Publication Date: October 20, 2010 | Series: Cooking With Trader Joe's
What's for dinner?
Trader Joe's ingredients to the rescue, with all the fixings for making meals in a snap. From the authors of the bestselling original "Cooking with All Things Trader Joe's" cookbook, comes this collection of easy dinner solutions to tame the mealtime rush. Discover new ways to make quick and healthy meals the whole family will love. Mouth-watering full-color photos and nutritional data included for every recipe. Delicious meals include:
Taco Soup Posh Mache Salad Arugula Pesto Pasta Macadamia Crusted Mahi Mahi Shrimp Lettuce Wraps My Big Fat Greek Quiche Mushroom Faux Risotto Mom's Meatloaf Sesame Toasted Sugar Snap Peas Loco for Coconut Rice Low Fat Wide Awake Coffee Shake Eggs Bueno-dict Baked PearFection Lemon Ricotta Almond Cake Balsamic Strawberries
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"A priceless collection of recipes for mouthwatering and easy meals for people with hectic schedules who want to eat healthy and delectable meals. 5 stars." - Examiner.com
A priceless collection of recipes for mouthwatering and easy meals for people with hectic schedules who want to eat healthy and delectable meals. 5 stars. --Examiner.com
Product Details
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Brown Bag Publishers; 1 edition (October 20, 2010)
We're Deana Gunn and Wona Miniati. We love good food, we love to cook, and we love Trader Joe's. Time and time again, as we shopped the aisles at Trader Joe's, we overheard people saying, "What do you do with quinoa? How do you use tapenade? What goes well with ricotta-stuffed chicken?" Before we knew it, we were writing a cookbook.
MEET DEANA! Lives in: Leucadia, CA a small surf and beach town in San Diego County with the motto "Keep Leucadia Funky." I live here with my husband, two kids (who love to help me cook) and two dogs (who are fascinated by my every move in the kitchen).
1000-foot view: I'm the girl that gardens outside in her bare feet, sings loudly in the car and shower, cries at sad movies, buys pretty aprons but never remembers to put them on, goes from flip-flips to heels but has on occasion forgotten to change out of the flip flops before running off to a dressy event.
Met Wona: In engineering class at MIT. In a roomful of sleep-deprived students in sweats, she was the only one wearing a sundress and a straw hat, perfectly groomed. I rolled my eyes, never guessing we'd be great friends in no time.
My kids, ages 5 and 6: love that I'm a cookbook author and they pitch the book at every opportunity, including to cashiers at other grocery stores.
Secret talents: I can weld, scuba dive, solve differential equations, and almost got my black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I haven't done any of these in years and might kill myself if I tried any of them now.
In my free time: I'm doing yoga or pottery. If you flip through our cookbook, the handmade pottery is Deana-made.
Want to learn: To Flamenco dance, speak Italian, and do a cartwheel.
Favorite trip: Two weeks of wilderness backpacking in Alaska, the time that I've felt most alive and connected to nature.
Everyone knows: I'm the worst joke-teller in the universe. I can never get the punchline right or I mess up and say it at the wrong time. Meanwhile, I'm laughing so hard I can't get the words out. Friends and family say the process of watching me tell the joke is the only funny part.
Most influential decade: I now realize that I'm a child of the 80's. My children know all the words to "Video killed the Radio Star." On Halloween, when my son asked me how zombies walk, I did the dance from Thriller.
When I was little: I was a very picky eater. I also wouldn't eat beans because I misunderstood the teacher and thought she said that people were "human beans."
Favorite food TV: Top Chef and Throwdown with Bobby Flay. I'm fascinated by people who seem to cook effortlessly in someone else's kitchen.
Worst kitchen nightmare: Last night when I tore open a giant bag of brown rice and spilled the entire contents all over the stove and kitchen floor. I'll be finding grains of rice for years...
Favorite kitchen gadgets: I discovered lime squeezers on a trip to Nicaragua. I have never struggled with a lemon or lime since.
Most requested food I make: Stuffed grape leaves. I haven't come up with a Trader Joe's version yet, but if jars of grape leaves ever show up on the shelves, I'll get to work.
Favorite movies: I'm always game for anything Monty Python or Jim Jarmusch. There are certain movies I could watch over and over again such as "Last of the Mohicans", "Princess Bride," and "Sense & Sensibility."
Favorite desserts: Anything involving dark chocolate, rosewater, or cardamom.
Favorite local eats: Swami's Cafe, Tastes, or Vivacci. My kids always vote for sushi.
It surprises people to know that: Wona and I both cooked all our baby food from scratch.
When I need cooking inspiration: I call Wona or my Mom. They're both always exploring new recipes or have some great wow-factor tip on presentation.
If you see me at Trader Joe's: I will occasionally stare at an item on the shelf for minutes on end. I'm not crazy, just trying to come up with a good recipe.
Just when I think Deana and Wona's cookbooks can't get any better they came out with Dinner's Done!, and make my life even easier than before. The recipes are easy and delicious, the photos are lovely and now there is nutritional info for people who want to know more. This book will make a perfect holiday gift for people who love Trader Joe's, for those who are new to the store, and for anyone who loves to eat yummy food that is easy to prepare Thank you for another great cookbook, and also for including a few of my recipes too
I have owned "Cooking with all Things Trader Joe's" (the authors' first cookbook - the original of the TJ's cookbooks genre) for a few years now which I thought was an excellent cookbook - we still use recipes from that cookbook regularly. I was initially excited to see some other copy-cat cookbooks released (like "I love TJ's") which were ok but didn't really stand up to the original, and after buying the 3rd one of these "me-too" type books and not being impressed, I felt like the whole category was starting to go downhill. So when this cookbook was released I kind of assumed it was just more of the same and didn't bother getting one. A family member, knowing how much I liked the original cookbook, gave me one as a present. So since I posted a review of the original, I felt like I should give my two cents on this latest TJ's cookbook.
I guess if I were to sum it up, I would simply say (surprisingly) "excellent again!". This cookbook reminded me of all the reasons why I thought the original was so great. It has a large color picture of *every* recipe, so I know what the dish is supposed to look like when I'm done. The hardcover binding is of high quality and the book stays open on the page that I'm reading on its own (as opposed to some other cookbooks where I have to use my salt and pepper shakers as a paper weights to keep the pages from flipping). They give a time estimate for every recipe which helps me decide if I have enough time to prepare it, and the majority of recipes are still in the 20-30min range. They make good use of TJ's "half-prepped" ingredients and sauces which allow you to whip up a gourmet meal in a fraction of the time it would take if you made all sauces from scratch. They bring out some great TJ's ingredients which I never knew existed. The authors continue to provide "support" for the book on their website by suggesting alternatives/replacements when some ingredients aren't available. And, I only need to shop at one store to get everything I need for the meal.
This book also has a new feature which I like very much - it has nutritional information on the dishes, which saves me having to figure it out myself from reading all the labels of all the ingredients. The most surprising "new" feature of all, however, are the recipes themselves. I was expecting basically the same stuff just dressed up as something different (like the copy-cat books), but I was thrilled to see a whole new set of great recipes with new and different ingredients.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the same authors who came up with the original concept were creative enough to come up with something better than the original. After the knock-off TJ's books soured the whole TJ's cookbook concept for me, the original authors have turned me back into a believer. So for those out there like me who are starting to feel like the TJ's recipes are old hat, I would definitely recommend you give this book a try. It's a solid level better than the knock-off's and if you're like me it will remind you of why you became a fan of TJ's in the first place. Overall, another excellent cookbook!
This cookbook is great. I love the pictures and the nutritional stats. All the recipes I've tried so far have been wonderful (I've made about 6 or 7). I would def recommend this to anyone who loves Trader Joes. The recipes are easy enough for anyone to do and don't take a lot of time. This is great for anyone like me who has to work all day long and doesn't feel like spending all night in the kitchen. Highly recommend this book!
