Customer Reviews

Dave's Dinners: A Fresh Approach to Home-Cooked Meals

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

 

 

This Food Network chef will score a winner with this cookbook, for it to my mind straddles nicely the "easy to medium" difficulty cooking segment. None of the techniques, nor ingredients, not required equipment are that difficult, so it seems for the already accomplished home chef this will tend towards the "easy" side. However, for the novice as well, these recipes shouldn't alarm them into not trying some, and they likely wouldn't call them easy, but possibly "medium."

In either case, this is fun, exciting, healthy dinner food. Feast your eyes and menus upon the likes of: "Sweet and Sour-Ale Baby Back Ribs" (made with ale with Asian influences"; Mini-Moroccan Lamb Burgers with Lemon Yogurt Sauce; Roasted Red Peppers and Ricotta Crostini; Boston Lettuce and Avocado Salad with Lime Dressing; Pumpkin and Chipotle Corn Chowder; Cocunut-Ginger Tilapia Packages with Red Potatoes and Snow Peas; Penne with Butternut Squash, Chorizo and Thyme; Apricot-Dijon Roasted Pork Chops with Kale and Mushroom Rice; Prune and Walnut Stuffed Pork Roast with Creamy cheddar Cauliflower; Chocolate Guniness Cupcakes; Peach Corn Bread Trifle; Pecan Dusted Puff Pastry Carmelized Apple Napoleans.

This is truly great dinner food for guests or family dining. Not too simple, not too difficult, that is fresh, creative and impressive. Layout and photos are wonderful. Looking forward to future from this rising, talented TV chef.

I like that Dave decided to focus specifically on dinners, because that's really the only time I ever go into the kitchen with the intent on being adventurous and spending time preparing a formal meal.

This book does a nice job of enhancing standards by incorporating the use of fresh herbs and spices, as well as introducing new or more obscure ingredients (fennel, cardamom, mango, gemelli, etc) that make boring dishes more interesting.

I also love that he included a number of soup recipes - I hate buying soup off-the-shelf because it is usually loaded with pasta or rice (cheap filler) or ridiculously high in sodium. Since sodium is added to enhance the flavor of canned soups that is otherwise lost, cooking soups fresh from scratch results in better flavor with less salt.

The book is organized in a way that lets you choose a la carte drinks, entrees and desserts and covers the entire dinner experience. I've already made several of the dishes and all have been hits. If you like entertaining but don't want to be a kitchen slave in order to have a few friends over for a nice meal, this is a good collection of ideas to help you achieve that objective.

PS - the only reason I gave this cookbook 4 stars instead of 5 is that I wish it included some calorie/serving size information as well as more carb-friendly recipies, but those are just ideas for future work and not a huge detraction from this book.

`Dave's Dinners' by second string Food Network cooking show teacher, Dave Lieberman is an improvement over his first book, `Young & Hungary', since it discards any pretense of dealing with `economical' meals and does an earnest effort to focus almost exclusively on dinners, hence, the title of the book. This is one of those times when I wish Amazon would let me give four and a half stars, since:

1. I gave four stars to the first book and... this is better.
2. It is better in some ways than similar Food Network personality Tyler Florence's books, but not by much, and I've given them four and five stars.
3. It is not as good as Ted Allen's excellent `The Food You Want to Eat', which would seem to be addressed to a very similar audience.

One comment (not at all a criticism) I must make is that the facet of Lieberman's career which shows through in this book is not his TV persona as an economical cook, but rather his `day job' practice as a personal chef, where this job is primarily to make exciting and unusual dishes for people who either entertain a lot, or have very busy careers, and like to come home to a meal which is comparable to what they may find at an upscale restaurant, but without astronomical prices. So, the `true' theme of the book is fancy entertaining dinner dishes which will not be cheap, but which will not require taking out a loan on the house.

One thing I especially like about Lieberman's book (especially when compared to Florence's oeuvre) is its simple layout, to match its simple subject. Lieberman went with the `cutsie' organization in his first book. I am happy he has simplified things. The chapters are:

Drinks and Finger Foods, featuring five preparations for fancy homemade mixed drinks and 25 recipes for appetizers.
Salads, with 10 recipes with heavy French and Italian tastes and combinations.
Soups, with 7 recipes including a few from Southeast Asia and a simple clam chowder.
Poultry, with 10 recipes plus recipes for sauces and dressings. Two inexpensive turkey recipes.
Fish, with 8 recipes with new ideas for some very old French and Italian taste combinations.
Pasta, with 10 relatively conventional recipes, including baked dishes and a risotto.
Meat, with 15 beef, pork, and lamb dishes including North African tastes and techniques
Desserts, with 20 recipes, including some traditional Jewish favorites.

The high number of starter and dessert recipes confirms the notion that this book is a good source of ideas for dinner parties. This is highlighted by the fact that there are better than average photographs of about a third of the 60 main dishes and about a quarter of the 45 starter and dessert recipes.

This is an excellent book for someone who has no more than a dog-eared copy of `The Joy of Cooking' or a copy of Mark Bittman's `How to Cook Everything', and who has a reasonably well-equipped kitchen and confident skills with a knife and measuring tools. This last condition is that, unlike the previously mentioned book by Ted Allen, Lieberman gives relatively few hints and details about basic cooking technique. On the other hand, the recipes rely on the great wealth of French and Italian prepared foods such as wines, vinegars, cheeses, cured meats, pasta, and that great staple, bread. They also do not involve the kind of heavy lifting we find in Patricia Wells' latest book, `Vegetable Harvest' requiring food mills, china caps, mandolines, and large saute pans. But then, Wells' book is aimed at a different audience, which it addresses very well.

Lieberman's book also has a strong affinity to some aspects of Ina Garten's books, as Garten's main sub-theme is entertaining at home. But, `Dave's Dinners' is more modestly priced and has a greater respect for its readers to pick quality ingredients.

The person which will not get much from this book is the foodie who already owns twenty books of French cuisine, especially those from Wells, thirty books on Italian cuisine, two or more books from Martha Stewart and company on `Entertaining', and subscriptions to `Gourmet' or `Bon Appetit'. While Lieberman's recipes are all bright and delicious, they are not as original as one may think. I have seen several of the same general ideas in books by Wells, Lidia Bastianich, Gennaro Contaldo, and Giada DeLaurentiis. The advantage is that with Lieberman, we get many of these ideas from different cuisines in a single, reasonably priced book.

I would really look forward to a next book from Lieberman which was even more strongly focused on recipes for entertaining, possibly including menus.

I heard a review of this book on the radio and asked for it for Christmas. Everything I have made has been quite good! Last night I made the Chicken Tikka Masala With Cardamon Basmati Rice, my first try at Indian cooking. It was wonderful! My house was filled with sweet aromas for hours. Probably had more calories than I need right now... but well worth the extra treadmill time. (this is probably why calories and nutritional information are not listed!) I have also tried the Mini Flank Steak Tortillas with Chipotle-Lime Sour Cream twice! This dish has such a depth of flavor that I had to make it twice. Can't wait to try the next dish! The illustrations are beautiful and directions are well organized. Give it a shot!

I have yet to have any problems with the making of any of his food.
Easy to follow and make.

I love Dave's recipes from his show on Food Network. Not all of his dishes fit my tastes, but every recipe I've tried of his was good -- if not great! Some dishes turned out like you'd expect from a high-end restaurant. The only word of warning here is that his recipes aren't ones you can do in 30 minutes (for the most part). Be prepared to spend some time reading the directions before you start and spending an hour to an hour and a half in the kitchen prep'ing and cooking. You'll be pleased with the results if you put in the time and attention the recipes in this book require.

I love cooking shows, and one day as I was watching Lieberman in an episode where he made 4 soups in about an hour's time. One of the last things he mentioned was putting them in containers and freezing them - in order to consume them later. That piqued my interest - because after a long day - some of us need shortcuts for dinner. Something about his style was great - unpretentious and hassle-free. Not mention the soups were all soups I liked - and they weren't exotic - just simple good food.

A few months later, I picked up this gem, totally having forgotten who he was - and I am very pleasantly surprised. He cooks like a New Yorker eats. Most of us like to have different things during the week - whether it's Indian, Italian, or Thai. But he hits all the varied notes and does it in an effortless manner. On one page it's Chicken Tikka, on the next it's chorizo - all in about 30-45 min time! Unlike many other cooks that specialize in one country's cuisine, or a certain time of day or aspect of cooking - he's 'just Dave, cooking a little sumthin for ya'.

This book is going to be a Christmas favorite for all my friends abroad - that miss the little piece of NYC that Lieberman will bring 'em... 5 stars!

My husband and I were recently given this cookbook as a gift. I would buy this cookbook again for these 2 recipes alone!-Roasted Rosemary and lemon pork tenderloin with pomegranate reduction and gorgonzola polenta AND the Roasted chorizo and sun-dried tomato chicken over rosemary black beans. YUMMY!

This is a great cookbook- most of the meals/recipes take around 15-45 minutes to prepare and cook in the kitchen. Some are less, most are not more except for cooking time. I have never made anything from this cookbook that I did not like. Started with Young and Hungry and when my husband and I had cooked through that time and again we got this cookbook. Can I just say mmmmm... Also what we like (and you may not like) is that there are many recipes that use canned beans/ vegetables for soups and other recipes so while you are cooking from scratch you do not have to prepare each element which is something we just would not have time for everyday. Great cookbook for everyday and for special meals.

A great book......tasty easy recipes - the cabbage rolls are great....lots of good tapas recipes, and check out his fresh tasting drinks using homemade syrups!