Paula Deen Celebrates!: Best Dishes and Best Wishes for the Best Times of Your Life [Hardcover]

Paula Deen (Author), Martha Nesbit (Contributor)

Book Description

Release date: October 10, 2006

Beloved Food Network personality, restaurateur, and author Paula Deen loves a party, and in her latest book, Paula Deen Celebrates!, Paula shares with fans old and new how she celebrates a year's worth of holidays and special occasions. Now anyone can share in the down-home celebrations Paula, her husband, Michael, their kids, and extended family enjoy at their beautiful home in Savannah, Georgia.

What better way to start off the New Year than with a New Year's Eve Brunch with friends -- at midnight! This colorful celebration includes Crab and Spinach Casserole and Baked Tomatoes, and finishes with a quintessentially southern Hummingbird Cake and Irish Coffee. Welcome St. Patrick's Day, Savannah style, with Lamb Stew and Green Grits Pie. The centerpiece of an Easter dinner is a Peanut Butter-Glazed Ham, accompanied by Spinach-Swiss Casserole, Squash Boats, and flaky Butterhorns, with a bonus recipe for Ham Salad that makes eating leftovers a treat. Looking for a reason to party, south-of-the-border style? Try Paula's Cinco de Mayo Fiesta menu, with Macho Nachos and a cool and creamy Margarita Mousse. Paula honors the memory of her mother, and all the other women who have blessed her life, with a Mother's Day Tea of dainty sandwiches and irresistible cookies served on her best china, and fathers get their due with a Father's Day Boating Picnic. The Fourth of July is the perfect occasion for an Outdoor Grill Party and Low-Country Boil, and if what you want is a quiet evening at home, pop a movie in the DVD player and chow down on your choice of Paula's savory and sweet pizzas. Gather the family to watch some football and savor Jamie's Cheeseburger Pies, and give family and friends the gift of a sweet treat at the holidays with Paula's Icebox Fruitcake or Peppermint Bark. Her Christmas feast starts with Cranberry Holiday Brie and stars an impressive Standing Rib Roast, with Twice-Baked Potato Casserole. The show-stopping dessert is Paula's butter-laden Coconut Pound Cake glazed with coconut syrup and covered with icing and toasted coconut!

Paula brings you into her home, her kitchen, and her heart with family stories and photographs. This time, her husband, Michael, sons Jamie and Bobby, and brother, Bubba, chime in to share their memories, too. Decorating and serving ideas will inspire you to use what you have to carry through a theme to make the most informal meal special. And Paula shares her most private thoughts in a special feature -- Paula's Pearls of Wisdom -- which you'll find with each menu.

Paula Deen Celebrates! is Paula at her very southern best. Join her in making and sharing her best dishes for the best times of your life.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Fans of Food Network star Paula Deen enjoy her unpretentious Southern-gal persona as much as her easy, what's-not-to-like recipes. As a writer of four other cookbooks, including The Lady & Sons Just Desserts, restaurant owner, and purveyor of her own product line, she's also something of an entrepreneur. In Paul Deen Celebrates! she offers 170-plus recipes arranged by menus for traditional holidays and other, sometimes whimsical celebrations like Elvis's Birthday and Movie-Watching Pizza Party in Bed. The recipes, which are often Southern-rich, range from the more traditional, such as Shrimp Etouffé, Muffuletta Sandwiches, and Macaroni Salad, to the innovative, including Collard Green Wantons, Grilled Chicken Pita, and Scallop and Bacon Pizza. Her sweets include the likes of Old Fashioned Banana Pudding, Gooey Toffee Butter Cake and Margarita Mousse. Offered also are decorating tips, and "Paula's Pearls of Wisdom" like "treasure today's moment's because they will tomorrow’s memories."

Deen's dishes couldn't be more approachable and will doubtlessly inspire many holiday menus. Readers should know, however, that she regularly calls for convenience products like cake mixes and canned soups, whose use (by now something of an American tradition in itself) can do little to make homemade food taste as good as it otherwise might. Paula Deen Celebrates! should, however, excite Deen's many fans, who, along with the attractive formulas, receive lots of "back-story" on the author's own celebrations, life, and mostly good times. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly

Popular Food Network personality Paula Deen returns, focusing on memorable meals for special occasions. Teaming up with Savannah Magazine's Martha Nesbit, the two offer full-blown menus for a wide range of events-from Easter and Mother's Day to Sunday afternoon football and Elvis's birthday. True to form, butter, cream and mayonnaise are well represented, as are a healthy sprinkling of "ya'lls." Deen packs the book with her trademark stories of family and friends, as well as decorating and entertaining tips from her personal assistant, Brandon Branch. Recipes run the gamut, from old favorites like Peppermint Bark and Chicken Pot Pie to Cream Cheese and Chicken Enchiladas, Oyster-Stuffed Quail and Herb-Crusted Pork Loin. Deen is known for her love of southern cooking, and dishes like Black-Eyed Pea Dip, Succotash and Country Fried Steak with Gravy are surefire winners. But her use of collard greens in Collard Green and Ham Hock Pizza and Collard Green Wontons push the envelope a bit, as do some of the decorating ideas from Branch. Those with a cursory knowledge of cooking will find the recipes well within their range, and Deen's low-key approach to cooking-which emphasizes enjoying the process rather than getting wound up about the results-will build confidence.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (October 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743278119
• ISBN-13: 978-0743278119
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #99,577 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #34 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Occasions > Holidays

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars My best friend for entertaining! December 9, 2006

By J. Love

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Just in time for the holidays, I got this book. I love Paula Deen's show and her cookbooks always have amazingly simple dishes to prepare.

The author's personal stories and remembrances are what really made this book for me. As a girl from the south, these recipes are like things your Mammaw and Mama used to cook up for the family for a special occasion.

These recipes aren't necessarily things that you would eat in your everyday meals; they're for celebrations. If you're looking for a Southerner to eat tofu and bean sprouts for Thanksgiving, you've got it all wrong and would do better with buying another book. I prefer my tofu marinated in soy sauce and stir fried with pea pods and broccoli, but I'd rather have a turkey and all the trimmins for Thanksgiving.

The recipe book, and I hesitate to call it that because it's more of an entertaining book, has wonderful meal planning recipes and ideas for celebrating with your family & friends. Although I'd have loved more entertaining ideas, maybe next time, Paula?

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars I'm enjoying this book. Easy recipes! April 26, 2007

By Lina

Format:Hardcover

This book is full of very easy recipes to make.

I rated this book with a "4" rather than a "5" only because I wish Paula had added a few more color pictures. But other than that, it's a fun book to read and as stated earlier, the recipes are easy and fun to make.

I like the fact , especially, that the ingredients that Paula uses are easy to find. In other words, I don't have to travel all over the country looking for ingredients, when duplicating any of Paula's recipes---for this I give this book 5 Stars!

Also, her adorable personality comes through so nicely. (She writes like she talks--FUN STYLE,FUN LADY!).

PS: Please note that Paula loves butter. Those of us that watch her TV show know this, as she is very open about her "love of butter". So plz do expect that many of Paula's recipes include butter. However, if you are watching your weight and counting your fat intake, I would advise to just cut the butter portions ,and that Paula's recipes will still hold-up well.(I've tried this method and it works).
For those of you that love butter and are thin enough to be able to eat it often, then this cook-book will not alter your regular cooking style.
Either way I think that any cook will find this cookbook helpful!

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars True Paula Fan! December 5, 2006

By B. Seidl

Format:Hardcover

After reading a previously posted review I am wondering why someone who isn't a Paula fan would even bother buying her book as that reviewer was definatley not a fan of Paula. For those of us who are TRUE Paula fans this book is another example of Paula giving us her true southern hospitality. Yes, there are recipes that come from her shows, but isn't that what a cookbook should do for any food network star? I mean unless you want to download the recipe each time you use it. There are also new versions of old favorites. But the point of the whole book is to use it as a menu planner for celebrations. Paula's personal history in the book only lets you get to know her more and gives personal insite on a woman who is so loved in the city of Savannah that if someone bad mouths her you are run out of town. So be warned those who wrote bad reviews...you won't be getting and best dishes, hugs and kisses from Paula any time soon with your cranky attitudes. Also, I have had the honor of meeting Paula in person on numerous occations and also being on her new show Paula's Party, what you see is what you get with her. She is warm and caring and her over the top way of doing things is just who she is, so if you want a boring food network star...go watch the Barefoot Contessa or Giada.