Review: Recipes Made with Love
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 7, 2012
Grandmothers have had many years to perfect their cooking skills and their cooking is normally very memorable. In this book you will find sweet and savory recipes that are extremely good.The first recipe I tried was the "Pot Roast Supreme." It is slow cooked with herbs and garlic and is absolutely delicious. The only thing I did differently was I used way less salt than the recipe called for and omitted the soy sauce. My advice is to add salt at the end (to the gravy) as needed to taste. I also left out the optional red wine and used shallots instead of yellow onions. Instead of using beef stock I also used water plus beef base which I think gives more flavor. Beef base is easy to find and is like a stock paste.The Biscuit recipe in this book is also excellent and I served the biscuits with the roast. The only thing I'd caution you about when making the roast is to wear oven mitts when removing the lid during cooking. There is a lot of steam and you don't want to burn yourself. Also if you are new to making pot roast you may have to adjust the cooking temperature a bit to get the right conditions. You want the stock just to simmer for two hours. For the first half hour I was constantly turning the temperature up and down and finally settled on the right heat level which was #3 on my stove top.If you have been looking for a recipe for "Chicken Pot Pie," this book has an excellent one. It is easy to make since you buy a frozen pie crust. You could also use puff pastry. The pie is filled with boiled chicken breast, carrots, peas and onions in just the right amounts. I modified the recipe slightly to get a more creamy texture. Instead of using 2/3 cup milk, I used 1/3 cup fat-free milk and 1/3 cup whipping cream. I also used water in place of the chicken broth and added 3 teaspoons of chicken base. The only issue I had to deal with in this recipe was that there was too much filling for the pie shell I bought. I don't know if the author has a larger pie shell but I used deep dish and it still wasn't big enough. So I froze whatever didn't fit and will eat it over rice later. Also the recipe says to cook the pie for 35 minutes but I took it out at 30 minutes and would only cook it for 25 next time. So anywhere past 25 minutes watch carefully to see if it is done.The third recipe I tried was the "Traditional Lasagna." I followed the recipe very closely only leaving out the sugar and adding one egg,  cup parmesan cheese, 1 teaspoon dried parsley and  teaspoon seasoning salt to the ricotta cheese. This made it much easier to spread over the meat mixture. The meat mixture only took one hour to cook instead of 1 . I also don't know how the author fits four lasagna noodles across a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. I found it easier to make four layers of three noodles each. So maybe start with three noodles, top with meat sauce and cheese mixture - do this two more times then top with noodles, more meat sauce and mozzarella and parmesan on top. So I divided the meat into fourths and the cheese mixture into thirds. It looked great when I took it out of the oven and it smelled delicious and garlicky. I let it sit for 10 minutes before serving. This lasagna was so good I had two pieces!This book is filled with recipes your family will love. I've been cooking for 37 years so understood all the cooking techniques in this book. The instructions for most of the recipes are not complicated. If you are a new cook and want to figure out some of the techniques like how to flute a pie crust you can look on youtube for more instructions. Some of the other recipes I'll eventually try include:Spicy Pumpkin Pie - A recipe you can only use when pumpkins are in season since it uses fresh pumpkin.Death by Chocolate Dessert - I need to figure out where to get English toffee barsBrown Sugar Baked Beans - good for the summerIf you are serious about cooking then I can recommend this to you. The recipes do take a bit of extra time to make and you can't rush perfection. The reasons these recipes will taste so good is because you will be adding lots of love to your cooking. I suggest finding two things to do at once like maybe making cookie dough while you are waiting for the lasagna meat sauce to cook. That way you are not going to feel like you have to wait around for things to cook.Also, the table of contents works great.  I was able to quickly access any recipe of my choosing.~The Rebecca Review