Customer Reviews

What To Cook When You Think There's Nothing in the House To Eat: More Than 175 Easy Recipes And Meal Ideas

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This truly fabulous, inspiring, book belongs in every kitchen. It should be given to college grads, newlyweds, the newly single, etc. and packaged with every refrigerator and stove sold in America. I personally have given many as gifts, and people are delighted to receive it. They love it even more when they start cooking out of it. Arthur takes humble, lonely ingredients which stare forlornly at you from your shelves, and transforms them EASILY into beautiful, comforting food. Creates instant celebrations in your kitchen. A real primer on the cooking basics, too. When a book takes you from,"there's nothing to eat," to a satisfying, cozy meal, that's pretty wonderful, don't you think?

I bought this book 6 months ago and have used it nearly every day since. Not only is it well-written and neatly organized by ingredient, but it also has a list of how long you can expect various foods to last, concentrating on the ingredients that last the longest (great help in making up the shopping list!). Now I have an idea of how long I have until that bag of carrots or block of cream cheese meets its maker. This is a must have for anyone who picks up fast food for the hundredth time because they don't think there's anything in the house to eat.

Every working class person/student/new parent/dot-commer needs this book. Never has poverty and lack of full cabinets been so fun. I love that this book is indexed and arranged by ingredient. In know that everyone has at least one item sitting in their kitchen that doesn't look enough to eat, let alone something worthy of sitting down and eating.With this book you will be able to create something out of seemingly nothing. This book helps ease the pain of not being able to afford take-out, let alone the drive-thru. It is a wise, wise investment.

If you could peek into my home and watch me cook, more often than not, "What to Cook" is my main book and Betty Crocker is my reference.

I never thought I'd see easier (or more) uses for simple staple items. I like the way the book is organized by main ingredient so I can look in my cupboards and see what I have, then go to the book to get started making something with it.

Finally, Arthur has a way of writing that really gets my creative juices flowing--nearly every recipe has suggestions for variations. I've often found myself inventing new dishes almost without trying by using his simple recipes as a starting point and his colorful writing as an inspiration.

For example, try starting with his already incredible and easy tomato soup recipe and add a chopped green bell pepper and two or three tablespoons of high quality olive oil... I've served this to guests and they couldn't believe how easy it was to make when I showed them the recipe. Several said it was the best tomato soup they'd ever had.

This book has been a boon to me, I plan to give it at every wedding, and baby shower I attend. Even recipes I had reservations about came out beautifully and deliciously. As a matter of fact I actually tried recipes I wouldn't have otherwise because he made them sound so delicious. Yes, I even read recipes I wasn't planning to make because his writing was so interesting to me. You'd have to be a very picky eater not to find yourself enjoying most of these recipes. One caveat however; some of the recipes are hot. And I mean *HOT*. I couldn't eat the peanut butter and noodle recipe because of that (though my husband said it was delicious) and one of the spaghetti sauce recipes (don't have the book in front of me to name it) was so hot that my nose bled a little after eating it. But otherwise a great cookbook and a good book in and of itself (just watch out for those hot recipes).

This is my all-time favorite cookbook, and the one I turn to most when I'm hungry and too tired to go shopping. Packed with tasty ideas, it has none of the pretentiousness of many cookbooks. No hard-to-find ingredients, no seventeen step menus, no fancy cooking gadgets or expertise required!

This book is alphabetized by main ingredient so it is super easy to find something to make from what's already in your cabinets, freezer, or fridge. Also, the author often makes suggestions for variations on his simple recipes.

A truly wonderful book! Out of all my cookbooks, this is the only one I truly could not live without!

I have hundreds of books and a couple dozen cookbooks, but if I were only allowed to keep one book out of all of them, this would be it. Every time I serve something from this book, people ask for the recipe; Thanks to this book alone, I've acquired a reputation as a brilliant cook! True, he goes a little heavy on the lemon and a little light on the garlic, but that's a matter of taste, and anyway there's plenty of room for making your own notes, and the non-glossy paper takes pencil.

... this should be one of them. Whenever the cupboards are looking lean, I am always able to scrape up something delicious out of practically nothing with the guidance of _What to Cook_. Most of the recipes are very quick and easy to make, light on preparation, and fabulous.

Although it doesn't suffer for the lack of a color, photo section, I think every cookbook should have one: hence, 4 stars.

I've had this book since it was published in 1991 and I still use it. Spaghetti with yogurt, carrot ribbons, outrageous tasty recipes all made with ingredients on hand. Suggestion for stocking your cupboards. Tuna and beans! I guarantee you, if this author presents a recipe, it is going to be delicious and doable.

I used to live in the city, and from my busstop to home was a line of ethnic restaurants, excellent pizza joints, and gourmet restaurants. And I hopped past them all to try Arthur's recipes at home. The book paid for itself in a month!

This book is wonderful! The book consists of recipes that use a wide variety of kitchen staples (with some exotics like capers thrown in). Each staple ingredient, such as "potatoes", "canned tomatoes", or "cheese" has its own section with some basic recipes you can make with ingredients you probably have in your pantry at any given time and without having to run to the grocery store. The sections are arranged in alphabetical order. I checked it out at the library and made several of the recipes and just loved the book; can't wait to get my own permanant copy! Especially helpful--there are a lot of pasta recipes throughout the book. Who doesn't have some pasta in their cabinet at any given time? You'd be amazed what you can make even when you think there's "nothing to eat" in the house!!