The Dinner Doctor (Paperback)

by Anne Byrn (Author)
Key Phrases: miniature phyllo shells, lasagna noodles side, etable oil cooking spray, Monterey Jack, Great Northern, Sweetened Cream (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
For her latest book, the Cake Mix Doctor Byrn turns her attention to doctoring other convenience foods to produce tasty home-style dishes. A QVC regular, Byrn tackles appetizers, salads, main dishes and her trademark desserts with her customary aplomb. The result is full of flavor and easy to produce in a minimum amount of time or supervision, a must for the busy homemaker in today's hectic world. Interspersed among the clearly laid out recipes are sidebars full of helpful tips, such as sizes of dishes to use and ways to doctor French bread. Scattered at intervals are her groups of "15 Ways to Doctor" which covers everything from spicing up canned tuna to putting a slow cooker to best use. From using coleslaw mix in the light sweet-and-sour Fast Asian Slaw to the microwave in the Micro-steamed Hoisin Fish and Vegetables, all the recipes are included for their ability to help cooks save time without giving up flavor. Although she overuses such staples as cream of chicken or celery soup, Byrn certainly shows that she's able to doctor more of the meal than just dessert. Nonetheless, the dessert recipes are the ones that really shine in this book. Whether it's luscious Triple-Decker Peanut Butter Cake or Slow-Cooker Chocolate Chip Pudding Cake, the desserts in this book will satisfy even the sweetest tooth. 16-page full color insert not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description
The doctor's back, and now she's curing dinner woes! Anne Byrn, the award-winning food writer and author of The Cake Mix Doctor and Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor does for dinner what she did for dessert-shows how to take common, convenient supermarket ingredients and turn them into meals that taste like they're made from scratch.

Making excellent use of the Crock-Pot and other labor-saving appliances, incorporating hundreds of shortcuts and tips, and cooking from a pantry of prepared foods-whether canned, frozen, jarred, dried, or fresh from the salad bar-the Dinner Doctor shows how to make over 200 fast and kid-friendly appetizers, salads, soups, sides, and main courses. Take, for example, a can of tuna, and think outside the sandwich: Add beans, tomato, and a vinaigrette, and it becomes a Tuscan Tuna and White Bean Salad. Turn that healthy mixture into a pasta salad with the addition of cooked penne. And make a speedy pasta supper by tossing the salad with sautéed zucchini and a generous shower of shredded Parmesan. Or, whip up a Tuna Noodle Casserole like mom used to make-but faster and healthier-by lightening the traditional cream of mushroom soup with lemon juice and lowfat milk and using precooked pasta and frozen peas. There are dozens of ways to doctor deli-counter basics into stunning hors d'oeuvres. Five quick casserole toppers. Five zippy garlic breads and 30 ways to dress up frozen peas and frozen spinach. And the "15s"-15 cold pasta sauces, 15 ways to doctor deli chicken, 15 meals made from summer tomatoes, and more.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company; First Printing edition (October 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761126805
• ISBN-13: 978-0761126805
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6.8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #27,017 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

93 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Doctor Does Dinner!, October 28, 2003

By	Jimmy Donuts (Worcester, MA United States) - See all my reviews

I am a huge fan of Anne's Cake Mix Doctors. The books got me into baking (which I was scared to do) and her recipes not only make cake mix GOOD they WORK. (Anne's Banana Cake in the first book made satisfied my nostalgic longing for a similar Sara Lee cake we used to have for family dinners in the 1970s.) So I was happy to give The Dinner Doctor a try if just for the memories (we had a lot of tuna casserole for those family dinners) but this book is not about nostalgia: It is perfect for the modern family to make some quick, easy, tasty meals using things I easily found in the supermarket. I am stuck right now on the deli roasted chicken recipes (we call them rotiserie chickens in NYC). For my money, these chix are tasty, easy, cheap, and abundant but after awhile they are just... well... roasted chickens. Anne must have at least 20 ideas and recipes for taking these chickens and just doctoring them with some fresh ingredients to make something different and, yes, BETTER. I plan on making more but we have tried and loved the Asian chicken salad and also liked the burrito bake. The brownie drops were great and the simple mushroom galette was perfect for the fall. I've only had the book for a week and already I can tell that at the very least I'll have lots of great ideas for meals to come (and a few new cakes to boot!).

91 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! Much better than the Cake Mix books!, October 30, 2003

By	jeffsdate "jeffsdate" (Boxford, MA USA) - See all my reviews

I had intended to get this out of the library before deciding whether to buy it or not. But I happened upon it at a bookstore and, after perusing it for a few minutes, decided that I just HAD to have it. It is CRAMMED with terrific recipes, ideas and hints, and has become one of my all-time favorites! Almost everything is quick and easy to make, with very precise instructions. Most things are not horrifically fattening, or at least they can be made successfully with low-fat substitutions. Standouts that have become staples in our house include the Nacho Cheese Soup, Mac & Cheese, Corn/Potato Chowder, Dun-buttered muffins, Asian Chicken Salad, Sour cream-cinnamon loaf and John's Summertime Slaw. I would say 98% of the recipes I've tried have worked beautifully.
One thing I like about this book is that there are not a lot of shameless repeats and recyclings, as there are in the cake books. In this book she gives you variations on the recipe in a small box or sidebar, rather than creating a "new" recipe simply by changing the name and one ingredient. And, like the other books, it's very well written in Anne's chatty and unpretentious style. Right on, Anne!

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Prescriptions for Easy, Flavorful, and Fatty Meals, February 4, 2004

By	B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The premise of `the Dinner Doctor' by Anne Byrn is that good meals can be made with less trouble than if they were made from scratch if prepared foods such as frozen ravioli or deli potato salad or canned baked beans are enhanced with extra ingredients such as diced vegetables or bottled salsa.

It is important to recognize that contrary to two different statements on the cover of the book, the author's premise is not about speed. Byrn praises slow cooking as one technique to achieve `doctored' meals with less trouble and includes an entire chapter on the subject. She also makes the point that she is not interested in holding a stopwatch to the reader to beat.

One should be clear that Ms. Byrn is not entirely a throwback to the style of cooking praised in the fifties where virtually all meals were seen as something out of a box or a can. Healthy food with only a reasonable amount of unnecessary additives is her objective.

The author to which she is the most similar is Sandra Lee of `semi-homemade' fame. Both of these writers could be compared to Rachael Ray's style of cooking, but it is important to recognize the differences. While both Byrn and Lee are concerned with `easy', Rachael is mostly concerned with quick. What is so amazing about Rachel's results is that they are achieved with so few prepared ingredients. I think Rachael succeeds so well at what she does because she relies on a certain level of kitchen skills which may be more than whan Ms. Byrn expects. Almost all of the commercial preparations Rachael uses are achieved from packaged skinless and filleted meats, cleaned and cut vegetables, and canned rather than dry beans. Ray achieves her results by modifying classic recipes to use smaller dices and grilling or stovetop braising in place of oven roasting or braising.

The differences between Anne Byrn and Rachael Ray are exactly where I have reservations about Byrn's approach. At the outset, I disagree with her suggestion that one should stock a pantry with a wide variety of dried, bottled, canned, and frozen ingredients. As I have said with every other writer who makes this suggestion, the best approach is simply to get the ingredients for dishes you definitely plan to make in the next week, so in the case you don't like that dish, you don't have ingredients you may not need. I have it on the authority of no less than Madhur Jaffrey that this is a wise thing to do.

I also have the vague suspicion that Ms. Byrn is too concerned about always creating dishes with a great complexity of flavor. I got this idea when I read her suggestion about enhancing deli potato salad with several supplementary ingredients to improve the `bland' salad. Since I happen to like simple potato salads with no more dressing than a bit of oil and garlic and parsley, I was really wondering why she thought a simple potato salad needed any help in the first place. The irony of this is that she was so proud of the story she told about a meeting with Julia Child where Ms. Child created a salad simply by washing and drying some lettuce, salting the lettuce, and tossing the greens with some olive oil, and that was it.

In spite of my reservations, this is a very worthy book for the right audience. Judjing from the number of five star ratings and review, this book has found that audience. It does the excellent service of giving estimates of how long each dish will take to prepare and cook. Also, these recipes are very easy to read and follow. If you are looking for tasty dishes with little trouble to prepare plus some general suggestions on getting in and out of the kitchen quickly, this book will work for you. Just be sure you are aware of the trade offs. This food will, in general, be more expensive, have more additives, and be slightly more fatty (note the high use of grated and processed cheese) than if you worked entirely from scratch. I give the book high marks for giving you a large number of recipes for a very reasonable cost.