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Rating: 
Summary: My new favorite cookbook!
Review: Growing up with cookbooks like Fannie Farmer and the Joy of Cooking, I've often been tempted by recipes but daunted by the amount of foreknowledge that these books expect from me. When I discovered "Storebought to Homemade," I was almost euphoric. Dozens of simple, one-bowl recipes that my guests and family absolutely love. The Baked Ziti is one of our favorites...and so easy. I'm also pleased that she lists ingredients in their "storebought" form: a container of this, a jar of that...no more messing with measurement conversions and leftovers! Another fun aspect of this cookbook is the section on saving time with the pre-kitchen steps. It had never occurred to me to raid the salad bar at my local Whole Foods Market for pre-prepped veggies, but it makes life so much easier. No more produce going bad in my fridge because I didn't need the entire bag, just a few carrots or celery pieces. As the be-speckled pages of my copy show, this is my new favorite cookbook. It's compact (compared to the JoC!), easy to follow, with a good selection of "comfort food" and fun novelty dishes. Emyl's explanation of how she takes a standard magazine recipe and transforms it into a storebought quickie has inspired me to be more creative in my own kitchen. I really can't say enough good things about this book. It's the best cookbook I've found for college students, newlyweds, men, or anybody who doesn't feel like spending his or her life chopping basil but who wants a decent meal.
Rating:
Summary: Cooking without Fear
Review: I know one of the women who contributed to this cookbook. Gaenell Stegall of Martinsville, Va., gave Jenkins her recipe for Chinese Chews and Lazy Woman's Peach Cobbler. In fact, Jenkins solicited recipes from cooks in Southside Virginia. Her book, though, reads as if Jenkins created all the recipes herself and then was just "reminded" about the dishes by the cooks listed in the book. The recipes are good and begin with store-bought ingredients, but be aware that Jenkins borrowed them from cooks in southern Virginia. But her book doesn't really give them the credit they deserve. This cookbook is basically a glorified version of a church or organizational cookbook, which you could get in your own community at a lower price.
Rating: 
Summary: Great "Convenience Cookbook"
Review: I LOVE this book. Just recieved it for christmas. It is full of simple recipes that convert common grocery store food to more homey treats. Further, there are alot of time saving tips. All in all a really good book for people who like to cook but don't have time to complete complex recipes on a regular basis.
Rating:
Summary: Great "Convenience Cookbook"
Review: I LOVE this book. Just recieved it for christmas. It is full of simple recipes that convert common grocery store food to more homey treats. Further, there are alot of time saving tips. All in all a really good book for people who like to cook but don't have time to complete complex recipes on a regular basis.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply Spam
Review: This is a goulash of a cookbook, consisting of beef, potatoes, grapes, kumquats and an old boot found by the side of the road. Emyl Jenkins, whose previous experience with cooking appear to be derived from books on antiques, celebrating Christmas and gracious living, seems to be setting herself up as a Southern-fried Martha Stewart. But "From Storebought to Homemade" sometimes promises one thing and delivers another. It offers "fabulous food in minutes," but contains recipes that take an hour to cook. It promises cooking with convenience foods, but there are recipes that contain none. What's most bizarre are Jenkins' wide-ranging assumptions about what we-all -- yes, 30 years in the South has affected my speech patterns -- are doing in our kitchens. "Somewhere along the way," she writes, "we seem to have forgotten that it's okay to use store-bought products to cook up delicious meals." Which, I guess, explains all those untouched frozen dinners icing over in the freezer cases. Somewhere, Jenkins must have decided that we grocery shop by putting on a blindfold. "Everyone is so anxious to cook everything from scratch that we've turned out a generation of frustrated cooks." Reading this, I realized nothing less than a Messianic vision: a whole generation of men and women, unhappily chopping cilantro, basting London broil and rolling out our own pasta in abject misery. "Cooks of the world unite!" Jenkins shouts. "You have nothing to lose but your Calphalon chains!" Her solution? Convenience foods. With the zeal of a convert, she offers nothing less than a three-page list of what you can find on the shelves if you'd only open your eyes: create-a-meals, ready-to-serve sauces, packets of seasonings. Why, she writes, there's even Welch's grape juice, available "preblended." She leads us over to the produce aisle to show us salad fixings, pre-washed, pre-chopped and already bagged. She suggests that we buy our mashed potatoes already cooked, and raid the salad bar for chopped celery. While her ideas are sound, it surely must have occurred to participants in life's rat race to buy that slab of frozen lasagna, a bag of chopped lettuce and a box of ice cream to make a meal. As for the recipes, there are 200 of them, most of them printed one to a page, with plenty of room for spot illustrations and bits of trivia and suggestions. Most of them seem to be culled from the standard cookbooks, the Junior League productions, or from Emyl's friends. It's a mixed bag: For every extensive recipe for a Brunswick Stew, there's a page devoted to Frozen Oranges, Flan (buy it ready made, serve with berries and whipped cream), and grits. Name-dropping abounds, whether the author's friends, writers or celebrities. She even titles one recipe "Lynda Bird Johnson Robb's Hot Spinach Casserole." The bragging could be excused if they were followed with entertaining anecdotes, but it mostly consists of stories puffing the savoriness or ease of preparation of the recipes. Relax, Emyl, if they're reading this far, you've already made the sale. If you're looking for fast and easy recipes, Peg Bracken's "The Complete I Hate to Cook Book," is cheaper, contains far more recipes and is funny as well. Compared to that classic, "From Storebought to Homemade" is mostly filler.
Rating:
Summary: What a Great Book!!...
Review: This is one cookbook no kitchen should be without! Not only are the recipes fantastic (and EASY), but Emyl makes them such fun just to read! It's as if she is right there beside you giving advice as you go along with the preparations.
If you haven't gotten around to getting this book, do it ASAP!!
You won't regret it.
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