Get Cooking: 150 Simple Recipes to Get You Started in the Kitchen [Paperback]

Mollie Katzen (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 13, 2009

Get Cooking is the first in a series of cookbooks geared toward beginners by Mollie Katzen, the author of the bestselling Moosewood Cookbook. Here are 125 foolproof , basic recipes for soups, homemade pasta, roast chicken, burgers, vegan specialities, chocolate chip cookies—and more—that anyone can enjoy making, no matter how inexperienced they are in the kitchen.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. There's an inherent difficulty in encapsulating basic kitchen knowledge in a single book, but Katzen's latest is a fresh, contemporary entry in the 101 subgenre. This is likely because she has some experience—Katzen's The Moosewood Cookbook and Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbooks have been unofficial required reading for cooking students for decades, and her latest speaks directly to a newer, more food-savvy generation of just-starting-out cooks. Launched in conjunction with a companion Web site and illustrated by Katzen's own photographs, this newest is divided into basic categories like soups, salads, pastas and desserts. Naturally, given her meatless pedigree, she gives vegetarian options with bright flavors (acorn squash stuffed with fruited basmati pilaf; mango curry) their own chapter. While the recipes cover the traditional home repertoire—spaghetti and meatballs, an excellent and simple roast chicken, apple crisp—Katzen also sneaks in some more intriguing flavors by way of a North African red lentil soup, cherry clafouti and Thai green curry along with explanations of more unusual ingredients like jicama and panko. Encouraging cooks to experiment with additions and flavor combinations, she suggests alternatives in a running Get Creative sidebar. Rounding out the training is a short primer on kitchen tools, pantry items and photos that illustrate vegetable chopping techniques. Katzen's enthusiasm for the subject and her ability to keep the proceedings truly simple makes for the rare beginner's book that accomplishes its mission. Photos. (Oct.)
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Review

“Katzen’s latest is a fresh, contemporary entry in the 101 subgenre...Her enthusiasm for the subject and her ability to keep the proceedings truly simple makes for the rare beginner’s book that accomplishes its mission.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review))

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks; Original edition (October 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061732435
• ISBN-13: 978-0061732430
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 0.8 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #77,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mollie Katzen is a cookbook author and illustrator/designer, best known for her best-selling classics, Moosewood Cookbook (a 2007 inductee into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame) and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. Her nine other titles include a trilogy for children (Pretend Soup, Honest Pretzels, and Salad People) dubbed "the gold standard of children's cookbooks" by the New York Times. Mollie has worked as a creative consultant for plant-based recipes and menus, most notably with Harvard University Dining Services, where she has served as a consultant on vegetarian cooking since 2003. She is a popular public speaker, specializing in culinary-medical conferences (in addition to other venues), helping to educate medical professionals on the links between food choices and health and prevention. Mollie's newest book is The Heart of the Plate: Vegetarian Recipes for a New Generation (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 2013).

http://www.molliekatzen.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction to cooking - straightforward recipes, tasty rewards! December 18, 2009

By M. Lapus VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Get Cooking takes the beginner through all the steps, clearly and briefly, from how to study a recipe to make sure that you have all the ingredients and tools and to understand the whole process of preparing the food to getting it on the table on time.

Each chapter begins with the essential facts about the type of food, the tools and ingredients that you will most often use, and even an assessment when the inexpensive or moderately priced tools and ingredients will suffice and the times when the added expense is worthwhile.

Katzen describes the cuisine as "'Big Tent,' accommodating a broad base of tastes and needs, vegetarian, meat-loving and everything in between." Most of the dishes are familiar - the items that you'd find at a party, picnic, or enjoy at home. We've made the teriyaki chicken thighs and the poached salmon - which were both easy and tasty! I am eager to try the recipes for carmelized balsamic-red onion soup with cheese-topped croutons, linguini with clam sauce, linguine with spinach and peas, green pea and feta quiche, and deeply roasted cauliflower.
The three bean salad, mac and cheese, spaghetti with meatballs, pasta with tuna, white beans, and artichoke hearts, chinese-style peanut noodles, chocolate-chip mint cookies and intensely chocolate brownies are sure to become regulars at our home.

Get Cooking would be excellent for someone just learning to cook - it gives you the essentials of cooking in simple steps and offers tasty rewards for your effort.

Publisher: HarperStudio (October 13, 2009), 288 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars perfect gift for the off-to-college kid December 9, 2009

By M. Twain

Format:Paperback

As a vegetarian, Mollie Katzen's cookbooks have been my bible, but my sons eat meat, and this book comes out just in time for one to graduate college and start his own household while the other moves off to college in an apartment with a kitchen for him to start cooking in. The recipes are of a wide variety, all easy and quick for the beginning cook. Since I have no idea how to cook or serve meat, this book is the perfect send-off for both my sons so that they'll eat well and healthily and learn the basic tools of the cooking trade. Coming from Mollie Katzen, I trust that the recipes are all nutritious and delicious, and that's a priceless gift!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Cooking is my new passion! November 29, 2009

By New Cook

Format:Paperback

I got this book as a gift when I moved into my first apartment, my cooking abilities had been limited to hot pockets and frozen pizza before I became interested in cooking. The first night in my apartment I tried the Salmon Burgers, delicious! I love this book and I can't wait to try more recipes.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This Should've Been My First Cookbook... July 7, 2010

By Tracey Carter VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I wish I had found this book before trying other more complicated and less well written recipes from other cookbooks. My talents in the kitchen are modest, at best, and while I can roast a chicken quite well thanks to Nigella Lawson that and grilled cheeses pretty much rounds out my repetoire.

This cookbook not only provides recipes that call for few, if any, exotic ingredients, it provides incredibly detailed instructions. While other cookbooks might instruct you to "cook the pasta" Mollie Katzen tells you how much water to put in your pasta pot, when to check it for doneness, how to taste test it to determine if its cooked, and instructions or whether or not the pasta should be rinsed after cooking (in most cases, it shouldn't because it removes the starches the sauces should be sticking to).

With the detailed instructions provided in this cookbook, as well as the ability to freestyle and customize with the suggestions Katzen provides in the sidebars with each recipe, I was able to fix a delicious Pasta Shells with Chickpeas and Arugula. In full disclosure, I substituted fresh baby spinach for the arugula per the sidebar suggestions and it turned out great! I can't wait to try the Mango and Chickpea Curry and the Chocolate & Peanut Butter Things.

Each chapter begins with a description of the basics concering the types of food and dishes included in the chapter and this is an enormous resource for novice cooks. While there are books like Joy of Cooking that provide an encyclopedic knowledge of food, I found such large books to be overwhleming.... Get Cooking provides all the necessary information to be successful in the kitchen and, unlike many recent cookbooks, Get Cooking provides a photograph for each and every recipe.

I can't begin to tell you how much I wish I had found this cookbook last year instead of last week at the library. Although I did check this book out from the local library it is absolutely worth owning a copy as I think the recipes are absolutely worth repeating. This cookbook would also make an excellent housewarming gift. Read more ›

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, even for vegans! December 9, 2009

By David Havelick

Format:Paperback

Although the book is not entirely vegan (or even vegetarian), it had lots of great recipes and tips for the vegans out there (including me). Mollie clearly labeled which recipes were vegan, and included ideas on how to make many of the non-veg receipes into veg-friendly recipes.

The tips in this book are absolutely priceless.

For instance, I will never eat broccoli the same way again - her "absolutely the best broccoli" was simple and DELICIOUS.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars My new Go To Cookbook March 9, 2011

By Unfit

Format:Paperback

My teenage daughter picked up this book at our local library, thinking it would help her learn to cook and it was not a typical "kid" cookbook. I was thrilled. But she never got around to actually cooking, even though she had picked out a few dishes that she thought she might like. Fast forward a couple of weeks, and I found myself looking for a quick recipe for corn chowder using items I had on hand. Found it in "Get Cooking", and it was fabulous. the next day I needed a quick vinaigrette and I found the "soy-ginger-sesame vinaigrette", which was fast, easy and delicious. I've since picked it up several times in the last week, looking for something simple using specific ingredients. It has not failed me!
So, as an experienced cook, with little spare time for shopping and standing in the kitchen these days, I am quickly falling in love with this book. I have a large collection of receipe books that I love to browse and sometimes use, but I just don't have the luxury of the time needed to plan and create many of the more involved dishes. We recently joined an organic co-op, and I am learning to cook with what I find in my bin, instead of shopping daily for ingredients needed. "Get Cooking" is the perfect companion when you just don't have the energy to shop or be overly creative, but you still want delicious home cooked food that is not boring. The recipes use simple, common ingredients to create meals my whole family loves.
I am buying this book today!