Sara's Secrets for Weeknight Meals [Hardcover]

Sara Moulton (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 18, 2005

Heeding the pleas of modern multitasking home cooks, Television Food Network’s Sara Moulton returns with 200 delicious and quick main dishes, sides, and desserts for busy workweek dinners.

As the host of Cooking Live and Sara’s Secrets, the food editor of Good Morning America, and the bestselling author of Sara Moulton Cooks at Home, Sara Moulton is one of this country’s most popular and accessible celebrity chefs. It was while touring the U.S. promoting her first book, in fact, that Sara's fans begged her for fast, tasty, and wholesome weeknight entrees. She realized that she, too, had a need for those kinds of dishes, which was all her busy schedule would allow. In writing this book, Sara rethought dinner itself, so that mealtimes no longer featured the same predictable recipes. Instead she offers “breakfast for dinner” or hearty soups or sandwiches. The result is a cookbook filled with easy and popular ethnic dishes to spice up the repertoire, her own versions of American classics, dishes to whip up from pantry staples as well as supermarket salad bar and deli items, and slow-cooking recipes for leisurely weekends.

With recipes that will satisfy taste buds as well as time constraints, Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals covers the spectrum from entree salads (Thai-style Steak Salad with Spicy Mint Dressing), substantial sandwiches (Scampi Heroes), hearty soups for supper (Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Chorizo and Greens), breakfast foods for dinner (Potato Pancakes with Smoked Salmon and Fried Eggs), pasta (Quick Asparagus Lasagna), seafood (Steamed Mussels in Curried Coconut Broth), vegetable plates (Exotic Mushroom Pot Pie), meat dishes (Meatloaf Burgers), double-duty dishes (leftover rice in Cheatin' Jambalaya), weekend dishes to cook ahead (Slow-cooked Chinese Spareribs), recipes that either can be put together in no time with prepared supermarket ingredients (Crispy Polenta Slices with Gorgonzola and Leeks) or from a well-stocked pantry (Linguine with White Bean, Sun-dried Tomato, and Olive Sauce), to delectable desserts (Chocolate Bread Pudding, Gingerbread Pancakes with Butterscotch Apples, Nectarine and Plum Upside-down Cake).

Recipes include hands-on cooking time and total cooking time as well as suggestions for side-dish pairings. Twenty-four beautiful color photos, warm and friendly headnotes, and lots of Sara's tips and shortcuts (including advice on stocking a pantry, basic recipes, simple sides, quick sauces, and mail-order sources) make this another cookbook for Sara’s fans to cherish.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Moulton, a Food Network and Gourmet chef, wants to help home cooks produce elegant meals without excessive fuss. For each dish in this assemblage, she indicates hands-on time and total cooking time, with most calculated to require under 45 minutes (though cooks who are less efficient at prepping than Moulton may dispute some of the estimates; Mexican Chicken Salad, for instance, indicates 15 minutes of hands-on time, but with all the chopping and washing, some amateurs will soon reach the 25 minutes allotted for the whole process). Besides chapters on soup, pasta, meat and so on, there are several revolving around time-saving tips: "Shop and Serve" has recipes like the fast but tasty Tortellini Pepperoni Spinach Soup, and dishes in "Just Open the Pantry" use items from a kitchen stocked with Moulton's long list of recommended staples. "Cooking Ahead," meanwhile, unleashes the gourmet chef in Moulton with lengthier recipes that can be made on the weekend and reheated. Moulton's readers may not get these dishes on the table as quickly as she can, but cooks willing to put in some time in the kitchen each night will appreciate this book's excellent international range as well as its helpful shortcuts. Color photos. (Oct. 18)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Advance Praise for Sara Moulton
“Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals is the perfect blend of food and cooking expertise. With her warm, easygoing style, Sara makes everyone comfortable with cooking—helping novice and experienced cooks alike find delightful, tempting dishes to dazzle our families.”
—Michael Lomonaco, author of The “21” Cookbook and Nightly Specials

 “With Sara in the house, you can get the entire family to the table all week with trusted, exciting, on-the-spot recipes like Oven-baked Chowder and Escarole and White Bean Soup with Large Meatballs. She has packed this book, cover to cover, not only with a fabulous collection of recipes but with mountains of information, alternatives, ideas, and even some secrets to steal. We all want to feed our families good, yummy food often and easily, and with Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals, you’ll want to get right into the kitchen and start cooking for them.”
—Jody Adams, chef/partner of Rialto and author of In the Hands of a Chef

“Sara Moulton has taken her years of experience as a restaurant chef, TV host and cook, working mother, and home cook and used them to compile a beguiling collection of helpful, time-saving tips and sumptuous recipes in Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals that will wow both family and friends.”
—Nina Simonds, author of A Spoonful of Ginger and Classic Chinese Cuisine

“Sara is America’s gift to home cooks. She learned her craft from the beloved Julia Child, and with her talent for creating simple, easy, affordable meals, her cooking secrets will change your kitchen life.”
—Art Smith, author of Back to the Table

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; First Edition edition (October 18, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076791659X
• ISBN-13: 978-0767916592
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 1.4 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #349,930 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 50 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, with a caveat December 28, 2005

By Curmudgea

Format:Hardcover

If you don't have perfect eyesight, don't buy this wonderful cook's latest book. I agree with all the raves from other reviewers about the content, but I'm having to strain and squint to read the text, which is in alternating pale beige and pale green type. The ingredient lists are set in even paler shades of those colors. It appears to be a case of a graphic designer's aesthetic sense running amok over the user's need for easy readability in the kitchen.

62 of 70 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Weeknight Exciting Food without Much Fuss October 25, 2005

By rodboomboom HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Moulton talks about the comments she heard while publizing her last book "Sarah Moulton Cooks at Home". Most of them were about wanting to cook those recipes but not finding time. Moulton was puzzled, thinking these are favorite recipes, but not much time expended on thinking about required minutes to prepare. She goes on to recall how she discovered her need for the same, great food without much fuss for weeknight craziness.

Thus, this volume of some two hundred such recipes. They are organized well into common groupings: soups, salads, poultry, etc. She gathers with international flair and flavor, which should help expand many weeknight chef's cusine range. Ingredients are not difficult, given access to normal supermarket pantry offering, however she provides internet and mailorder sourcing as well.

There is good section on pantry stocking, as well this collection doesn't take the mese en place attitude, but one that I've followed, doing some things in what would otherwise be down time, waiting for such and such step to be completed. Also, upfront she lists her assumptions which one would do well do peruse and return to on occasion, e.g. "eggs are large; vanilla extract is pure" etc. Time is given for each recipe in two categories: hands-on and total prep.

Found absolutely attractive were such as: "Charred Tomato, Chicken and Tortilla Soup"; Mexican Chicken Salad; Brie, Bacon and Spaghetti Frittata; Annie's Favorite Pasta (Cartwheel Pasta wiht Breakfast Sausage and Creamy Tomato Sauce; Thanksgiving Hens; Baked Fish with Horseradish Crust;Potato-Crusted Salmon with Red Wine Sauce; Asian Spiced Roasted Baby Carrots; Radish and Orange Salad with Peppery Orange Dressing; Meditteranean Orzo Pilaf; Blueberry Yogurt Pie.

As evident, too many good recipes here. One wants and likely will try many of them, so this purchase represents valuable collection. Even accomplished chef will thrive on this, weeknight exciting food with quick prep.

Hats off to Broadway Books of Random House for this stylish offering which rivals Clarston-Potter and Ten Speed Press for good paperstock, clean design and magnificent fourcolor photos.

This is destined to be bigseller. Buy one for yourself, then give one to friends, family, etc. Weeknight excellence will be spread without sacrifice of our busy over-scheduled lives.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Print problems September 2, 2007

By Paula Francese

Format:Hardcover

I admire Sara Moulton and appreciate her cooking skills. I've used several of her recipes in the past and will continue to consult her version of dishes. What disappoints me about this book is the publisher's error in using pale ink throughout. As others have mentioned, this book is difficult to read. What's up with publishers who make it hard for you to read text? Looks like the designers had an upper hand over the editors in this case. Shame on them!