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Big Buy Cooking: The Food Lover's Guide to Buying in Bulk and Using It All Up
Buy a delicious ingredient in bulk, save money, and cook delicious meals. It's not as easy as it sounds--if you want to make creative dishes" and" use all the food you buy. With the expertise of "Fine Cooking "you can do both. This cookbook is not about cooking to stock your freezer, spending hours on the weekend cooking for the week, eating the same leftovers all week, or developing a new way to think about shopping for food. Food Lover's Guide to Big Buy Cooking is about cooking great-tasting food for every night of the week and features 75 inventive recipes from 25 bulk food items readily available in warehouse clubs and supermarkets. While Food Lover's Guide to Big Buy Cooking focuses on how to cook exciting, reliable recipes and make the most of the featured ingredient, the added benefit is keeping costs down thanks to purchasing in bulk and then using it all. Accompanied by step-by-step instructions, helpful hints and tips, and full-color photographs, these original recipes will take your cooking to new levels.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 17, 2024
Really enjoyed. A cookbook with recipes that I am looking forward to trying
May 30, 2010
Big Buy Cooking: The Food Lover’s Guide to Buying in Bulk and Using It All Up, is a book for the times!
This gorgeous cooking/bulk buying book is a must for anyone who likes to shop ‘big’ for savings, and cook, but waste nothing. With the advent of the ‘big buy stores’ this book is not only timely, it is practical, the recipes user-friendly and the reading and presentation style fun and motivating.
Big Buy Cooking presents a new way to think about what is referred to as, ‘big box store purchases’ that makes approaching large quantities of ingredients to prepare, an exciting and manageable proposition. This compelling volume yields bountiful, easy-to-prepare options whether you are purchasing a few bulk items or do so regularly.
When super bargain-priced items are screaming at you, are plentiful and ripe but you war with yourself over what to do with the large portions -this book takes over. If you’ve ever debated over purchasing that 2 lb Brie that is so reasonably priced it hurts to walk away but worried over what to do with half of it, Big Buy Cooking comes to the rescue. Each ingredient is used in at least 3 different dishes. From Brie in sandwiches and fondue to Mangoes used in salsa, salad and sorbet, the diversity is endless.
Big Buy Cooking is divided into sections for Pantry (with typically large quantity items such as jarred peppers, sun dried tomatoes and capers), Dairy, Bread, Meat & Fish and Vegetables & Fruit
Broken down into bite sizes, the recipes are pleasantly lacking in myriad ingredients and offer a selection of takes on large quantity items from produce and dairy to veggies, fruit, meat and more. Along the way, clever tips are bracketed for such things as rinsing capers or pitting olives while storage tips are boxed and called, ‘Make It Last.’
Presented in a casual, conversational style with compelling visual appeal, this book is a delight and feast for the senses whether you shop at ‘big buy stores’ or not. Beautiful photographs are illustrated by pullout text, easy-to-read fonts, reverse type on contents pages and laid out with a good use of white space and combination of graphics and photos that convey more of an upscale cookbook than a big buy how to use it or lose it tome. It’s all very nicely presented highlighting the ‘it's possible to buy in bulk, cook delicious dishes and use ingredients to their fullest potential feel of the book.’
Just as there seems to be a big buy store (or option to buy large quantities in regular grocery stores) in nearly every town in America, this book should be on everyone’s shelf - it’s that good, that fun and that practical.
This gorgeous cooking/bulk buying book is a must for anyone who likes to shop ‘big’ for savings, and cook, but waste nothing. With the advent of the ‘big buy stores’ this book is not only timely, it is practical, the recipes user-friendly and the reading and presentation style fun and motivating.
Big Buy Cooking presents a new way to think about what is referred to as, ‘big box store purchases’ that makes approaching large quantities of ingredients to prepare, an exciting and manageable proposition. This compelling volume yields bountiful, easy-to-prepare options whether you are purchasing a few bulk items or do so regularly.
When super bargain-priced items are screaming at you, are plentiful and ripe but you war with yourself over what to do with the large portions -this book takes over. If you’ve ever debated over purchasing that 2 lb Brie that is so reasonably priced it hurts to walk away but worried over what to do with half of it, Big Buy Cooking comes to the rescue. Each ingredient is used in at least 3 different dishes. From Brie in sandwiches and fondue to Mangoes used in salsa, salad and sorbet, the diversity is endless.
Big Buy Cooking is divided into sections for Pantry (with typically large quantity items such as jarred peppers, sun dried tomatoes and capers), Dairy, Bread, Meat & Fish and Vegetables & Fruit
Broken down into bite sizes, the recipes are pleasantly lacking in myriad ingredients and offer a selection of takes on large quantity items from produce and dairy to veggies, fruit, meat and more. Along the way, clever tips are bracketed for such things as rinsing capers or pitting olives while storage tips are boxed and called, ‘Make It Last.’
Presented in a casual, conversational style with compelling visual appeal, this book is a delight and feast for the senses whether you shop at ‘big buy stores’ or not. Beautiful photographs are illustrated by pullout text, easy-to-read fonts, reverse type on contents pages and laid out with a good use of white space and combination of graphics and photos that convey more of an upscale cookbook than a big buy how to use it or lose it tome. It’s all very nicely presented highlighting the ‘it's possible to buy in bulk, cook delicious dishes and use ingredients to their fullest potential feel of the book.’
Just as there seems to be a big buy store (or option to buy large quantities in regular grocery stores) in nearly every town in America, this book should be on everyone’s shelf - it’s that good, that fun and that practical.
February 18, 2011
Big Buy Cooking / 978-1-600-85154-4
I really like the premise of this book: cooks love the thrill of the hunt when shopping at bargain warehouses, so why not structure a whole book around how to create delicious meals with those bulk ingredients? The answer to that "why not" seems to lie in the major flaw of this book - there's just too much ground to cover with such a huge subject like this.
The book is structured around main ingredients - each ingredient has three accompanying recipes. The obvious problem arises immediately: three recipes each for capers or brie or pine nuts may be sufficient, but three recipes for "bread" and "canned tomatoes" seems surprisingly limited - especially when two of those three tomato recipes are marinara and tomato soup! I can't disagree that those are solid ways to use canned tomatoes, but if you're looking for new ways to use up bulk tomatoes, you've probably thought of those two recipes already.
The pictures accompanying each recipe are lovely, and the layout of the recipe text is clear and well-organized, but the overall book layout is a bit strained due to this focus on the main ingredient - the recipes for any given item may be savory or sweet, an entree or an appetizer, etc. Looking through this book, I have to wonder how necessary this type of cookbook would be to anyone with internet access, now that every recipe site online has a "search by main ingredient" option. In general, I believe that cookbooks are still vitally necessary to a household for the "browsing factor" - the ability to sit down with a good cookbook and flip through looking for recipes that catch your eye - but since this one is more organized with an eye towards what you already have (or at least, what you intend to buy), and since many of the recipes are well-known staples, I'm not sure that this cookbook really has a lot of browsing value.
I guess if you're thinking about joining a bulk grocery warehouse and would like some ideas, this book might be a useful thing to check out, especially if you're a novice cook still getting started in the kitchen. However, I think many people may eventually outgrow this book and end up looking for more variety online. Really, I think the idea behind this book is a great one, but that the editors were hampered by the usual problems of fitting a huge concept into a relatively small space.
NOTE: This review is based on a free Advance Review Copy of this book provided through NetGalley.
~ Ana Mardoll
I really like the premise of this book: cooks love the thrill of the hunt when shopping at bargain warehouses, so why not structure a whole book around how to create delicious meals with those bulk ingredients? The answer to that "why not" seems to lie in the major flaw of this book - there's just too much ground to cover with such a huge subject like this.
The book is structured around main ingredients - each ingredient has three accompanying recipes. The obvious problem arises immediately: three recipes each for capers or brie or pine nuts may be sufficient, but three recipes for "bread" and "canned tomatoes" seems surprisingly limited - especially when two of those three tomato recipes are marinara and tomato soup! I can't disagree that those are solid ways to use canned tomatoes, but if you're looking for new ways to use up bulk tomatoes, you've probably thought of those two recipes already.
The pictures accompanying each recipe are lovely, and the layout of the recipe text is clear and well-organized, but the overall book layout is a bit strained due to this focus on the main ingredient - the recipes for any given item may be savory or sweet, an entree or an appetizer, etc. Looking through this book, I have to wonder how necessary this type of cookbook would be to anyone with internet access, now that every recipe site online has a "search by main ingredient" option. In general, I believe that cookbooks are still vitally necessary to a household for the "browsing factor" - the ability to sit down with a good cookbook and flip through looking for recipes that catch your eye - but since this one is more organized with an eye towards what you already have (or at least, what you intend to buy), and since many of the recipes are well-known staples, I'm not sure that this cookbook really has a lot of browsing value.
I guess if you're thinking about joining a bulk grocery warehouse and would like some ideas, this book might be a useful thing to check out, especially if you're a novice cook still getting started in the kitchen. However, I think many people may eventually outgrow this book and end up looking for more variety online. Really, I think the idea behind this book is a great one, but that the editors were hampered by the usual problems of fitting a huge concept into a relatively small space.
NOTE: This review is based on a free Advance Review Copy of this book provided through NetGalley.
~ Ana Mardoll
January 5, 2013
This is a GENIUS idea for a cookbook. I have a BJ's jar of capers in my fridge right now, and we're having the caper butter steak for dinner tonight. Can't wait to try some of the salmon recipes, another of my favorite things to buy in bulk. Only gets 4 stars because guacamole is a total cop-out as a "use up avocados" recipe. I mean really.
July 16, 2010
Not really useful for the types of things I buy. But a nice concept. I think I need the big buy cooking for cheapskates with no time on their hands version!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews