Saturday, November 21, 2015

Michael Symon's 5 in 5 for Every Season: 165 Quick Dinners, Sides, Holiday Dishes, and More

I received this book from Blogging for Books for free in exchange for my honest review. Michael Symon is one of the hosts of ABC's The Chew, a show I enjoy watching if I'm home during the day.  The show is a fun approach to cooking, so I thought this would be a great addition to my cookbook library.  Plus who wouldn't love the concept of 5 in 5?  5 in 5 is based on a speed cooking segment that Michael does on the show.  5 ingredients = a prepared dish in 5 minutes.  Sign me up!

Michael Symon's 5 in 5 for Every Season is a nice cookbook.  The size is good, not too large and not too small.  The cover is colorful and attracted me right away, it's also glossy which is nice for wiping away food spills. Michael has arranged the recipes according to season.  The first category is spring, it works through each season and ends with holidays.  He is a big proponent of using fresh produce that is seasonal.  The spring section, for example, includes lots of peas, asparagus, mushrooms and ramps.

The 5 in 5 concept is for fresh ingredients.  There are also pantry items and spices included in most recipes.  Michael gives a nice pantry list in the beginning of the book to help the cook.  It's a good list for almost any cook of items to have on hand to make meals with.  They are shelf stable products that will keep for a good while. Still, even with including those additional items, the ingredient lists for each recipe are short, which to me translates to easier.

I have not yet prepared any of the recipes in the book, but have several marked to try.  My only complaint from my initial reading of the book is that I wish there was a color picture of each recipe.  There are a lot of attractive photos in the book, but not one of each dish. I received this book from Blogging for Books for free in exchange for my honest review.

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