Notes about Recipes in this book

• Baked turkey meatballs & slow-roasted tomatoes

  • Cheri on September 16, 2018

    The creamy fresh ricotta really makes this dish. Make LOTS of tomatoes, they are delish.

  • jumali on September 27, 2015

    Delicious, but I'd like a higher ratio of tomatoes. Very easy to put together. I used Italian seasoning instead of herbes de Provence.

• Lemon-herb sole on crispy potato rafts

  • Cheri on October 02, 2015

    Crispy Potato Rafts with fish, excellent! Seasoning augmented with all-purpose no salt seasoning. We really like this & hubby asked for this one to go into the regular rotation. Prep to table takes nearly an hour.

• Orange-ginger salmon with lentils & green beans

  • Cheri on September 16, 2018

    Good, nice change. Surprised how well the lentils & green beans complemented each other.

• Swordfish cacciatore

  • jumali on September 27, 2015

    I've made this several times, and I think it's better with cod than with swordfish.

  • IvyManning on November 30, 2022

    We weren't wild about this, mainly because it tasted too much like wine. Maybe it would have been better without, but doubt we'll revisit it because evenly besides the wine, the other flavors bulldozed the flavor of the fish.

  • TrishaCP on April 17, 2016

    I primarily chose this recipe to use up some produce that was languishing, but it was much better than I expected. A nice satisfying supper with whole wheat couscous and green salad. The timing and temperature was right on for our thick pieces of fish, but the veggies could have done with five minutes less. The same result could have been achieved with a sauté pan but it was nice to only dirty one sheet pan instead.

• Pork tenderloin with squash, apples & onion

  • rivergait on October 20, 2015

    First recipe from this book (actually a riff on the tenderloin from a Fine Cooking magazine article written by Ms. Gilbert). Quite good; takes some time beyond a "slam dunk" because ingredients are added sequentially. Note to Self: check new recipes carefully, as cooking the finely-chopped veggies (e.g., 1/2" cubes of onion) turned into little black smoking globs after a total of 45 minutes at high temp. Pork was underdone, veggies were overdone.

  • TrishaCP on October 25, 2016

    I really enjoyed this recipe. I cooked only one pork tenderloin, but used the full amount of veggies (honeynut instead of butternut squash). My pork was cooked perfectly after 30 minutes, although it didn't really brown. I didn't have any issues with my onions burning either, although I found the instructions for cutting them to be confusing, so I may have had larger chunks than the recipe intended. My squash and apples were well cooked, but not to any detriment. (I'm not sure why the Fine Cooking version used by the previous reviewer specified 45 minutes of cook time, but that would have been way too long based on my experience. There was no sequential cooking either, everything went in at the same time.) I was cooking for someone on a sodium restricted diet, so used Penzeys Mural of Flavor seasoning in place of any salt, which was delicious here.

• Baked Brie & strawberries

  • TrishaCP on April 24, 2022

    This was just bland, and the Brie oozed before the strawberries were roasted.

• Roasted crisp-topped eggplant with chickpeas

  • nicolepellegrini on August 22, 2018

    Like the other commenter, I halved the recipe and used my own homemade tomato sauce. I also added some fresh Jersey tomato slices to the pan to roast up a bit during the second baking stage. It was easy to put together, fresh and a nice alternative to a heavier eggplant parm recipe. Would make again.

  • teandoranges on January 10, 2018

    I halved this and used homemade frozen pizza sauce. It was a fairly easy assembly and very tasty. I love eggplant!

  • AndreaSP on August 07, 2024

    This was an easy and satisfying vegetarian dinner. I halved the recipe and used a baking dish.

• Roasted beet & orange salad with pistachios & feta

  • chawkins on August 04, 2022

    This was delicious, Mine did not look as stunning as it would have been because I used Chioggia beets from the garden rather than regular red beets that would have contrasted well with the orange, pistachio and feta.

• BBQ chicken nachos

  • chawkins on March 09, 2018

    Very good and quick to put together. Four cups of cheese seemed excessive but it was just about right.

• Shrimp & polenta with crispy pancetta tuiles

  • kprovost on March 16, 2016

    Delicious, quick, weeknight meal.

• Herbed goat cheese & zucchini tart

  • mreils on September 27, 2023

    This sounded so good to me, but I was very disappointed with the taste. Maybe it was the fault of my cheeses. I thought the ricotta tasted fine; I didn't taste the goat cheese before using. I may try this again with a different combo of cheese and add my own blend of herbs for more flavor.

• Warm tuna Niçoise salad

  • shamby on April 21, 2017

    This was delicious. It was worth the cost to buy the tuna fillets in jars.

• Classic roast chicken with mustardy potatoes

  • shamby on April 21, 2017

    Cook to 180 degrees not the 145 degrees the recipe says!

  • MidwesternerTT on February 19, 2023

    Flavorful. Excellent detailed instructions. My 3.5 pound chicken was done in an hour at the oven temp listed in the recipe. Measured 145 degrees in the thigh is good, temp continues to rise as chicken rests. Tonight I used 1 tsp dried oregano in place of the thyme, and 1/2 tsp dried rosemary in place of fresh. We really like the cubed onion mixed with the potatoes, so I used very large ones.

• Chicken Jerome

  • MiChal.626 on October 27, 2015

    The sauce didn't thicken for me.

  • MidwesternerTT on July 07, 2016

    Winner for our household. Measurements memos to self: 3 C sliced mushrooms was 8 oz. And only need to reserve marinade from 1 jar of artichoke hearts. Although this took me longer to assemble than I'd estimated, the 15 minutes broiling time listed was perfect. The delicious sauce included herbes de Provence and was good over rice. I was not expecting it to thicken (brief cooking time, nothing in ingredients list as thickening agent). I used her suggested side of rice with slivered almonds and peas.

• Honey-orange shrimp with baby bok choy

  • julesamomof2 on February 06, 2020

    This was a nice weeknight dinner served with brown rice. Timing turned out fine but I can see how a few extra minutes could ruin the dish.

  • ksg518 on November 29, 2018

    This was a disaster. I was puzzled at the directions referring to the sauce for the bok choy thickening since it was only a few tablespoons coating the bok choy. I checked the bok choy with 5 minutes still to go before adding the shrimp, only to find that most of the bok choy was burnt to a crisp. I salvaged what I could (which was only a few pieces) and added the shrimp. The sauce for the shrimp was fine but not worth repeating.

  • teandoranges on January 10, 2018

    This was easy to assemble. The shrimp cooked too long, will have to watch that if I try it again.

• Tilapia tacos with zucchini & fresh mango salsa

  • tarae1204 on April 15, 2022

    This recipe comes together very quickly. It doesn’t have every single topping for fish tacos but it hits all the right notes.

• Italian meat & cheese stromboli

  • ellencooks on September 26, 2020

    We loved this! I generally need to bake an extr 5-10 minutes.

• Chicken Parmesan

  • gillsil on September 07, 2015

    This was so easy and went down very well with my 14 year old son. I hadn't used or even heard of Panko breadcrumbs before but they were on the shelves at my local Waitrose - they certainly retained their crispness much better than normal breadcrumbs. Amount of paprika seemed like a lot, but I went with it and it seemed to work. I used leftover homemade tomato sauce (made by the teenager himself!) instead of the bottled Marinara sauce in the recipe. I'll certainly make this one again.

• Biscuits & bacon

  • teandoranges on January 10, 2018

    My bad for cooking the bacon way too long, and the biscuits too tbh, it was just okay. That said, I may give it another shot.

• Kettle kale chips

  • teandoranges on January 10, 2018

    I've had better success cooking kale chips at 350; I think 300 is too low. Not sure about the 1/2 tsp. sugar, for me it didn't improve them, might try again just to see if the kids will eat them that way.

• Banana cinnamon toast

  • cucinahalcon on November 21, 2018

    Couldn't caramelize the banana without burning the toast.

• Caesar salad garlic bread

  • coldcutcorner on March 09, 2023

    Butter! Cheese! Caesar dressing! Unhealthy! Delicious!

• Salted rosemary toffee crunch

  • kshell on December 01, 2023

    Delicious! Easy. Somewhat difficult to break apart without some cracker layer separating from the chocolate. I bought the Carr brand crackers, and their "new look same taste!" is now round. Harder to shingle in a mostly single layer. They used to be octagons. I will look for the other suggested brand, I think it's rectangular.