FDL Reads Special Edition! A message from Dawn Dickey, Reference Assistant:
It’s too hot to cook, so I’ve been checking out cookbooks. I mostly prefer cookbooks that have nutrition information for each recipe, plenty of photos, and ingredients that are relatively easy to find.-Dawn Dickey, Reference Assistant
Cooking Light Big Book of Salads
Shaun Chavis, ed. 288 pp.
The editors of Cooking Light know how to publish recipes that catch the eye of cooks and consumers. This well-rounded cookbook includes
- Pictures with every salad recipe + nutritional analysis of each salad
- Ingredient guides; “100 Calorie Salad Boosters” (like 1 Tablespoon crunchy Chinese noodles); and “Shout-out” sections for various ingredients, like couscous, mangoes, or artichokes
- Try: Soba noodles with chicken and vegetables p. 123; Greek chicken and barley salad, p. 155
Three Words that Describe this Book: colorful, helpful, mouth-watering
Give this a try if you like to try easy-to-make recipes that will likely please your palate!
Rating: 5/5 – top notch!!
Tossed: 200 Fast, Fresh, and Fabulous Salads
by Jane Lawson. 432 pp.
This cookbook has an intriguing title, but for me, the intrigue stopped there. I think the cookbook tries to be trendy but falls short on practicality. For example, the “poolside” section has a recipe for “marinated baby octopus salad,” not something I’m going to take to the pool any time soon – ditto for recipes asking for quail eggs and smoked trout. Not all the recipes have photos, and the text, interspersed with extra-large words, is annoying. And there is no nutrition information for the recipes – an essential for me. Interesting recipes to try: chicken with mixed rice, golden raisins, and cashews (p. 254) or Thai-style chicken salad (p. 329).
Three Words that Describe this Book: trendy suburban eats
Give this a try if you don’t mind slogging through uninspiring text/font to find some interesting recipes.
Rating: 3 out of 5 because of the annoying things & lack of nutrition information
Salad as a Meal: Healthy Main-Dish Salads for Every Season
by Patricia Wells. 360 pp.
The title of this book is a bit misleading. The author writes: “In my own personal definition, a salad as a meal does not need to include lettuce or greens; it can simply be a light and refreshing salad-related entity.” This runs counter to my own definition of “salad” and means that the cookbook contains many types of main dishes. The recipes reflect the author’s location in southern France. For a Midwesterner in the U.S., this poses a challenge in locating ingredients such as fresh mackerel or mussels or buffalo-milk ricotta cheese. There is no nutrition information, and, although there are photos, the photos are often artful garden photos and not photos of the actual dishes. Try: Provence on a Plate (p.92).
Three Words that Describe this Book: fresh, flavorful, unique
Give this a try if you like … cooking with a French flair, especially seafood
Rating: 3 out of 5 for interesting recipes but lacking in practicality