The Weekend Chef : 192 Smart Recipes for Relaxed Cooking Ahead

Rating:
Summary: Good Recipes for Cooking Ahead. Limited Variety
Review: Barbara Witt's new book gives you recipes which are selected to cook on weekend days in order that they may be frozen or refrigerated and heated up on working weekdays. This intends to return to the enjoyment of cooking and to return to flavor which is lost when one cooks quick meals during the week in what seems to be a direct reference to the Rachael Ray style of fast cuisine.

The 192 cooking ahead recipes are divided into:

Soups: 18, including recipes for chicken, beef, and vegetable broth.
Braises: 13, slow cooking pot roast style dishes and stews
Ground Meat and Stuffings: 21, meatloaves, meatballs, sausages, and croquettes
Side Dishes: 18, Salads, slaws, rice, beans, and pasta
Condiments, salsas, and sauces: 34, plus pickles, confits, chutneys, and dressings
Sweets and treats: 18, cookies, muffins, jams, pies, cakes, and nuts

There are 122 in the chapter tables of contents. The remaining 70 are variations on these recipes. Counting braises and ground meats, this represents 34 main dishes, almost all of which are variations on the stew and the meatball or sausage. This is the flip side of the 30 Minute Meal cuisine which focuses on saute, grill, and broil, although Ms. Ray does include some quick braises and roastings, especially for roast vegetables.

I believe it's fair to say that Ms. Witt's cuisine presented in this book is actually more limited than Rachael Ray's style of cooking, as it seems focused primarily on two types of cooking. As Barbara Witt is presenting her recipes as an alternative to Rachael Ray's style of cooking, I have to say I believe Ray's approach has more variety in it's tastes, as it includes a much broader range of ingredients and techniques. Ms. Witt has one seafood dish in her 34 main dishes. Thus, I believe Ms. Witt's contention of greater flavor may be unfounded.

I'm surprised, in fact, that she did not include the truly classic make ahead dish, southern fried chicken. I'm also surprised that the didn't include more casseroles and cooking in paper techniques.

Another issue Ms. Witt takes with the fast cooking approach is that it robs one of the satisfaction of cooking, as you are not doing it in a hurry. The author even recommends that one make their own broths. I have no argument with this suggestion. My contention is that if you are willing to go that far, other books such as the 'Joy of Cooking' or 'James Beard's American Cookery' may be a better all around source of recipes which do not require great skill, exotic ingredients, or lots of time. If you are really looking for recipes which can occupy your mind and broaden your culinary horizons, try Julia Child, Paula Wolfert, or Diana Kennedy.

In the recipes, I would across the board replace fresh tomatoes or canned chopped tomatoes with canned whole plum tomatoes. This simplifies your prep time and simplifies your pantry. I also detect several places where the recipes could be more healthy by replacing butter with olive oil. I have no argument with butter. I use far too much as it is. I'm just suggesting that a more uniformly olive oil regimen has a lot going for it.

Whenever I review a book, I am compelled to disagree with the chapter of recommendations on what to keep in the pantry. My experience is that whenever I buy an ingredient without a specific recipe planned for preparation in the next few days, that ingredient sits on my shelf until it expires. The best approach is to plan one's cooking for the week, do your big Saturday shopping trip and get all the ingredients (except for fresh fish and meats) you need for the week. In a very short time, you will have a very respectable pantry built up. Just buy double on durable items such as beans, pasta, and canned goods. I would especially stay away from things like Beau Monde seasoning, Garam masala, and curry powder. If you are willing to make broths, then you will double your pleasure by making your own spice mixtures. Also avoid ground cloves, coriander, cumin, white pepper, and nutmeg. I buy ground cinnamon only because I bake a lot and turn over a bottle of cinnamon in a month. Once you grind your own nutmeg, you will never go back to preground. I promise.

This is a good book. The recipes will give you good results. My main argument with it is that it does not deliver on it's main promise of being an improvement over quick cooking and that by concentrating on cook ahead, it limits the variety of dishes available to you.

Rating:
Summary: Both Practical and Adventurous
Review: This fine instructional guide for the moderately experienced cook is only the latest of a long series of useful and delightfully written cookbooks by Ms. Witt, a former Washington D.C. restauranteur, who is certainly one of America's most eclectic and under-appreciated cooks. Her original and easy-to-follow recipes span a vast range of cuisines, from the Americas and the West Indies, through the Middle East, to India and Asia. There is hardly a cooking tradition left unexplored here, and Ms. Witt has a knack for making even the most unfamiliar recipes seem eminently approachable. As most cooks know, preparation is half the battle, and she drives the point home by stressing the importance of a well-stocked pantry, something few other cookbook writers are willing to do, at least in this reviewer's experience. A Middle Eastern recipe such as Minted Couscous with Medjool Dates and Preserved Lemon, for example, is nicely adapted for the American cook, and seems less intimidating when we realize how simple it is to preserve lemons, the simple do-ahead recipe of which is included under the Condiments, Salsas and Sauces section of the book. A good cookbook should be equally a how-to guide and an anthology of delicious recipes, and with her inventive mind, vast experience and lively prose style that never takes the reader's knowledge for granted, Barbara Witt more than fills the bill. This is a cookbook for one's permanent library.