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Fresh with Anna Olson: Seasonally Inspired Recipes to Share With Family and Friends
Eat fresh, eat local. For Anna Olson, eating is about community and in her hit Food Network show Fresh with Anna Olson , she regularly creates mouth-watering meals that begin with inspiration drawn from local food producers and end when she shares the meal with family and friends. In Fresh with Anna Olson: Seasonally Inspired Recipes to Share with Family and Friends , Anna brings this food philosophy to your home with recipes from her show, unlocking the secrets to cooking simple and delicious dishes from fresh, seasonal and locally grown ingredients.
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 17, 2013
I bought this book because I enjoyed watching Anna Olson's cooking show on the Food Network (Canada) of the same name. This book is a collection of 100+ recipes from that show. It is also a seasonal cookbook. The quick review of the book (for those who don't want to read my lengthy review) is that it is clear there was a lot of thought put into the making of this book. There are many small details that make this book easy and enjoyable to use. The contents and index are well-laid out. The recipes are budget concious but also vary in flavours, complexity, and cost. The book is relaxed in its "seasonal" theme and I did not find it as restricting as other seasonal cookbooks. But one section does have a good-deal more recipes than the others so that left me concerned about balance. REcipes to try include fiddlenead salad with oickled red onions & maple toasted pecans, baby cherry pies, vegetable chowder, gyoza (pork dumplings),and Anna's quesadilas.
Sometimes I don't like seasonal cookbooks because I find them restricting as some books try to be 100% truly seasonal. But this one is quite broad in it's seasonal ingredients scope, and seems more just to be a seasonal book for the 21st century, where recipes do feature seasonal ingredients (likely hence the title "Fresh"), but will include other non-seasonal ingredients as well, as in fact we can just go down to the groccery store and find just about anything all year round anyway.
The contents for each section are at the beginnig of the book and each seasonal section is divided into soups, salads, hors d'oeuvres, light entrees, fish, poultry, meat, starches, vegetables, breakfast, and sweets. I love this as it makes it really asy to find things when your preparing a meal with multiple item, or if your in a salad mood. There's also a small section of all-season snacks, which is also nice. Each section opens with a few paragraphs about what the season change will bring as well as a short list of seasonal vegetables, fruits, and herbs. The former two are common additions in a seasonal cookbook, but not the latter. It's small details lie these that make this book a cut above the average seasonal book. Spring, Fall, and Winter all have around 20 recipes in them and Summertime has about 30. This is likely due to the plethora of ingredients available during summer. But I haven't decided if I like that or would have prefered the summer have five-or-so less so that the other sections could each have a few more.
Each recipe page has the ingredients listed in Imperial and Metric. This trend is becoming more commonplace for cookbooks, and it's trend I like. As a Canadian, I have been exposed to both systems through my life and in some ways I think Metic and others Imperial, so it's nice to be able to see both and be able to understand how much of an ingredient I need when I go to the groccery store. Also there are soft-coloured fine lines between each ingredient and measurement at the beginning of the recipe. I like this feature also because every once in a while I'll mis-read a measurement and this guards against hat could be a costly mis-reading. There is also a margine on the side that contains tips and additional information for the recipe. I always love any additional information that could be given for a recipe and found these side-bars often useful and intersting. Each recipe, even the short ones, have there own page. I like that as I don't want to have to look at other "book clutter" when I'm trying to focus n a recipe while I make it.
This is a full-colour cook book. There are not pictures for every recipe, but the book is plentiful with full-page pictures. I also like that the pages are quite thick. This book seems durable and like it would stand up to many years in the kitchen. I also enjoy the font choices in the book and the general design which harken one to times past when Suzy Homemaker's were more common. The index is also thorough and easy-to-use, incorporating both recipe titles as well as ingredients and food topics like "soups" in the search option. I really appreciate when a cookbook includes all of these options in an index or in multiple seperately themed indexes. I know it takes a lot of work and expense for a publishing house to put togther a good index, but having a good index is a really important feature to me. I find it extremely frustrating when a cookbook's index does not include these three search elements because invariably I will want to search using one of the missing search elements.
As for the actual recipes themselves, I have only tried nine. Five were amazing and I will make again, two I messed up somehow while making them and will make them again so I don't feel I can judge them yet, and the others were pretty darn good, but just didn't pass my rigorous "make-again" standards. I'm sure many others will like the recipes I wasn't interested in because there wasn't a recipe I've tried so far that was unpallatable. Four out of the nine recipes I tried were from the winter section. I have tried at least one from each section. The recipes themselves also have a variety of ingredients. Some use a lot and have complex layers and flavours going on and some have a few ingedients and rely on the simlicity of good flavour pairings. This far I have found most recipes to be very affordable to make. There are a few slightly more expensive recipes due to amount of ingredients, but most of the expensive recipes seem to be expensive because they use a quality cut of meat. I really appreciate that this cookbook can make wonderful and various recipes without eatting up your wallet and the recipes also seem to be concious of amout of ingredient used. I never found that I was running out to get a pricy ingredient that I only used a tablespoon or two of. There is also a variety of recipes in regards to flavours and styles. Some throw-together-in-ten-minutes recipes, some let-it-simmer-for-hours recipes, basic recipes, multi-step recipes, down-home recipes, and International recipes.
I would definitely recommend this book. It is easy to use, well laid out, very well-rounded on almost all fronts of development, and the book is concious of budget without being limiting with flavours and quality. But most of all, all these little details come together and show that a lot of thought, care, and dilligence was put into the making of this book. It's the best seasonal cookbook that I've ever used. It's a book I know I will go to again and again.
Recipes I have tried (starred for liked):
*fiddlenead salad with oickled red onions & maple toasted pecans
*baby cherry pies
sweet potatoe soup with coconut milk and ginger
baked figs with honey and yoghurt
potato soup with bacon & cheddar
*vegetable chowder
*gyoza (pork dumplings)
*Anna's quesadilas
sweet & salty trail mix
Sometimes I don't like seasonal cookbooks because I find them restricting as some books try to be 100% truly seasonal. But this one is quite broad in it's seasonal ingredients scope, and seems more just to be a seasonal book for the 21st century, where recipes do feature seasonal ingredients (likely hence the title "Fresh"), but will include other non-seasonal ingredients as well, as in fact we can just go down to the groccery store and find just about anything all year round anyway.
The contents for each section are at the beginnig of the book and each seasonal section is divided into soups, salads, hors d'oeuvres, light entrees, fish, poultry, meat, starches, vegetables, breakfast, and sweets. I love this as it makes it really asy to find things when your preparing a meal with multiple item, or if your in a salad mood. There's also a small section of all-season snacks, which is also nice. Each section opens with a few paragraphs about what the season change will bring as well as a short list of seasonal vegetables, fruits, and herbs. The former two are common additions in a seasonal cookbook, but not the latter. It's small details lie these that make this book a cut above the average seasonal book. Spring, Fall, and Winter all have around 20 recipes in them and Summertime has about 30. This is likely due to the plethora of ingredients available during summer. But I haven't decided if I like that or would have prefered the summer have five-or-so less so that the other sections could each have a few more.
Each recipe page has the ingredients listed in Imperial and Metric. This trend is becoming more commonplace for cookbooks, and it's trend I like. As a Canadian, I have been exposed to both systems through my life and in some ways I think Metic and others Imperial, so it's nice to be able to see both and be able to understand how much of an ingredient I need when I go to the groccery store. Also there are soft-coloured fine lines between each ingredient and measurement at the beginning of the recipe. I like this feature also because every once in a while I'll mis-read a measurement and this guards against hat could be a costly mis-reading. There is also a margine on the side that contains tips and additional information for the recipe. I always love any additional information that could be given for a recipe and found these side-bars often useful and intersting. Each recipe, even the short ones, have there own page. I like that as I don't want to have to look at other "book clutter" when I'm trying to focus n a recipe while I make it.
This is a full-colour cook book. There are not pictures for every recipe, but the book is plentiful with full-page pictures. I also like that the pages are quite thick. This book seems durable and like it would stand up to many years in the kitchen. I also enjoy the font choices in the book and the general design which harken one to times past when Suzy Homemaker's were more common. The index is also thorough and easy-to-use, incorporating both recipe titles as well as ingredients and food topics like "soups" in the search option. I really appreciate when a cookbook includes all of these options in an index or in multiple seperately themed indexes. I know it takes a lot of work and expense for a publishing house to put togther a good index, but having a good index is a really important feature to me. I find it extremely frustrating when a cookbook's index does not include these three search elements because invariably I will want to search using one of the missing search elements.
As for the actual recipes themselves, I have only tried nine. Five were amazing and I will make again, two I messed up somehow while making them and will make them again so I don't feel I can judge them yet, and the others were pretty darn good, but just didn't pass my rigorous "make-again" standards. I'm sure many others will like the recipes I wasn't interested in because there wasn't a recipe I've tried so far that was unpallatable. Four out of the nine recipes I tried were from the winter section. I have tried at least one from each section. The recipes themselves also have a variety of ingredients. Some use a lot and have complex layers and flavours going on and some have a few ingedients and rely on the simlicity of good flavour pairings. This far I have found most recipes to be very affordable to make. There are a few slightly more expensive recipes due to amount of ingredients, but most of the expensive recipes seem to be expensive because they use a quality cut of meat. I really appreciate that this cookbook can make wonderful and various recipes without eatting up your wallet and the recipes also seem to be concious of amout of ingredient used. I never found that I was running out to get a pricy ingredient that I only used a tablespoon or two of. There is also a variety of recipes in regards to flavours and styles. Some throw-together-in-ten-minutes recipes, some let-it-simmer-for-hours recipes, basic recipes, multi-step recipes, down-home recipes, and International recipes.
I would definitely recommend this book. It is easy to use, well laid out, very well-rounded on almost all fronts of development, and the book is concious of budget without being limiting with flavours and quality. But most of all, all these little details come together and show that a lot of thought, care, and dilligence was put into the making of this book. It's the best seasonal cookbook that I've ever used. It's a book I know I will go to again and again.
Recipes I have tried (starred for liked):
*fiddlenead salad with oickled red onions & maple toasted pecans
*baby cherry pies
sweet potatoe soup with coconut milk and ginger
baked figs with honey and yoghurt
potato soup with bacon & cheddar
*vegetable chowder
*gyoza (pork dumplings)
*Anna's quesadilas
sweet & salty trail mix
Read
September 4, 2010Loved the BLT bread! On my list of recipes to try.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews