Simple Cooking for Beginners
By T.C. Stephan
Cool Eatz Publishing, $17.95, 168 pages
For a simple cookbook College Cooks by T.C. Stephan is remarkably good. His idea was simple cooking with minimal ingredients on low budget, spending little kitchen time yet with good flavor. Besides the author, five more college cooks contributed to the daily meals. Recipe ingredients are readily available at any market and many recipes have less than six item. Some, like baked potatoes and corn-on-the-cob, are single item recipes. The cookbook is basic starting with a nice discussion on food handling, kitchen essential, terminology, meat buying guide and a list of pantry and refrigerator items. These are followed by some eighty-five recipes from breakfast to dessert but also salad dressings, dips and spreads, sauces and marinades.
“With these easy-to-read lists and simple recipes, you too can be as successful at cooking for yourself on a budget as we have been.”
The book may have been written for college students but any beginner cook (even without a high-school degree) would gain having it on the cookbook shelf. The discussions are simple but clear, writing is good, and the recipes are varied. Layout is excellent with one recipe per page. But you must be aware that simple recipes with few ingredients sacrifice full flavor. Sixteen pages of thirty-two nice food photos are inbound in the center. The index is very good.
Reviewed by George Erdosh
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