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CookSmart: Perfect Recipes for Every Day [Hardcover]

Pam Anderson Executive Editor
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

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Book Description

May 10, 2002
Perfection has never been so convenient.
Pam Anderson's infallible renditions of favorite dishes have made her America's most trusted cook. In COOKSMART, she returns with can't-fail recipes for everyday meals we all love, from spaghetti and meatballs, oven-fried chicken, and fajitas to foods for special occasions like crab cakes and vegetable lasagna. Pam knows today's cooks are too busy to tolerate less than superb results. She has tested and retested every recipe dozens of times so each one works flawlessly in real cooking and entertaining situations.
Cooking smart is about cooking sensibly. It means reducing the time and effort that go into a dish while delivering every bit of the flavor. You'll find oven-cooked ribs as succulent as those barbecued all day over a fire, a voluptuous chocolate cake as easy as a boxed mix, and cinnamon buns as fragrant and pillowy as they are convenient.
Cooking smart also means creating dishes the whole family can enjoy, such as turkey burgers as juicy as the best all-beef burgers but much lower in fat and cholesterol, and a crisp and creamy Caesar salad that isn't made with raw eggs.
COOKSMART recipes eliminate the unnecessary steps and troublesome quirks that keep you from making your favorite dishes. You'll learn how to prepare a pot roast as juicy and tender as the old-fashioned kind in just ninety minutes. You won't need special equipment for the meals in this book. Every ingredient used can be found in your local supermarket.
In COOKSMART, you'll be able to choose from dozens of holiday standbys: fresh shrimp cocktail, stuffed mushrooms, beef tenderloin for a crowd, silky pumpkin pie, and perfect pecan pie. And you'll find just as many effortless family-pleasing meals to rely on during the week, such as chicken Parmesan and Pork Tenderloin with Curried Apple Crust, which comes with many flavor variations.
In every case, cooking smart means making a dish the very best it can be: a gazpacho chock full of summer-vegetable flavor, a pasta salad that -- for once! -- tastes as good as it looks, and a peach pie with a crisp crust and a fruity flavor that slices to perfection.
In COOKSMART, you'll not only get more than a hundred impeccable dishes that will become part of your cherished repertoire, but you'll acquire a wealth of culinary knowledge that you can apply to other recipes.

Frequently Bought Together

CookSmart: Perfect Recipes for Every Day + How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart + The Perfect Recipe for Losing Weight and Eating Great
Price for all three: $49.67

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Pam Anderson's CookSmart: Perfect Recipes for Every Day is a collection of comfort-food favorites that she's perfected through a long process of trial and error. From her own experience as a chef, cookbook author (The Perfect Recipe), and food columnist for USA Weekend, Anderson has created a rigorous approach for selecting the best possible recipe for any given dish, winnowing out weaker, less satisfactory recipes in several stages. She starts by reviewing several recipes for the same dish. For example, Anderson noted that the conventional method of making fajitas included marinating the meat before it is cooked, which, in her opinion, masks the rich flavor of steak. In her version, the fajita meat gets a spice rub before cooking and then a brief, post-cooking sauna-like repose in a simple mixture of lime juice and garlic. The resulting fajitas have the relaxed subtle flavor of garlic, lime, and cumin that complement rather than overpower the tender steak.

This book provides good instruction for the beginning chef, demonstrating how to use the basic techniques to perfect one's own recipe. But there is a lot to read, so be warned. This book is a time commitment if attempting to read cover to cover, and it doesn't necessarily work in the real-time experience of looking and cooking. However, if you're searching for a collection of great, gourmet-style recipes for home-cooked favorites, CookSmart is a pretty wise choice. --Teresa Simanton

From Publishers Weekly

Anderson (The Perfect Recipe; How to Cook Without a Book) brings her wide experience and easy style to this latest offering. She takes the recipes one step further, explaining the testing method of each, much in the style of Cook's Illustrated where she was the former executive editor. Highlighting such dishes as Oven-Fried Chicken That's as Good as Fried, 90-Minute Pot Roast with Rich Red Wine and Onion Gravy, and Pasta Salad, Anderson caters to cravings for comfort food. Once the principles of pasta salad have been explained, for example, a number of versions are put forward, from Greek-Style Pasta Salad with its creamy vinaigrette, through Pasta Salad with Smoked Salmon and Asparagus, to Asian-Style Pasta Salad with Chicken, Baby Corn and Snow Peas. The home cook will feel at ease with the recipes, which have been designed for simplicity; the more advanced cook, interested in the whys and hows, will be able to apply the principles learned to other areas of food preparation. By combining both audiences so successfully, Anderson has once again produced a winner.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 348 pages
  • Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Edition edition (May 10, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0618091513
  • ISBN-13: 978-0618091515
  • Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 7.2 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #737,747 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pam Anderson considers herself Every Cook. A New York Times bestselling author, she has been cooking nearly everyday for over 30 years. With six published books and her seventh out this fall, she brings satisfying recipes and sage advice to both novice and veteran cooks. Whether you're on a quest for the perfect brownie, wanting to get dinner on the table effortlessly, hoping to entertain more simply, attempting to shed pounds permanently, or looking to eat delicious meatless, Pam can help. AARP's official food expert, she is a food columnist for USA Weekend and Runner's World magazines. Pam is former Executive Editor of Cook's Illustrated magazine. Her food articles have appeared in many food magazines. She teaches cooking classes across the country and appears frequently on TV and radio.

See what Pam's up to on her blog: www.threemanycooks.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars recipes speak for themselves September 13, 2002
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
i felt compelled to write after reading some negative reviews. i checked this out from the library (as is my habit to do before spending any money on my own copy-much less disappointment that way) and have made already 2 recipes. they were for the broiled salmon and oven-cooked ribs. i do not lie when i say that they were huge hits...the ribs i have done twice due to popular demand. i do realize that is not a lot of testing, but 2 recipes without a hitch the first time around making them has earned this cookbook a must-have. this is not gourmet dinky food, but real good home food . the food most of us choose to eat without resorting to cream-of-you-know-what or worse several hours of gastronomic acrobatics to find that your family doesn't like it. the only reason this did not get 5 stars was due to the low ratio of recipes given the amount of text and number of pages in this book.
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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Recipes really please a crowd, again and again. June 2, 2002
Format:Hardcover
I've had so many of the recipes in this book and each one is just better than the other. They really are the Perfect recipes, I can see why Pam is so popular. I like to call this my "memory food" book, since all the food taste like I remember it tasting at its best. Chocolate Cake tastes like the best diner chocolate cake. The ribs are better than any roadhouse or bbq I've been in and they are so easy as well. I recently fed a crowd and "everyone" wanted the recipe. The oven fried chicken tastes like fried without all that messy oil! The key lime pie is my favorite and I've eaten a lot. And the peanut butter cookies and the chocolate chip cookies are better and bigger than any mall-cookie seller. Veggie lasagna pleases all my vegetarian friends and meat lovers alike. I could go on and on. I've already given this book as gifts and they have bought the book for presents of their own. Every recipe will quickly become "your" recipe." I'll never make Ceaser salad any other way again. All I can say is give me more. My only complaint is that there are no pictures.
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars always a winner - a reliable source June 14, 2005
Format:Hardcover
I'm a busy Mom who none-the-less wants my kids to eat real food. I don't have time for mistakes and trial and error. The book explains the entire process in an easy to read and understand manner and without fail, the recipes have all turned out fabulous. In fact, they are so delicious they have earned me quite a reputation. Now, whenever there is a pot luck - I get requests. The Blue Ribbon Chili is like the filet mignon of chili - I went to a barbecue this weekend and brought the Asian pasta salad and every single person asked me to send the recipe. I just got an email asking once again. I sent them the link to the book instead ;-) I sing Pam's praises often. Now my sister, her brother-in-law and several friends are all devotees. I highly recommend this book (my primary resource) as well as Pam Anderson's "How to Cook Without A Book" - the pan sauces alone make that one a worthwhile purchase.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Pam Anderson: Cooking Nerd
First off, I am a 55 year old Male. I like to cook, but I am not skilled in any way. I look at cooking as if it was a science. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Barney Rubble
5.0 out of 5 stars Always Delicious
I truly enjoy Pam Anderson's recipes, which are always a hit with family and friends. I particularly love her waffles. Read more
Published 7 months ago by M. Mauch
2.0 out of 5 stars Buyer beware
I am a good cook who also appreciates the reasons why something does or doesn't work, so the format of the book appealed to me. My first run was with the 90-minute pot roast. Read more
Published on January 7, 2011 by anon
5.0 out of 5 stars Educational
This book is so informative. I love the research and detailed instructions. I highly recommend it.
Published on August 30, 2008 by Patricia Johnson
3.0 out of 5 stars Too much trial and error
This is a very unusual cookbook. For each recipe, there's a few pages about experiments she did to come up with the final recipe. Read more
Published on September 18, 2006 by Nancy L. Sexton
5.0 out of 5 stars I am a GREAT cook and this book has made me even better.
I am a huge cookbook maven. I have hundreds, some good ones and some were a waste of money. This is easily in my top 10 of cookbooks. Read more
Published on March 26, 2006 by C. Gaddis
5.0 out of 5 stars A Chemist in the Kitchen
I loved CookSmart. As a chemist, I enjoy doing experiments at home in the kitchen as well as at work. Read more
Published on June 23, 2004 by Chemist in the Kitchen
4.0 out of 5 stars So many favorites!
This book reads like a novel. I love the essay that prefaces each recipe. Very entertaining reading. As for the recipes, I love the pot roast. That has become a favorite. Read more
Published on February 15, 2003 by happy lady
5.0 out of 5 stars Haven't Missed Yet
Every recipe in this book that I've tried so far has been a hit right away. The cinnamon rolls, the chocolate cake, the pumpkin pie, the ribs... Read more
Published on February 6, 2003
5.0 out of 5 stars chili
i recently wrote a review about chicken chili and am sorry i wrote it. i gave an opinion of a recipe i found in the newspaper and not from her book. Read more
Published on January 28, 2003 by diane silverman
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