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Home > The Kitchen > Cookbooks 
Recommended ReadingMore than just cookbooks, this list can help you make really tasty meals quickly and easily.
Available directly from
EatingWell.com.
Click on Bookstore.
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Top Secret Recipes: Creating Kitchen Clones of America's Favorite Brand-Name Foods
by Todd Wilbur
Paperback Todd
Wilbur has baked, boiled, digested, fried, and tested--all in the name of duplicating some of America's favorite convenience
foods. He now shares 41 of these naughty but nice gastronomical delights in Top Secret Recipes. If you've ever craved a
McDonald's Big Mac at 3:00 A.M. on a Sunday morning, then Wilbur has just the recipe for satisfying your junk-food desires.
Even better, no cordon-bleu expertise is needed for this particular clone--just simple frying and chopping skills! Simplicity
is the key to all of Wilbur's replicated recipes--all are composed of rudimentary ingredients available at any store, needing
only minimal preparation. These recipes are fun and fast--two dozen Snickers Bars in less than 10 minutes (plus cooling time),
a delicious Orange Julius in less than 60 seconds (that's considerably quicker than waiting in line for the real thing)! These
culinary creations are organized in alphabetical order by manufacturer or restaurant, and illustrated with simple pencil
drawings. Top Secret Recipes is a chatty and informative guide to recreating the burgers, candy bars, and cookies of your
strip-mall dreams.
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Top Secret Restaurant Recipes: Creating Kitchen
Clones from America's Favorite Restaurant Chains by Todd Wilbur
Long before scientists in Scotland cloned Dolly the sheep, Todd Wilbur was hard at work replicating recipes from some of America's favorite restaurant chains. Armed with Ziploc bags for transporting leftovers and plenty of questions for his servers, Wilbur has combined the skills of a private eye and a research scientist to devise the tasty clones included in Top Secret Restaurant Recipes. Wilbur honed his technique on convenience food, creating exact duplicates of everything from a Big Mac to a Twinkie; in this book, however, he sets his sights on slightly more sophisticated fare. Within these pages you'll find sure-fire recipes for such chain favorites as Hard Rock Cafe's Famous Baby Rock Watermelon Ribs, Cheese Blintzes from the International House of Pancakes, and The Olive Garden's Hot Artichoke-Spinach Dip. Denny's, Shoney's, The Cheesecake Factory, and Pizza Hut are just a few of the many chain restaurants from which popular menu items have been "cloned." So the next time you have a hankering for Tony Roma's World Famous Ribs or a slice of Red Robin's Mountain High Mud Pie, don't bother to go out--instead, eat in with Top Secret Restaurant Recipes.
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How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food by Mark Bittman,
Alan Witschonke
Mark Bittman, award-winning author of such fundamental books as Fish and Leafy Greens and food columnist for the New York Times ("The Minimalist"), has turned in what has to be the weightiest tome of the year. There are more than 900 pages in this book--over 1,500 recipes! This isn't just the big top of cookbooks: it's the entire three-ring circus. This isn't just how to cook everything: it's how to cook everything you have ever wanted to have in your mouth. And then some.
Bittman starts with Roasted Buttered Nuts and Real Buttered Popcorn, and moves right along, section by section, from the likes of Black Bean Soup (eight different ways), to Beet and Fennel Salad, to Mussels (Portuguese-style over Pasta), to Cream Scones--and he hasn't even reached seafood, poultry, meat, or vegetables yet, let alone desserts. There are 23 sections in this cookbook that reflect directly on the how-to of cooking, be that equipment, technique, or recipe.
Every inch of the way the reader finds Bittman's calm, helpful, encouraging voice. "Anyone can cook," he says at the beginning, "and most everyone should." More than a few college kids are going to head off to their first apartments with Bittman's book under arm. More than a few marriages will benefit with this book on the shelf. And anyone who loves cooking and the sound of a great food voice is going to enjoy letting this book fall open where it may. No matter what the page, it's bound to be a tasty and rewarding experience.
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America's Best Slow Cooker Recipes by Donna-Marie Pye
Paperback
Imagine coming home from a long, tiring work day only to find a delicious aromatic stew waiting for you. Or enjoying a
day on the slopes and arriving to find mulled red wine already prepared and simply waiting to be poured and savored. By
using a timesaving slow cooker, you can have a hot meal or warm drink ready and waiting when you are, without any fuss. Even in this age of microwave ovens, slow cookers have enjoyed a huge increase in popularity. By simmering food at a constant
low temperature, slow cookers create food that enjoys a flavor and texture not normally found in stovetop or oven cooking.
Ingredients need only be prepared in advance, then tossed into a slow cooker and the results are an easily prepared but
satisfying meal. "America's Best Slow Cooker Recipes" features over 125 newly developed and tested recipes. Banish the winter blahs by
making 'Beef Goulash Soup with Red Wine' or 'Comfy Maple Baked Beans.' Busy families will enjoy the 'Chicken and Broccoli
Casserole' or 'All Day Mac & Cheese.' When entertaining dazzle your guests with a 'Hot Crab, Artichoke & Jalapeno
Dip' followed by a tantalizing 'Pork Roast with Peach Chutney.' Sensational recipes for desserts such as 'Chocolate Chip
Peanut Butter Cake' and 'Caramel Peaches' can also be created in a slow cooker. These are recipes for today's tastes and
today's homes. As well as including fabulous recipes, "America's Best Slow Cooker Recipes" contains useful information on the type
of slow cookers available, food safety, tips for success, adapting favorite recipes, and leftover hints. Recipes for
accompanying delicious side dishes are also included.
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How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and
Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart by Pam Anderson
Learn what makes a recipe tick, says "How to Cook Without a Book" author Pam Anderson, and you'll serve great food fast. Recognizing that most cooks feel challenged in the face of daily meal making, Anderson provides a game plan: prepare dishes based on available ingredients and simple cooking techniques you've mastered--not on recipes you've got to look up and ingredients you'll need to shop for--and you maximize the potential of kitchen ease.
Cooks looking for a way to address the what-will-we-have-tonight quandary definitively, or those who feel they lack the energy or know-how to tackle cooking every night, should find the book essential. In chapters such as "Simple Stir-Frys" or "Weeknight Ravioli and Lasagna," Anderson presents a particular cooking procedure, provides a recipe that embodies it in its basic form (the protein-adaptable Weeknight Stir-Fry, for example), then offers simple variations (such as Stir-Fried Chicken with Asparagus and Mushrooms or Stir-Fried Shrimp with Pepper and Scallions).
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Chapters conclude with an at-a-glance review of key technique points. Following Anderson's tips and innovations, lasagna, for example, becomes a weeknight option (use egg-roll wrappers for the pasta, Anderson advises, and forgo the baking); she also shows how, once mastered, her Big Fat Omelet, which serves four, can become the basis for a wide range of lunch and dinner entrées. With a comprehensive pantry section and a dessert chapter that puts frozen puff pastry to work in imaginative ways, the book is a trove of information that cooks can use and depend on.
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