The Tomato Festival Cookbook By Lawrence Davis-Hollander (Storey Publishing, $16.95)
Tomato lovers, this cookbook is for you.
Although the focus of The Tomato Festival Cookbook is heirloom tomatoes, any variety could be substituted in the recipes. The author might argue that the taste will be affected, but heirloom tomatoes aren't available everywhere. Oddly enough, most recipes don't even dictate what variety to use and some call for canned tomatoes.
If you grow tomatoes in your garden, you will benefit from the chapter on tomato cultivation, which covers such topics as buying seedlings and saving seeds. Once your crop is harvested, recipes that include summer minestrone, tomato basil quiche, striped bass with roasted tomatoes with caper sauce and beefsteak tomato gratin will taste all the better.
An appendix offers sources for numerous varieties, including heirloom and hybrid.
The dessert chapter is the most intriguing. Who would think of tomatoes for dessert? Some recipes to try: tomato custard pie, tomato sorbet, tomato jam tart and green tomato chocolate cake.
The recipes appear relatively easy to prepare. No unusual ingredients or difficult techniques, just some time-consuming preparation in recipes such as caponata, herbed goat cheese in broiled tomato sauce and sun-dried tomato and olive bread.
If want a summer taste all year, The Tomato Festival Cookbook offers suggestions for preserving them in recipes for canned tomatoes, tomato juice and green tomato chutney.
Betty Crocker Easy Family Dinners: Simple Recipes and Fun Ideas to Turn Mealtime into Quality Time By the editors of Betty Crocker Kitchens (Wiley Publishing Inc., $22.95)
Do you find it hard to find time for a family dinner? Mom or Dad may be working late, kids have lessons, practices or games, and everyone is eating at different times. Easy Family Dinners from Betty Crocker aims to bring us all together.
Most of the recipes start with packaged foods, such as jarred pasta sauce, refrigerated pizza dough, taco seasoning or frozen vegetables. Dishes that include crunchy garlic chicken, ravioli-sausage lasagna, chicken fried pork chops and hot dog casserole require three preparation steps or less. If you're game to try something different, make breakfast for dinner with ham and apple pancakes, country eggs in tortilla cups, Denver scrambled egg mini pizzas or stuffed French toast.
The "Grab n Go Dinners" chapter offers easy, quick-to-prepare meals. In 10 minutes you can have shrimp and egg salad wraps (providing the eggs are already hard-boiled), in 15 minutes Caesar salad wraps and in just under 20 minutes veggies and cheese mini-pizzas.
If you like to plan ahead, the slow cooker chapter will suit you. If you start them in the morning, you can have dinners of savory chicken and vegetables, sloppy joes, barbecue beef sandwiches, and Italian beef stew ready when you and the crew get home in the evening.
"Together Time" suggestions, which accompany every recipe, include letting the phone ring while eating, making an erupting volcano with white vinegar and baking soda or searching the sky for shapes in the clouds.
Blend It!: 150 Sensational Recipes to Make in Your Blender By the editors of "Good Housekeeping" (Hearst Books, $14.95).
Here's a revelation from the editor of Good Housekeeping magazine: Your blender can be used for more than just making frozen margaritas. Blend It! is a book that showcases this counter-top appliance and all it can make.
Designed for a busy lifestyle, recipes such as peach melba shake, double-chocolate malted, three-berry smoothie, cherry almond clafouti and popovers are easy to prepare and require no more than three steps. Most of the ingredients, such as olive oil, sugar, vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup, are in your pantry or refrigerator. Malted milk powder, maraschino cherries or fresh fruit may require a trip to the market. The chapter on soups requires a more attention. Recipes such as carrot and dill soup, quick cream of broccoli, Asian-style corn chowder and shrimp bisque are relatively easy, but more preparation is involved. Celery needs to be chopped, tomatoes peeled, jalapenos seeded and other ingredients measured.
Blend It! is a family-friendly cookbook. Kids will love the banana split shake, pancakes, cherry vanilla float and peanut butter cup shake. Older kids will even be able to make some recipes by themselves. Adults will like how easy everything is to make.
Did friends drop by unexpectedly? Whip up black bean dip and serve with Miami Mojitos. Try roasted eggplant dip with herbs accompanied by red wine sangria slush. Chill out with a cool blue Hawaiian. Coffee favorites include frosty cappuccino and maple pecan frappe. Tired of the same old salad dressing? Tomato vinaigrette, green goddess dressing and mustard-shallot vinaigrette would all complement a summer salad.
- Ellen Folkman's cookbook review column appears monthly in the Taste section.
Beefsteak Tomato Gratin
4 large ripe beefsteak tomatoes
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
3 large cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh coarse bread crumbs
1 tablespoon finely grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Core tomatoes. Cut each one horizontally into thick slices.
Arrange a layer of tomatoes in a baking dish. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle on half the parsley, thyme and garlic. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil.
Top with the remaining slices, seasoning them as before with salt, pepper and the remaining parsley, thyme, garlic and 1 tablespoon of the oil.
Bake for about 35-40 minutes or until soft and a little browned, basting occasionally with the juices. Sprinkle with the bread crumbs and Parmesan, then drizzle on the remaining oil. Bake 8-10 minutes longer, or until the crumbs are toasty. Cool briefly before serving.
Makes 4 servings.
Nutritional information per serving: calories 146, fat 12g (saturated 2g), protein 3g, carbohydrates 9g, fiber 2g, sodium 203mg.
Source: "The Tomato Festival Cookbook" by Lawrence Davis-Hollander.
Hot Dog Casserole
11/3 cups mashed potato mix (dry)
11/3 cups water
1/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sweet pickle relish
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon instant minced onion
2 teaspoons mustard
4 to 6 franks
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Make mashed potatoes as directed on package, using water, milk, butter and salt. Stir in relish, mayonnaise, onion and mustard. Spread in ungreased 1 quart casserole.
Cut each frank in half lengthwise, then in half crosswise. Insert frank pieces around edge of mashed potatoes.
Bake uncovered 25 to 30 minutes or until center is hot.
Makes 4 servings.
Nutritional information per serving: calories 345, fat 25g (saturated 9g), sodium 1,080mg, carbohydrate 23g, protein 7g.
Source: "Betty Crocker Easy Family Dinners: Simple Recipes and Fun Ideas to Turn Mealtime into Quality Time" by the editors of Betty Crocker Kitchens.
Place cherries in prepared dish. In blender, combine half and half, granulated sugar, amaretto, eggs and flour and blend until smooth.
Pour egg mixture over cherries in prepared dish. Bake 40 to 45 minutes, until crust is set and knife inserted 1 inch from edge comes out clean (center will still jiggle). Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar. Serve hot.
Makes 12 servings.
Nutritional information per serving: calories 155, protein 4g, carbohydrates 20g, fat 7g (4gm saturated), sodium 40mg.
Source: "Blend It!: 150 Sensational Recipes to Make in Your Blender" by editors of Good Housekeeping.
