Too rushed to cook?
Too many of your recipes have too many
ingredients?
"The 2 Ingredient Cook Book"
eliminates the
excuses and lets you, too, whip up tasty dishes without all that tumult
THOUGHTS of dinner are often accompanied by determination and the best intentions: "I'm going to rush home and cook tonight." "If I marinate this chicken/soak these beans tonight, it'll/they'll be ready to use tomorrow."
Then reality sets in. You're delayed at the office. You're stuck in traffic. You're missing ingredients and have to make an extra trip to the grocers. You're too weary after finishing one dinner to even think about getting a head start on tomorrow's.
Well, cookbook author Adeline Rosemire has the solution, dinners you can throw together quickly with time to spare.
Right. You've heard that one before. "Quick" recipes with 18 ingredients or multi-tiered recipes that call for making stock, marinades or sauces before you even lay hands on the main ingredients.
There are no such woes with Rosemire's cookbook. It's been said that 10 ingredients are the most people want to see in their recipes, and Rosemire has other cookbook authors beat in this department.
How low does she go? Does a list of six ingredients sound more palatable to you? How about four? Rosemire's magic number is two, or at most, three.
"The 2 Ingredient Cook Book" (Meridian Publishing, Inc.) offers 275 recipes for breakfast through dinner, with everything from appetizers to desserts.
To be sure, cooking the two-ingredient way probably won't satisfy anyone's gourmet sensibilities. But if you've ever given ground beef a lift with Hamburger Helper or some onion soup mix, you were already on to Rosemire's philosophy.
Many of the recipes involve commercial soup or powder mixes, bottled sauces and dressings. Entrees might take as little as rubbing a little prepared pesto on salmon, or basting a turkey breast with barbecue sauce.
Desserts are simple as well, involving melting ice cream into a prepared crust to make a Mississippi Mud Pie, for instance.
Just because only two ingredients are listed, doesn't mean one can't embellish. At a minimum, a recipe for "Easiest Pork Roast" topped with sauerkraut could be enhanced with a dash of salt and pepper. After that, one might add a sprinkling of garlic and rosemary or fennel for even richer flavor.
And if you've spent time on one of those impressive main courses from another cookbook, supplementing your work with side dishes and appetizers from Rosemire's book will impress your guests all the more. Then you can really milk the "slaved-for-hours" routine.
At the very minimum, the simple recipes should work in luring more would-be cooks into the kitchen. But noncooks beware. This book marks your commitment to the kitchen. It's a now-or-never deal because cooking really can't get much easier than this.
To order the cookbook, call 1-800-270-2116 or write to Meridian Publishing, 2431 Tulip Road, San Jose, CA 95128. The cost is $9.95 plus $3 for shipping and handling.
Pour one can of sauerkraut into a 9-by-13-inch roasting pan. Place roast on top. Pour another can of sauerkraut over roast. Rinse cans with a splash of water; pour water over the roast.
Cover and cook at 325 to 350 degrees for about 3 hours, or until the roast is tender. Serve with mashed potatoes and rye bread.
Serves 6.