Semi-Homemade Cooking: Quick, Marvelous Meals and Nothing is Made from scratch (Paperback)

~ (Author), Wolfgang Puck (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Does the thought of cooking from scratch make you panic? Do you stand in front of your supermarket's canned vegetables display frozen with indecision? Is your fridge filled with takeout containers, and your oven used for storage? If you answered these questions with an emphatic "Yes," Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade Cooking might be the cookbook for you.

There are plenty of excellent quick-and-easy cookbooks out there, but this book feels like a cross between a giant advertisement and one of those free recipe books you get with mail-in proofs of purchase. Every ingredient that can possibly be branded is labeled as such. Lee's Salad Chinois is made with Swanson premium chunk chicken breast, Kikkoman soy sauce, McCormick ground ginger, Hellman's or Best Foods mayonnaise, La Choy chow mein noodles, Fresh Express prepared green salad, Chun King chow mein vegetables, and Dole mandarin orange segments. Gnocchi Dippers are whipped up with Alessi gnocchi, Bertolli olive oil, and, believe it or not, Kraft Velveeta cheese. The Malibu Rum Cake includes Malibu Rum, Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe yellow cake mix, and Jell-O vanilla instant pudding. And not only does Lee dictate brand names, she chimes in with advice on music and wine selections, as well. One can only hope that Wolfgang Puck wrote the introduction to this book without ever seeing it. --Leora Y. Bloom

From Publishers Weekly

Replete with high-gloss, high-glam food photography, Lee's debut looks like a sophisticated cookbook, but closer inspection reveals that most recipes offer little a neophyte couldn't figure out for himself. A professional "lifestylist," Lee includes recipes such as a Golden Mushroom Soup that's simply a gussied-up can of Campbell's, and a Kahlua Tiramisu that demands three containers of refrigerated pudding. Harried home cooks might appreciate her shortcuts on the nights that authentically homemade meals are strategically impossible, but some will take issue with her use of brand names for virtually everything but the cooking water-a decision that, unfortunately, makes the book read as though it were underwritten by Nabisco, Kraft and Swanson. Pumpkin Cinnamon Pancakes, for example, call for Aunt Jemima pancake mix, and the Tropical Salmon necessitates French's mustard and Sunsweet Fruitlings. Lee even extends to animals the prospect of semi-homemade dishes: the chapter on pet foods includes a recipe for Kitty Tuna Cakes, wherein the intrepid cat-lover is instructed to fry Purina Pet Chow and StarKist tuna into patties. With a eye towards crafting the whole dining experience, Lee also suggests wine and music for some of her creations: pork kabobs, for instance, call for Hugel Gentil (an Alsatian white) and Celine Dion. Television appearances and Lee's sunny persona will help sales, but purists should look elsewhere for quick recipes.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Miramax; 1st Pbk edition (October 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140135923X
• ISBN-13: 978-1401359232
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #378,549 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Semi- additive Cooking, November 24, 2002

By A Customer

Very disappointing The recipes are filled with unhealthy ingredients .The concept is great but the nutritional benefits are not there-- so it isnt a quick fix for me.
Hard to imagine Wolfgang endorsing such a book

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not fancy, just easy and delicious!, January 30, 2006

By	Dragon Lady "Claire" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Cooking (Paperback)

I have to take issue with those reviewers who have attacked this book so passionately! True, there are "gourmet" cooks who wouldn't dream of adding any prepared foods to their recipes; they obviously have the time and energy to spend hours in the kitchen every day. However, I don't understand why a "gourmet" cook would even consider buying a book entitled "Semi-Homemade" anything!

This book was obviously written for people like me, who no longer have the time or energy to spend all day in the kitchen, and "Semi-Homemade Cooking" has been the answer to my prayers! I probably own a hundred cookbooks, most of them gathering dust on a bookshelf in the living room. I've been cooking for forty years, and only a few cookbooks have stood the test of time well enough to remain on my kitchen counter; this is the newest one to make the grade.

No, I do not consider myself a "gourmet" cook. I used to make complicated, time-consuming dishes that took hours and hours, but, frankly, many of them weren't any better than my favorite quick & easy recipes! And at 63, I want recipes that I can put together quickly and that everyone will enjoy. I am having a great time trying one recipe after another from this cookbook because none of them have taken a lot of time, and every single one has been delicious! Try Country Biscuits and Gravy, for example; my husband asks for it every Sunday. And Salad Chinois (Chinese Chicken Salad) is superb!

Bottom line: This is not a book for food snobs! This is a book for people who want delicious meals they can prepare themselves with a minimum of fuss. Try it, you'll love it! Many thanks to Sandra Lee -- I'm ordering "Semi-Homemade II".

80 of 101 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars She can't cook!, November 1, 2005

By	Eugene J. Gemperline - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Cooking (Paperback)

This woman cannot cook. It's a travesty that she has her own show on the Food Network with the likes of Mario Batalli and Alton Brown. Okay, here's one of her brilliant ideas.

1) Pumpkin Pie Petit-fours: Bake your own crust in these small tins, then buy a WHOLE PUMPKIN PIE, scoop out the filling, and pipe it into the new crusts. Why not eat the damn pumpkin pie that you just bought!? She did the same thing with a cheesecake. She ruined a perfectly good cheescake just so she could pipe the filling onto her petit-fours crusts.

Doesn't that seem a little backwards to you? If you were to make a "semi-homemade" petit-fours tray, don't you think you'd want to just make the filling yourself, and then use storebought crusts?

Here's another great idea of hers.

A vanilla wafer, topped with a slice of banana, with a dollop of store-bought banana pudding on top. Voila, instant crap! She really has mad skillz, doesn't she? Mad culinary skillz. I could've done this when I was four.

I swear, the lady can't even make hamburger helper.

Semi-homemade my butt. More like barely-homemade. More like "I bought everything pre-made and then ARRANGED it to look nice." That's not cooking, that's lying.

And her "table-scapes" are horrible.