Customer Reviews

Kosher by Design Short on Time: Fabulous Food Faster

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My teenage daughter's friend brought us this book as a house gift. I love it, and I use it quite a bit. I just bought a copy for 21-year-old son, who is starting to cook and entertain. It's great for a new cook, because in addition to being quick, most of the recipes don't require a fully-equipped and stocked kitchen. She also explains well. The pictures are beautiful, and the special sections at the end are fun.

I'm sure that a lot of "foodies" will turn up their noses at this book. I, too, like to make things from scratch, and this isn't a book of five-star gourmet adventures in the kitchen. But I think that the reader who wrote that you could probably make these things a little bit better without using the packaged ingredients, but at the cost of a lot more time, hit the nail on the head. Sometimes you just don't have time to cook the way you really want to do it -- but you still have to eat. I suppose some purists will say it's always better then to go out or just make a sandwich than to cook "Rachael Ray" style. But I think a home-cooked, family style meal is still nice, even with a few shortcuts that you wouldn't take for a special occasion. There is room for both kinds of cookbooks and cooking in my kitchen and in my life.

Besides, not all the recipes are even like that. Many are just plain terrific, even those that do use prepared items. And if you don't want to use, say, a prepared spice blend or sauce, then just "retrofit" the recipe and make your own. I have done that with some recipes, but I have also tried the prepared ingredients a couple of times (e.g., a spice blend that only cost $1), and I was pleasantly surprised by their quality.

My only criticism is that you need to look carefully at her estimated times, which are often overly optimistic. If a recipe calls for, say, a cup of chopped onions, the time for peeling and chopping the onion isn't included in her estimate. I suppose that's fair -- I mean, you could have a bag of chopped onion in your freezer or something -- but you do need to remember to look carefully at the recipe before planning your time.

There are two real points that set this book apart from Ms. Fishbein's previous books:

First note the part of the title that says 'Short on Time.' And in today's world when aren't most of us Short on Time. Here are kinds of things that you can fix in the evening of a work/school night and still have a little time to relax.

Second, perhaps as an offshoot of the first point, she uses a lot of pre-prepared, even 'store-bought' ingredients. These probably aren't as good as she (or you) could make yourself. But back to the first point -- time. Do you really want to spend your whole evening in the kitchen just to make something a few percent better than what you can buy?

Consistent with her other books is the beautiful photography. I'm the type who tends to flip through the book looking at the pictures. At the moment I'm stopped at page 164-5 looking at the picture of roasted lemon-pepper cod. Cod is a nice fish, and I noticed some at the store last night that looked pretty good. Let's see, there's fish, roasted with lemon and pepper. Then there's a 7-10 minute sauce with heavy cream, lemon, onion powder and sour cream. OK, dinner tonight is planned.

I own the other three Kosher By Design cookbooks and love them, so I expected to be wowed by this one as well. I was very disappointed. I appreciate the fact that this cookbook is intended to make quick recipes, but I dislike the fact that Fishbein utilizes so many prepared ingredients (salad dressings, accompanying sauces, etc). This cookbook fits more into the Rachael Ray concept than the Susie Fishbein concept to which I've become accustomed. If you like that, you'll enjoy this book, but it wasn't for me.

My husband always gets me a cookbook for Chanukah ( I collect them) and this came out just in time.

If you liked her other cookbooks you will like this one. The recipes look good (nice pictures too) but her food prep time and my food prep time are not the same.

Not too many "exotic" ingredients in this one, but, I don't normally have coconut milk,Coco Lopez cream of coconut,limes, and panko bread crumbs handy - I guess I will now.

It's a good shabbos read - you'll get good ideas from it and will want to try some of the recipes out.The dessert section looks yummy!

I work from my home and there are days when I am very busy or out all day and forget to plan out the meal for the dinner. This cookbook is wonderful for those times when you need your meal in a hurry. I own all of her Kosher by Design cookbooks and NOT one was a bad buy for me, I use them all the time.
Thanks again Susie!

I bought this book for our synagogue library and was impressed from the moment I received it. I tried about 6 different recipes, and all were tasty if not delicious, and most were actually fast unlike many other "quick" recipes. I like having pictures to go with the recipes, and don't mind some short-cut ingredients such as using bottled sauces.

We've already made quite a handful of dishes from this book and every single one of them came out incredibly, robustly delicious. This book has become a staple in our kitchen!

I bought this because my sister had spoken about it. Every receipe I have tried is fabulous. You won't be sorry you bought this great cookbook!

I highly recommend this cookbook. Susie Fishbein is a master at creating cookbooks, and I love this cookbook even though I don't keep kosher. The recipes in it are easy for amateur cooks to prepare. Furthermore, they look and taste great. I also appreciate the variety of fish, poultry, beef, and salad recipes.

Reviewers have complained that the cookbooks in Fishbein's Kosher by Design series often have duplicative recipes, and this common complaint made me hesitant to buy this book because I also own Fishbein's "Passover by Design" and "Lightens Up" cookbooks. However, I have only found a few duplicative recipes in the three Kosher by Design cookbooks that I own. There are enough new and wonderful recipes in this book that one should not hesitate to buy it.

My one complaint would be the number of high calorie recipes in this cookbook. I hope that Fishbein's next cookbook would include new recipes not found in her other cookbooks that are easy to make but also low in calories and fat.

I'm a huge Susie Fishbein fan, which is why I was so disappointed with this book. I very rarely write reviews, but this book was such a disappointment that I had to write one this one. I have tried six different recipes from this book so far - none have been good. Since tasty recipes is the key thing that matters in a recipe book, it's almost not worth listing the other faults, but for the sake of completeness I will. First, the time estimates she gives in the book are wildly optimistic. I'm a proficient cook and am very comfortable in the kitchen. But she gives time estimates that are just ridiculous. Also, she calls for ingredients that are very difficult to find hechshered. This is a frequent annoyance in regular cookbooks, but I expect more from a kosher cookbook. She tries to help by listing a kosher brand for each product, but I am not able to find the brands she lists. I live in a major city with a large kosher-keeping population, but these things are just too hard to find.