage from the meal...the bacon topping.

Overall, I say skip this, unless you're purchasing it as a joke gift for someone who really, REALLY loves their beer. If you try and give this to someone who knows anything at all about cooking, they'll probably be insulted.