205 of 209 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jamie Blends the Traditional With the Conventional in His New Masterpiece, October 19, 2009
This review is from: Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals (Hardcover)
Jamie Oliver's cookbook is beautiful. It is full color, complete with step-by-step pictures and easy to follow traditional recipes but with a definite twist. Jamie's cooking hook is that the recipes are fairly quick, good for you and easy. So easy in fact, that Jamie has rounded up a bunch of every day folks who would never consider themselves cooks and challenged them to cook the recipes in his book. He challenged them by teaching them how to make the dishes. Jamie believes that non-cooks can cook these meals and proves it by including some of these folks, in full-color glossy glory, with their now-mastered meals!
The result is brilliant. The reader is tempted, inspired, and motivated, just as I was last Sunday, when I attempted "The Perfect Roast" on page 192. I followed the recipe to the letter and served my family a delicious roast dinner complete with horseradish sauce, p.210 and evolution cucumber salad p.114. (note to Jamie, as you suggested I improvised and added bacon bits to the cucumber salad and it was delish!)
You see, Jamie's cookbook has a challenge attached to it. He wants folks to start cooking again in their own kitchens! So... he challenges his readers to "pass it on." He asks readers to try some of the recipes in his book and then teach someone else the recipes and so on and so on and so on, you get the idea. Although I will probably skip signing that actual pledge which you can find on his website at [...] I will continue to try delicious recipes from this book and will pass them on to my friends and family.
Some of the other recipes that look terrific: Classic Tomato Spaghetti, p.43, Hardly Any Prep Shrimp Stir Fry, p.66, the entire Chopped Salad section p.120-p.125, Baked Creamy Leeks, p.123, and Pork Kabobs, p.238. Oh heck, the entire cookbook is full of terrific recipes. The desserts, including the Mega Chocolate Fudge Cake, look pretty awesome, too. Jamie combines traditional cooking with conventional time and money constraints making this book a pleasure to work with. I also love that fact that Jamie tells us, with more gorgeous pictures, the equipment we will need to get back to cooking and the essential ingredients we will need to stock in the cupboard for cooking success. Cooking this Fall is going to be a breeze!
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121 of 121 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Especially good for new cooks, April 18, 2010
This review is from: Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals (Hardcover)
My husband has food sensitivities, so I've been cooking at home for a long time. I mainly bought this book to generally support the movement and see what Jamie Oliver was up to with the Food Revolution. I didn't expect to really find many--if any--recipes that I would be able to use. But I did.
The good:
* TONS of photos. Every single recipe has photos, both of the finished dish and of the preparation. Yay!
* He doesn't just give you the recipe (add 2 onions, chopped). He walks you though the process (Chop two onions and set aside). So you can usually cook as you read the recipe.
* He tells you what to serve with the recipes, and the recipes for suggested sides are in the book. Yay!
* Many of the recipes can be easily adapted for allergen-free cooking. My husband is senstive to gluten, corn, dairy, honey, legumes, and some nuts. That's a long list, and I was still able to adapt several recipes.
* He offers recipes for all meals: breakfast food, lunch food, suppers, desserts. You could use this as your only cookbook.
* The dessert section is amazing. We generally don't eat dessert in our house...at all. I think sugar makes you want more sugar, and it's a nasty cycle. But these desserts, while clearly luscious, include a lot of healthier stuff in the preparation, like fruit and oats. And the photos depict appropriate serving sizes. They look very elegant. I'm glad I'll have something wholesome to serve when company visits.
The not so good:
* There isn't any nutrition data for the recipes
* Some of the recipes, while simple, can take some real time to prepare (fine by me, but I'm not trying to whip together dinner in a frenzy when I get home from work)
* Many of the recipes serve 2 people. Which is fine, but it took me some time to adapt. I've purchased ingredients for a recipe only to realize later that I didn't get enough.
In the end, the recipes are quite good. These are not recipes that will show up in Gourmet magazine. And they won't all make the list of the world's healthiest foods either. There are several comfort food recipes...spaghetti, stew, cheesy pastas, roasts. But overall, I'm pleased. Even experienced cooks will be able to find some things of interest here. And this is an awesome collection for someone trying to transition to real food from a diet full of McDonald's and pizza rolls.
Update: I've cooked several more recipes from this book since I wrote this review, and I am growing more and more pleased. At first I blew off some of the recipes; I thought I didn't need another recipe for roasted chicken. But I made it, and it's great. I have cooked many recipes from the book now, and so far nothing has flopped. This is the only cookbook I own that I can say that about.
Update #2: I'm still cooking from the book all the time. I'm a complete convert. I've purchased copies for other family members now...even for my total foodie of a father-in-law. We are all fans, and the majority of my everyday recipes now come from Jamie Oliver. Everyone knows I'm a Jamie Oliver fanatic now, so when people like something I cook they don't ask, "Where did you get the recipe?" They ask, "Is this from Jamie Oliver?" I've become a proselytizer for the book. And still, after all this time, nothing has flopped.
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64 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jamie's Latest Cookbook is Great, November 20, 2009
This review is from: Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals (Hardcover)
So, in one of those odd publishing things... Jamie's cookbooks are released a year earlier everywhere in the world but the US. Since I spend much of my time in Bombay I have been cooking from this book since last November. Anyhow its awesome. The recipes are delicious (my favorite is the Chicken & Leek Stroganoff), easy to understand, and many are quick to make. There are pictures of all the food and detailed instructions. The book assumes nothing so anyone can really pick it up and make a great meal. The book also contains Jamie's trademark style and you can really hear his voice in the writing throughout the recipes and narrative. Jamie also encourages new cooks to play around (experiment) a bit and gives them strategies to do so - this is particularly evident in his evolution salads chapter.
If you are a fan of Jamie Oliver this book will definitely not disappoint, it has been my go to cook book for most of the year. It would also make a great gift for your novice cook friend or a college student. Enjoy.
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