Simpler the Better or My French Kitchen

Simpler the Better: Sensational One-Dish Meals

Author: Leslie Revsin

Fast, delightful meals for every day or special occasions

Busy schedules and family demands can make it challenging to create quick, easy–and, at the same time, delicious–meals at home. This one-pot meal cookbook, which features over 125 short, scrumptious recipes, is all about convenience, taste, and presentation with minimum effort and maximum flavor. Leslie Revsin includes elegant yet unfussy dishes–Spaghetti with Pesto and Grape Tomatoes; Spanish Chicken and Garbanzo Stew; Chicken, Basil, and Peanut Stir-Fry; Roast Jerk Pork with Yams and Watercress; Sliced Steak, Baby Spinach, and Roquefort Salad; and Quick Ham Cassoulet, to name a few–that can be made from readily available supermarket ingredients and are simple in terms of the number of ingredients (no more than ten), number of steps (no more than three), and preparation time. And like every other book in The Simpler The Better series, One-Pot Meals includes quick tips, variations, and clever ideas for serving and dressing up dishes.

Go to: California Dish or Fish on a First Name Basis

My French Kitchen: A Book of 180 Treasured Recipes

Author: Joanne Harris

It's not surprising that Joanne Harris's novels -- Chocolat, Blackberry Wine, and Five Quarters of the Orange -- celebrate the pleasure and magic of food, since her fondest childhood memories are of making pancakes with her great-grandmother Mémée, picking blackberries with her grandfather in Yorkshire, and exploring the early morning markets of Noirmoutier. Now, with coauthor Fran Warde, Harris shares her treasured collection of family recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation in this illustrated cookbook.

Harris encourages cooks to engage all their senses when cooking -- look at what you're cooking, smell the ingredients, mix them with your fingers, and enjoy their sounds and textures. Cooking, she reminds us, is about as close to magic as modern society allows: to take a handful of simple, fresh ingredients and turn them into something wonderful, otherworldly.

The 120 recipes include French classics such as Onion Soup and Onion Tart, Coq au Vin, and Crème Brûlée, as well as family favorites like Anouchka's Chile Garlic Bread, great-aunt Simone's Marinated Tuna, and great-aunt Marinette's Slow Fudge Sauce. And, of course, there's an entire chapter devoted to chocolate -- cakes, meringues, and spiced hot chocolate.

My French Kitchen, a remarkable collaboration between Joanne Harris, a writer who loves food, and Fran Warde, a former chef who loves to write about food, belongs in your kitchen.