Product Description
Discover just how creative and satisfying salads can be with this new addition to the Essential Recipe Collection. A gorgeous collectible volume, it draws from 58 of the very best salads from 20 years of Cooking Light magazine. Recipes include appetizers, main dishes, and make-ahead meals, all promoting the Cooking Light mantra to "eat smart, be fit, live well." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good book!
wether its chicken, fish, or even fruit, as long as you can make it into a salad you will find it in this very useful book. I loved the fruit salad section which is a A+ for this book because most salad books don't include them

A great addition to my collection!
OK, so when I picked this book up, I thought "an entire book about salad?That's ridiculous."I've made six recipes for salad from this cookbook, and every single one of them has been utterly delicious, and completely different! Honestly, I didn't expect such a wide variety of salad ingredients and dressings. My favorite so far is a sort of gazpacho - tomato salad with home-made bread croutons - they suggest serving it with shredded chicken breast as a dinner salad and my kids have asked me to make it over and over again. (my KIDS, 11 and 13! Can't believe it!).The book also has delicious appetizer-type salads as well! If you're looking for some nice summery cool recipes, this is the book for you.Fabulous. ... Read more

Product Description
Toasted marshmallows stuffed with raisins? Green-and-white luncheons? Chemistry in the kitchen? This entertaining and erudite social history, now in its fourth paperback edition, tells the remarkable story of America's transformation from a nation of honest appetites into an obedient market for instant mashed potatoes. In Perfection Salad, Laura Shapiro investigates a band of passionate but ladylike reformers at the turn of the twentieth century--including Fannie Farmer of the Boston Cooking School--who were determined to modernize the American diet through a "scientific" approach to cooking. Shapiro's fascinating tale shows why we think the way we do about food today.Amazon.com Review
Perfection Salad, a dish that won its creator first prize in a 1905 cooking contest, consisted of pristine molded aspic containing celery, red pepper, and chopped cabbage. Laura Shapiro, author of this eponymous social history, part of the Modern Library Food series, takes the salad as a model for the domestic science movement, an intriguing women's crusade of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Bent on convincing housewives that the way to domestic order lay in cooking "dainty" nutritional meals from sanitary ingredients in "scientific" kitchens, the movement helped give birth to our mass-market food scene, with its reliance on home economics precepts, processed convenience foods, and no-cook cooking--our cuisine of boil-in bags and microwave frozen dinners. Entertaining and informative, but also unexpectedly moving, the book chronicles in numerous intriguing stories the ways in which an impulse to liberate women from the drudgery and imprecision of daily food preparation led to its debasement. It's a fascinating story, of interest to anyone who wonders why and how we cook and eat--and think about food--as we do.

Beginning with portraits of early domestic movement reformers such as Catherine Beecher and Mary Lincoln, and investigating institutions like the Boston Cooking School, home of Fannie Farmer, the Mother of Level Measurements, the book then pursues "scientific cookery" into its mid-20th-century manifestation. "With the help of the new industry of advertising," Shapiro writes, "the food business was able to reflect Mrs. Lincoln's values [of food-production uniformity] by keeping its achievements in packing, sanitation, convenience, and novelty at the forefront." But greater ills ensued: the effect of the reformers, Shapiro contends, was to encourage women to become docile consumers tethered to commercial interests--and to rob our vigorous cooking and eating traditions of their rich life. In making that point, Perfection Salad reveals its true subject: the cultural priorities that defined American 20th-century life and, finally, the sorry nature of the order they established. --Arthur Boehm ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

This book blew.my.mind.
It's a rare book that brings you into the subject deftly, can explain details without getting lost in them, and reserves most judgment until the end, and then provides insightful and thought-provoking commentary. This book is a fascinating exploration of how, in the interests of preserving American cuisine, the home, and women's place in it, home economists came into vogue in the early part of the 20th century, and damn near came close to wrecking everything they set out to save.

I love to cook, but among other working moms I'm friends with, I'm the exception. Women either hate cooking, don't mind cooking but don't know what to fix, or just flat out don't know how to cook. An awful lot of my friends rely heavily on fast food or packaged meals on a regular basis to feed their kids. I have long thought that there was a place in the schools for a revival of home economics, done better than what I and my classmates got in 7th grade - one year divided into a semester of sewing (let me tell you, that didn't take - almost no one I can think of sews), 1/2 a semester of cooking, and 1/2 a semester of a combination "household economy" (budgeting, nutrition, etc.) and sex education unit. Our cooking teacher freely admitted she hated cooking (she also wasn't exactly informative in the sex ed component either - her advice was "wait until marriage" and she showed her own childbirth video in class, if you can believe that) and her own distaste for cooking certainly didn't help us learn. By the time I got to high school, home ec was the "easy A" class you only took if you weren't in the college prep track (we had three coursework tracks - college prep, A and B, and home-ec was in the "B", or lowest, track). That meant that myself and my fellow students got through 8th-12th grade, four years of college, and possibly grad school, our 7th grade home ec year was far behind us. I always felt like there had to be a better way to teach people about the necessary life skills of cooking, household management and nutrition - something that would be more practical and stick with people a little better.

Now, after reading Perfection Salad, I understand why my home-economics class was so worthless and I've changed my mind about reinstituting home ec into high schools - I think it would be a throwback to some very bad traditions that are better off left in the past.

Home economists were responsible for basically enslaving women in their homes - convincing women that the home and the kitchen was the only place they would find moral, religious, or emotional fulfillment; that they had no place in man's world, and that the ills of society (poverty, disease, alcoholism, malnutrition, truancy, delinquency, infidelity, etc.) were due to women's failings to fully embrace their moral duty to keep a clean house and cook "scientific" meals for their family. If you want to know why women got so fed up with being at home - fed up enough that they left their homes for the workplace in the 60s and 70s - it's all here. And it turns out that the decline in home cooking - that so many conservatives have blamed on the women's movement, and held up as the reason for the obesity epidemic - actually began in the 1950s, when home economists put a full-court press on women to give up the "old ways" of preparing food and to use "convenient and hygenic" prepackaged foods. It turns out that in the 1950s, women were told cooking wasn't as important as being sexually attractive to their husbands. So much for the "feminists are to blame for all the world's ills" theory.

This is an absolutely wonderful and amazing book. I can't speak highly enough about it. It explains so much about why we have the attitudes towards food that we do, and how we might be able to find our way back to a healthier way of eating. Back in the timeframe the book discusses, it was actually seen as a good thing that women would buy prepackaged meals from the market rather than cook "unscientific" food in "unhygenic" kitchens. Now, women are doing just that and we've found out it's bad for us. I have a particular aversion to people like Christopher Kimball from Cook's Illustrated, who purports to have the "best" recipe and method for cooking anything, regardless of culinary traditions, cultural differences, and personal taste, and is extremely strident in his promotion of his own product over others (recently writing with obvious disgust in the New York Times about user-contributed recipes on the web, which aren't as scrupulously developed as his own). Now I realize there have been New Englanders like this for over a century, trying to tell women they know better and that women should put their own instincts about how to feed their families aside in favor of "researched" methods. I honestly believe that a huge part of why women don't cook more now is that they're intimidated by culinary perfectionism and mixed messages from people like Kimball - put dinner on the table, but do it our way, which may require more time or skill than you have, but that shouldn't matter, if you want to do the "right" thing.

If you like food, like cooking, and want to understand a LOT about feminism, food politics, the history of the women's movement, etc., you cannot miss this book. I can't wait to get Something From The Oven, Shapiro's book about cooking in the 1950s.

well done
Amusing and thought provoking. I love reading books about the history of food and cooking, but many of them can be pretty dry.Not this one I found.Anyone interested in cooking, history, and the history of women will find this fascinating.The contradictions and struggles of the home economics movement deserves a place in the history of feminism (and womens' history in general) and the author does a great job of illustrating this journey with all it's failures and lasting effects.Now, how can I get my hands on some of that "domestic fiction" from the last century?Sounds hilarious.

Great research, fascinating topic
This is a "must read" for anyone who fancies themself a chef, professional or home-cook. The writing is fluid and interesting, laid out in a comprehensible and sensible manner, and quite the scholarly document. Even those not intersted in cooking, but enjoy great nostalgia and history will love this book. Highly recommended as a gift where appropriate interest exists.

fascinating
the late 19th century movement for scientific household management is an almost unbelievable amalgam of middle-class protestant social standards and religious impulses, intellectural curiosity and discipline, political thought (compare it with leninism--everything the same for everyone all the time, and the middle class knows better than the proletariat), and naivete.while having less influence on its time than its proponents would acknowledge (even when reporting its failure), the movement led, through corporate exploitation and perversion, to many of the problems with eating, cooking, and "food production" in america today.it also led to many improvements we take completely for granted.

the author seems to be unaware that there was a comparable movement in britain.my british mother could remember horrific results from the school recipes she was forced to produce (one stew was so bad her friend's dogs refused it) and the british government published many educational pamphlets about "proper" methods of cooking, to the same indifference or resentment that met the domestic scientists' efforts.

i was a bit disappointed that the author did not pursue the links to the Transcendental Movement, though she did mention the connection with american protestentism. of course, the attitude of the 19th century cooks (and twentieth century nutritionists) has a long history: a Classical philospher (i'm too lazy to look up his name) wrote:"a man should eat to live, not live to eat" before the christian era.the author does discuss some of the social attitudes towards women and physical pleasure and how the ideal of a woman's being without appetite encouraged the domestic scientists to ignore the actual food in the cooking process.

while there is much to amuse in the domestic scientists' efforts and belief (and horrify--did anyone actually eat this way?), and while the author does acknowledge the dire state of production with reference to, for instance, the stock yards, i don't think she understands the appeal of predictable levening (how many of us want to make baking powder from wood ash?) preditable results (my british mother adored measuring cups and spoons--as a very short woman, she couldn't use the"two handsful of flour" recipes her family used and), and flour and sugar that are actually flour and sugar (the colonial housewife was warned by one contemporary author to make sure the sugar she bought in loaf form [and had to pulverize by hand] was not plaster of paris).the fact that 20th century corporations, especially after the second world war, {influended} their ideals into food which has caloric content without nutrition or taste should not detract from the real benefits the movement bestowed in its heyday.

this is an enjoyable popular history.i wish there had been more analysis of the movement's origins.the book's main strengths are its demonstration of how the movement's ideals were subsumed by industry and the analysis of the attitudes of the movement's founders.

the worst part is the description of the baked bean and celery "salad"--with dressing and whipped cream.that will live in my nightmares for years.and years.

Fascinating and scholarly read
Foodies and feminists alike should read this book.As part of the Modern Food Library reprints, chosen by Ruth Reichl (who is known for her good taste and her own laudable literary contributions - "Tender at the Bone" and "Comfort Me with Apples"), "Perfection Salad" describes all the elements present at the turn of the century that combined to forever change the way Americans view food.Food, its preparation and presentation became a female obsession in an time where the kitchen was really the only arena in which a woman could rule.The female nutritionists and cooks from that era seemed bent upon exerting control on SOMETHING, and that something turned out to be food - with sometimes terrible consequences.After reading "Perfection Salad", I understood the recipes that my grandmother (born in 1898) and my mother after her learned and served.Don't be frightened by the scholarly look of "Perfection Salad" - there are hilarious nuggets in the text - like color-themed menus (everything green and white, for example), putting everything into gelatin for the sake of "daintiness" (no messy lettuce leaves hanging out of your mouth) and covering absolutely anything and everything with "white sauce".For more laughs, peruse "The Gallery of Regrettable Food" by James Lileks in which he has gathered some of the most revolting-looking photos of the consequences of "Perfection Salad". ... Read more

Product Description

Long gone are the days when people created their salads by purchasing a head of iceberg lettuce and a head or romaine, cutting up a tomato and a boiled egg and adding some wishbone dressing. Today anyone can create a delicious gourmet salad by picking up one of the hundreds of bagged salad mixes available and adding ingredients to create masterpieces such as:

• Mandarin Chicken Salad with Toasted Sesame Vinaigrette
• Classic Caesar Salad with Herb Croutons
• Spinach Salad with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

Each salad has dressing recommendations and recipes, menu ideas, and nutritional information. The book contains recipes for more than 100 salads and dressings.

Customer Reviews (29)

Fabulous Salad recipes and ideas
I had picked up a copy of this salad cookbook at Tuesday morning a few years ago. It has amazing recipes that look like 5 star restaurant salads. The blue cheese dressing recipe is incredible and everyone who eats it at our house wants the recipe. I enjoyed it so much that I mailed a copy from Amazon to my sister-in-law. Best $8 you'll ever spend.

Add more Green to your life!
Salads are one entrée I think I could live off of. There are just so many ways to make a salad that I think it is impossible to get sick of. Now don't get me wrong I am not a vegetarian, but I do love vegetables and I think in my past life I was a rabbit!

The book Simply Salads by Jennifer Chandler has become one of my favorite cookbooks. It has more than 100 delicious recipes all made from lettuce and a few easy-to-find ingredients. I love just how simple they are and that there is even recipes for salad dressings. Oh and many of the recipes even include adding meat!

Now I can prepare awesome salads both as side dishes and main entrees. I have even received compliments on how the salads look too good to eat! I also love to there are more than fifty different combinations of lettuces, packed in just the right size to choose from and experiment with! I think my favorite is the Balsamic Strawberry Salad, which is super easy and delicious! I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to add more "green" to their kitchen meals, even if you are not normally a lettuce eater!

I was given this book to review. This review is 100% my opinion and has not been edited or reviewed by anyone. I was not compensated in any other way for this product review.

2 thumb up!
*Her book contains more that 100 recipes made from prepackaged greens found in your vegetable aisle with a few extra easy-to-find ingredients!

* When I first zoomed through her book I realized that she was right about the easy-to-find items! I was very impressed at how she took all those prepackaged greens and put together quick, easy meals.

*I believe every recipe contains a large, mouth-watering picture! I'm a visual learner so this pictures made it very easy to toss together the ingredients into a lovely meal/side dish for my family.

This is a cookbook that you wish your local stores carried right in the aisle with the prepacked greens! This would be great business for Jennifer, of course, but also for the grocery and the customers!
She pointed out that these prepackaged salads have changed the way we eat salad. It is wonderful to pick up a bag of Fresh Herb Salad that includes such items as royal red oak, lolla rose to little gem and frisee! They are perfectly bagged and offer you a variety that most would not normally be able to toss together with what is found in local stores. I live in a tiny town of 6,000 so I know this for a fact!
Link to blog review:
[...]

Love it!
Great book - lots of good ideas and yummy dressing recipes.I may be giving everyone this book for Christmas this year!

What a great recipe book!
I received this book as a gift a year and a half ago and have since bought about a half dozenof Simply Salads to give to my friends.Particularly inspirational in creating summer meals. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review
The fertile Ohio farmland, wheat-laden plains of Kansas,game-rich forests near the Canadian border, fish-filled rivers and theGreat Lakes have all provided the ingredients for the robust cuisineof America's Heartland.In this popular series, old favorites such asWisconsin Cheese Chowder, Old Fashioned Cream of Tomato Soup, BeanMedley, and Hot German Potato Salad with Grilled Sausages arepresented along with some lesser-known traditional American Midwesterntreats.Recipes for starter soups, main-dish soups, and fruit soupspartner with salads to fit every lifestyle and taste, includingTortilla Taco Salad, Seafood Salad with White Beans, and Prairie FruitSalad.Spectacular full-color photographs accompany theeasy-to-follow directions, and nutritional values as well aspreparation and cooking times for each dish make this a very usefuladdition to any cook's bookshelf.Special bonuses are the historicalnotes and comments about the ethnic influences on heartland cuisinethat introduce many of the chapters. --Nancy Starr ... Read more

Product Description

Sixty years after Irma Rombauer advised new cooks to "Stand facing the stove," America's love affair with Joy of Cooking continues unabated. And why not? Joy in hand, tens of millions of people -- from novices to professionals -- have learned to do everything from make a meat loaf to clean a squid to frost a wedding cake. For decades, Joy of Cooking has taught America how to cook, serving as the standard against which all other cookbooks are judged.

All About Salads & Dressings upholds that standard. While keeping the conversational and instructional manner of the flagship book, All About Salads & Dressings is organized by salad type including green; vegetable and savory fruit; bean and grain; fish and shellfish; meat and poultry -- with such delicious classics and exciting innovations as Caesar Salad; Thai Beef Salad; Grilled Swordfish, Tangerine, and Jícama Salad; Tomato and Mozzarella Salad; Hot Apple Slaw; and Three-Bean Salad. And don't forget the dressings: everything from Basic Vinaigrette to creamy Green Goddess Dressing is covered. With a full primer on varieties of lettuce and suggestions for garnishing, All About Salads & Dressings illustrates how much more there is to salad than just lettuce.

Whether you belong to one of the millions of American households that already own a copy (or two) of Joy, or you have never cracked the spine of a cookbook before, Joy of Cooking: All About Salads & Dressings is for you. It is a spectacular achievement, worthy of its name. Joy has never been more beautiful.Amazon.com Review
You know to first consult The Joy of Cooking for the perfect recipe for salads like caesar, cobb, Waldorf, or three-bean, but what about Pasta Salad with Shrimp, Roasted Red Peppers, and Black Olives, Hot Apple Slaw, or Bread and Tomato Salad? For more than 60 years, home cooks have turned to that beloved cookbook for classic recipes, definitions, and instructions for cooking techniques, but when looking for something new and different, full of spice, or slightly exotic, we tend to go elsewhere. So Ethan Becker is retraining us with The Joy of Cooking: All About Salads and Dressings. Becker--Irma S. Rombauer's grandson and Marion Rombauer Becker's son--continues the family tradition of sharing foolproof recipes for everyday cooking in everyday kitchens. But this new All About series is also beautifully illustrated, filled with brilliant color photographs, and the flavors and techniques have been updated to reflect the way we cook and eat today. Tunisian-Style Carrot Salad glows orange, gold, and red in a full-page photo across from the recipe. Flavored with lemon and orange, coriander, cumin, cinnamon, and chili, it's warm and bright, crisp and fresh. Tzatziki Potato Salad is light and tangy, well dressed with fresh mint and dill, cucumber, garlic, and yogurt. A chapter on dressings includes an exciting collection of vinaigrettes--everything from Basic to Tomato Mint and Fennel Parmesan to creative dressings like Tangerine Shallot and Chipotle Pepper Mayonnaise.

Becker's new Joy is as essential as ever. It still includes old favorites like Green Goddess dressing and molded gelatin salads, and walks us through tasks like how to cook and peel beets. But it's the new illustrations and photographs, and recipes like Quinoa Salad with Pine Nuts and Raisins and Sautéed Veal Medallions on Arugula Tomato Salad, that make you want to renew your old friendship with Joy. --Leora Y. Bloom ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Cookbook
All of these specialty cookbooks by Joy of Cooking hit their mark by providing need to know information and easy but elegant recipes.If you love salads -- a must have for your cookbook collection.

Highly Recommended
I highly recommend this book. The book has 8 chapters dedicated to different kinds of salads and they're:
1. About salads
2 About green salads.
3. About vegetable and savory fruit salads
4. About fruit and molded salads
5. About Bean & Grain salads
6. About fish and shellfish salads
7. About meat and poultry salads
8. About salad dressings.

I've tried several salad & salad dressing recipes and they were tasty and delicious. They have become instant hits at the family and friends gatherings. The recipes are quick and easy to apply. I'm new to cooking and I found the explanations and steps are so easy. The book is definitely worth the money I paid for.

Fab Salads
This book has a great variety of classical and new salads. They all are not only delicious, but the recipies are well-written and thorough. The book also contains other cooking tips that help make your salads better. What a great resource for summer cooking.

You can prepare a different salad every night
Cooking in the summer is drag. It can make your whole house hot.I recently found a great new book I fell in love with.This book on salads and dressing is produced by the Joy of Cooking folks.So you know they will provide excellent recipes. I have always had a hard time creating salad dressings, and original salads.Guess what?This book does it will ease. This book is well organized, and easy to read. I love all of the extra tips and extra material that they add to the book. I hope you will enjoy this book as much as I have. ... Read more

Product Description
In the much-anticipated follow-up to Pretend Soup, celebrity chef Mollie Katzen cooks up 20 new vegetarian recipes that kids six and under can prepare themselves (with a little help from their adult assistant). The last decade has seen unprecedented demand in healthy eating for kids. Taking this interest one step further, Mollie Katzen presents kid-friendly recipes that will inspire joyful kitchen adventures and food appreciation. With Salad People, children will enjoy a lifelong love and playful respect for nutritious food from Tiny Tacos, Counting Soup, Salad People, and beyond. Complete with kitchen tips, safety and behavior rules compiled by actual kids, and thoughtful observations on what children gain from cooking, Salad People is the model children’s kitchen guide for a new decade. All-new recipes make the perfect companions to Pretend Soup recipes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Great cookbook for kids and husbands.:0)
My kids have asked if they can always be the ones to make meals.They have marked which recipes in here they want to make--most of them.Tonight my son made some amazing pink lemonade using a recipe in this book.

Each recipe has a two-page spread and a drawing to illustrate each step.

No offense to men on my title there--my husband does fine in the kitchen, but he refuses to use cookbooks.He himself declared that this is the sort of cookbook he needs, with the pictures and all.So it's a cookbook for kids and husbands.

My 3yo loves this cookbook
My 3.5 year old loves to eat and loves to cook.She had another small cookbook with mostly desserts, so I wanted to get her one with healthy meals.Also, our home is vegetarian. I was a little skeptical when I first looked at this book, thinking the food didn't seem too exciting.But for a small child, it seems perfect--they are simple recipes, and the results are simple, but they are things she can really understand and do a lot of herself.The step by step pictures are perfect, and she takes this book out almost every day.I'm planning to get her the other book by Katzen.

Great for pre-readers!
I got Salad People and Pretend Soup and Other Real Recipes: A Cookbook for Preschoolers and Up for my four-year-old niece for Christmas, along with a child's pink apron and chef's hat. They were a hit! She really likes to help in the kitchen and I looked at a lot of childrens' cooking books before deciding on these. Other books required the child to be a reader already or had lots of recipes for desserts and sweets and such. These books seemed to have healthier recipes in them than some of the others on the market.

The layout for these books is this: each recipe is four pages long. The first two pages are for the adult involved to read. The second two pages are simply drawn step-by-step visual instructions for the child to follow. Mollie Katzen does the artwork in these books and it's very charming.

M. Katzen has another book for children, Honest Pretzels: And 64 Other Amazing Recipes for Cooks Ages 8 & Up, which I think is for a little older crowd...I look forward to getting that one for my niece when she's ready for it.

Great recipes, fun activities for kids
This book has some fantastic recipes, and is lots of fun to use with kids. My daughter is a little too young to follow the instructions herself (2.5), but we still had fun making the recipes together. She is much more willing to try something she helped to prepare.

great first cookbook
This is a fun way to introduce cooking to young kids.While my six year old prepared Tiny Tacos, his younger brother got jealous and ended up mashing avacado for some guacamole to go with them!It turned into a fun, family meal. ... Read more

Product Description
Mounting evidence has shown that heat destroys many of the nutrients found in raw, living food, rendering it harder to digest and nutritionally diminished. Raw food is catching on! From Hollywood stars with personal chefs, to a host of chic new Manhattan restaurants, the Raw Food movement is sweeping the country as people learn about the dramatic health benefits derived by eating a vegan diet in which food is never heated above 118 degrees Fahrenheit.

To most people, salads mean "healthy," and that's it. But this recipe book introduces you to a world of salads and dressings that taste so good, you'd be willing to have them as your main course! Great salads are all about the dressing, and these dressing recipes will make it so easy for you to introduce more vegetables into your diet, that you won't even need to think about the dramatic health benefits. You'll just be thinking about how good they taste!

86 Raw Vegan Recipes:

- 42 Raw Salads
- 37 Raw Dressings
- A "Raw Basics" appendix (with 7 "must have" basic recipes) for people who are new to Raw food.
- Raw Resources Section

NOTE: This book is black and white, so does not contain photographs of recipes. It provides links to color photographs at Kristen Suzanne's Web site, KristensRaw.com. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Love it!
Great recipes!I'm so excited - I think I'll order more of her books!

Dissapointing
Book does not contain any photos at all, there isn't even a guide inside or anything. Not recommended!

A little disappointing...
I purchased this book during a raw food detox i was doing at the time, and ended up being rather disappointed with it.

There are no photographs, and the book is written in a rather bland way with each recipe followed by another, not given separate pages. The recipes themselves are nothing special and i could definately come up with a lot more tasty and exciting recipes on my own. Rather bland and sometimes strange combinations. Not recommended unless you really have no clue when it comes to putting together salads!

Simple, yet so creative
This book is just what I was looking for. I've been a raw foodist for some time and found I was eating fewer and fewer salads...because I was just bored.Put some oil and lemon juice on some greens, then repeat tomorrow...ad nauseum.

No longer.This book has the most amazing, creative recipes for salads and salad dressings...and they are quick and easy to make, as well.Now my only salad dilemma is trying to choose which salad and dressing to prepare each day.

Need Some Salad Variety?
Want to add some variety to your salads? Raw foodies or not, this recipe book is an amazing resource. It gives tons of recipes that make eating salads something to look forward to. After making the Taboul-"Live" from this book I can totally see why people stick with the raw food lifestyle. Not only was it delicious and energizing, the salad was beautiful!! I have flagged almost every single recipe in this book as ones I must try soon. All of the recipes are very easy to follow and all of the ingredients I was able to find easily at my local health food store. ... Read more

Product Description
"Potato salad is not just a starchy buddy to your hamburger. It has a proud place in cultures around the world, from German oil-and-vinegar salads with bacon to dill-accented Scandinavian delights. And, of course, it's the all-American side dish at every Fourth of July picnic. But this great dish deserves to shine year-round. In this book are the flavors of beloved favorites, but with new twists. Other recipes bring in international touches. So, take potato salad to stardom. Go spud wild."
—From Potato Salad ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Compact and creative cookbook for potluck staple
You might wonder...who needs a cookbook for JUST potato salad? But this book will change your mind. For anyone completely and utterly bored by the picnic and potluck standby, this is the cookbook for you. Filled with lots of pictures, this book is really quite pretty. And it re-imagines the potato salad in so many unique, flavorful ways.

The cookbook also challenges you to step away from the run of them mill reds and russets and experiment with the many colorful varieties available. And there are several wonderful takes on using sweet potatoes as well.

My favorite recipe so far involved new potatoes, fresh corn, cherry tomatoes, and a wonderful basil vinaigrette. It would be so perfect for picnicking because the lack of mayonnaise means that food safety isn't an overwhelming concern. ... Read more

Product Description
Choose from a plethora of recipes for dressings, and salads with which to toss them.

Find a range of choices, from creamy and indulgent to tangy and fat-free. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Compact, Useful Salad Dressing Reference
I purchased this little book five or six years ago. Just recently as I took it off the shelf once again to make a favorite (merlot vinaigrette), I noticed a dried splash of merlot on the page and realized just how often I had used this book over the years. Bristol published dozens of these small, specialized books ranging from Best 50 Martinis to Best 50 Mushroom Recipes. I own a dozen books in the series and this is one of the best.

The recipes I most frequently make, besides the aforementioned merlot vinaigrette, include the Thai peanut, citrus vinaigrette, Chinese-style dressing, and dried cherry vinaigrette. The last few pages of this brief book features "fat-free" dressings at least two of which I can say are quite tasty: the balsamic-apple vinaigrette and green goddess.

While this book is small at well under 100 pages, in five years I have yet to make all of the recipes. I also like the serving suggestions offered with nearly all of the recipes. With several recipes the author suggests ways to modify the dressing to use with another application, such as serving the avocado dressing as a sauce over grilled or poached fish for example.

I have to agree with one reviewer about the number of creamy dressings versus vinaigrettes - vinaigrettes win out by a large margin. So that is something to keep in mind as you consider whether or not you would be interested this book. But considering the small price tag I'd say you could hardly go wrong if you are interested in making your own salad dressings and need a place to start.

Great for vinaigrette lovers (not so much for creamy dressing lovers)
This little book is cute and easy to use. It has a few creamy recipes in the beginning, but most of the book is devoted to vinaigrettes. I was personally hoping for more creamy recipes, but this will still be a useful tool. I look forward to trying the Avocado Dressing, the Italian Buttermilk Dressing and the Creamy Curry Dressing.
I would wholeheartedly recommend this for people who love vinegar-based dressings.

Stunning and unique flavors; quick and easy to prepare!
Using the most exotic flavors, this cookbook is a creative and delightful new way to dazzle your dinner guests.Designed by a young, busy working woman, the recipies are fast and simply written.A necessity for anykitchen! ... Read more

Product Description
There are so many delicious and creative ways to enjoy salad.This cookbook sampler (which has been hand crafted & edited by us) is unique-unlike many of the e-books sold today that are copies of copies that have been hastily put together with no thought, care or editing.It offers 20 of the Best of the Best and delicious salad recipes like (Eggplant Tomato Salad, Lemon Zucchini and Cucumber Salad, Potato Salad with Cream, and Much More…..) from the Chef's Secret Vault. Your friends and family will think you've been taking lessons in gourmet cooking. So don't miss this chance to add some treasured recipes to your personal collection. ... Read more

Product Description

Easy-to-prepare recipes for great salads and delicious dressings.

The recipes from this book will encourage the home cook to never again purchase store-bought salads and dressings -- and to toss out those ancient jars and bottles at the back of the refrigerator.

There are more than 200 easy-to-follow recipes for delicious salads and, because every proper salad should be well dressed, more than 150 dressing recipes, too. From delightful starters to main meals unto themselves, there are salads for every season and occasion. They include:

Product Description
Pasta and Scallop Salad, Black Forest Potato Salad, Waldorf Chicken Salad, and Thai Noodle Salad are among the tasty temptations in "Perfect Salads". This cookbook provides illustrated shopping lists, detailed shopping guides, and full-color photos. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great book!
This book is what I've always wanted a cookbook to be, it includes a shopping, equipment and ingredient list with pictures for each and every one of the recipes, and rich, full color photographs not only of the finished product, but of the process and techniques. The recipes, which are already so great and so easy, include variations...what can I say, this book is one great find! ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
SUPER SALADS can boost your mood, help cleanse impurities from your body, and taste divine. From organic vegetables to exotic fruits, there are more than enough ingredients available year-round to create a variety of nutritious and tasty salads. The salads in this book have been devised to provide added health benefits such as a brain boost, antioxidants, or extra vitamins and minerals. ... Read more

Product Description

Tender spring asparagus. Luscious summer berries. Spicy autumn greens and bright winter citrus. More than any other dish, salad allows the characteristic flavors of each season to shine. A simple combination of fresh ingredients in a salad from your kitchen can be more impressive than even the most elaborate dish.

Williams-Sonoma Collection Salad offers more than 40 wonderful salad recipes, grouped by season to emphasize the importance of using ingredients as they reach their natural peak of ripeness. Whether you have a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes in your backyard or a handful of wine-colored beets from the farmers' market, there's a recipe here that offers a delicious way to prepare them. A chapter of portable salads will tempt you to plan a picnic, while a selection of classic salads -- from Cobb salad to celery rémoulade -- rounds out the collection.

Full-color photographs of each dish help make the choice an easy one, and each recipe is accompanied by a photographic sidebar that highlights an essential ingredient or cooking technique, making Salad much more than a great collection of simple recipes. An informative basics section and extensive glossary fill in all you need to know to create the perfect salad.

Salads bring out the best in fresh seasonal ingredients, whether they are delicate spring lettuces paired with soft goat cheese or crisp autumn apples tossed with toasted pecans.

Williams-Sonoma Collection Salad offers more than 40 easy-to-follow recipes, including both classic favorites and fresh new ideas. In these pages, you'll find inspiring salads designed to suit occasions throughout the year -- from an informal summer picnic to an elegant dinner with friends. This vividly photographed, full-color recipe collection, appealing to both novice and experienced cooks, will become an essential addition to your kitchen bookshelf. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Delicious salads
Great book to understand salad basics. Ones you have tried many recipes from this book, you will have your own delicious ideas...Excellent book!

healthy eating
This book wasn't what I was expecting but it turns out to be a great source for new ideas. The ginger-glazed scallops are the best. I just love the Williams-Sonoma cookbooks. You can't go wrong.

Great Recipes!
I absolutely recommend this book. The salads are tasty, fulfilling and varied enough to keep you wanting to try a different one everyday of the week.

A very nice book of classics and seasonal salads.
`Williams-Sonoma Salad' with recipes and text by Georgeanne Brennan, under the general editorship of Williams-Sonoma founder, Chuck Williams is an excellent little, inexpensive hardcover book all about salads. Unlike some other grandly titled books on salads, this little volume does two big things right for a salads only book.

For starters, it's first chapter of recipes has seven (7) recipes for major, classic salads, almost all of which originated in French, Italian, or American cuisines. These are:

Caesar Salad
Cobb Salad
Potato Salad
Salade Nicoise
Celery Root Remoulade
Insalata Caprese
Ambrosia

The second `big' thing it gets right is that the next four chapters cover salads appropriate to each of the four seasons. While your average megamart has virtually all fruits and vegetables throughout the year, there are still some important seasonal considerations that make a difference in the quality or cost of a salad. For example, asparagus and artichokes are far cheaper in the spring than at any other time of the year; tomatoes and fresh corn are at their very best if obtained locally in the summer; apples and pears are freshest in the fall, and citrus is most abundant and least expensive in the winter.

The last chapter of recipes gives us seven (7) `picnic' salads whose taste improves over time or which are easily assembled at the last minute `on site'. They are also very good for extended periods without refrigeration as they contain no mayonnaise or any other uncooked or semi-cooked eggs.

There is a non-recipe chapter at the end on `Salad Basics' covering the primary ingredients and techniques including vinaigrettes, creamy dressings, types of greens, and varieties of other ingredients. It is beyond me why this chapter is put at the back of the book when it is something you should read before embarking on the recipes or on a career of ad libbing salad making.

The only other quirk of the book's organization is that the two potato salad recipes are in two different chapters, one in the classics and one in the summer chapter. Otherwise, in general, this is a very well thought out book organization, making up for the slightly pricy $16.95 list price for 43 recipes. We are also well served by the fact that there is a full-page color snapshot of the results of each and every completed recipe. For a glossy book like this, one would feel cheated if there were pics of only half the recipes.

With all this good stuff going for it, I did find some things that were just a little off. In the recipes for the classic salads, I found at least four instructions that concerned me. The first two were where poaching chicken and cooking hard-boiled eggs were done at substantially longer times than what I have found to be necessary from both other authoritative recipes and from my own experience. I was inclined to think that the author was just trying to be careful with microbes, until I read the Caesar Salad recipe, where a totally raw egg was used to make the dressing. In all the very best recipes for Caesar Salad, the raw egg is `coddled' before adding it to the dressing. That is, it is cooked in boiling water for about a minute to kill off any microbeasties. I was also just a little concerned with the amount of fresh garlic used in the Caesar salad, and the method by which it was added. It called for first making the toasted croutons, then rubbing the fresh garlic onto the sides of all those little cubes. This seems to be a relatively tiresome method, which could easily be replaced by toasting the bread slices, rubbing on the garlic, then cutting the toast into little cubes. And even better and quite traditional technique is to rub the cut garlic into the wooden salad bowl before mixing the dressing.

All in all, this is a better salad book than others I have seen and it is a very good first salad book.
... Read more

Product Description
Dare to get more out of your greens!
 
From healthy, superfood packed entrée salads to indulgent affairs featuring premium ingredients, this bold collection of more than 60 recipes for voracious omnivores and vivacious salad lovers features unusual and dynamic ingredient pairings that take salads to a whole new level.
 
In Mixt Salads, the co-founder and executive chef of San Francisco’s beloved boutique salad joints shares his inventive, flavor-forward creations. Blending all of the best trends in healthy, mindful eating—seasonal, locally grown, modest portions but big flavor—Swallow develops each entrée salad as if he were in the kitchen of a fine dining restaurant. With his penchant for innovative constructions and unabashed flavor, he reinvents the salad with playful yet elegant offerings such as:
 
Porky  mixed greens with pork tenderloin, roasted butternut squash, and port reduction
Donald  duck confit with persimmons and blue cheeses
Burger  ground Kobe with grilled onion
Lobster Boat  poached lobster with golden beets
 
Swallow teaches you how to create fresh, delicious, and addictive salads that take center stage as the entire meal, breaking free of side-dish status. Starting from scratch, he walks you through his salad-building essentials and highlights produce availability so that you can create your own imaginative masterpieces year round. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Excellent.
What I love about this book it provides three things - outstanding recipes, sumptuous pictures and teaches you how to cook remarkable things on the way to preparing these hearty salads.Whether its learning how to make delicious duck confit, how to adeptly prepare a tuna steakor how to smartly and savoringly cook asparagus, this is a true cookbook (and how to eat book) surreptitiously masquerading as a salad book.Strong recommendation is that when you make any of the dressings, go ahead and make extra. A+

Beautiful book, but recipes filled with hard to find ingredients...
As most of the other reviews have mentioned, the book is gorgeous--beautiful photos and clear easy-to-read text. But I totally disagree with the quick, easy, readily available ingredients claims made by other reviewers. I live in the far north suburbs of Chicago and shop at local farmer's markets (only available during the summer and early fall), but I do not have access to many of these ingredients. Also techniques are not explained, i.e. chiffonade of basil, which means to cut into thin strips. If I lived in California (where the author's restaurant is located) I might have access to opal basil, squash blossoms, pea sprouts, Blue Lake beans, hedgehog mushrooms, summer truffle, sharlyn melon, Gypsy peppers, sea beans, and yuzu juice (and those are just some of the uncommon ingredients from the first 86 of the 146 pages). The next time I plan a trip to California I would love to eat at his restaurant, but I won't be making any of these recipes myself. I definitely recommend checking the book out of your local library before making the decision to purchase.

Yummy food that's good for you
I just recently retired and when I worked, loved to to eat a salad every day for lunch at a restaurant, but hate my own salads (same old boring stuff). This book has some of the most wonderful, inventive salads imaginable and I am enjoying trying them out. Some day I hope to get to California again and eat in one of Andrew's restaurants but in the meantime will keep trying out his fantastic recipes. Highly recommend this book to any foodie, salad lover, or anyone wathcing their weight. Great stuff!!

Love It!!
I read this book cover to cover in one sitting, could not put it down. Completely inspiring and timely, this is the way I want to eat now. Love the seasonal concept of cooking. The recipes are easy and accessible with ingredients that are readily available seasonally at any farmer's market or Whole Foods. Even my local regular supermarkets are carrying more and more organics and specialty products (finally!). My favorite aspect of the book lies in the description of the different oils and vinegars and how to combine them for different results based on the greens you are using. Well done!

Inventive salads that make your taste buds water...
A creative and fun exploration of branching out from the same old boring salad. The voice of the author can be easily heard guiding you through fun and inventive recipes that will change your views of salad medleys forever. The photos are beautiful and show the reader how to make healthy salad creations that are perfect for an afternoon lunch at the office or to impress dinner guests alike. ... Read more

Product Description
Designed for the busy home cook, Food Made Fast is the latest collectible series from Williams-Sonoma. Using a straightforward approach to everyday cooking, Food Made Fast is about delicious food, simply prepared, with easy-to-follow recipes and tips. Each book emphasizes keeping a well-stocked pantry, planning ahead, and using fresh ingredients. Dedicated to a single subject--from Grill to Asian to Seafood--each volume makes it simple to plan, cook, and enjoy great-tasting food throughout the week. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Very Good Salad Book
Williams-Sonoma has a lot of good cookbooks and this one is a fine one too. If you don't like one or more of the salads as with any other recipe, you can always switch it up to your own liking...you don't always have to follow the recipe to the "T". I found many that I liked a few I didn't like but changed them to the way I do like them. Salads are fun to make, so is being healthy.

Disappointed
I was very disappointed with this book. I was going to give it as a shower gift with a lovely salad bowl etc, but it is so bad that I am shelving it!There are only a few recipes that I might use. It is not very creative at all. I guess that is why WS has come out with a newer salad book.

Good book, good recipes, easy to find on sale
I found this book a great change of pace with salads.I love this series of books, so it's a 4 star for me.I like of course the layout, and there is a picture with every recipe.

The salads, I have tried many of them.There are a couple of just GREAT salads.Several good salads, and yes a couple of terrible salads.Because there were 2 salads I really hated, I did not give it 5 stars.

Oh, this book is pretty easy to find on sale, depending on where you look.I got mine for $6.00 and that's a good deal.

The recipes are moderately easy to follow.I found some of the instructions a little hard to understand.For instance, it has a side note on how to make your own candied nuts.It sure sounded easy - but I still don't know what I did wrong.

I find that most of the combination's of food complement each other, and the prep is about what they say it should be for time.

There were a couple of salad dressings that it used several times, with just varying 1 ingredient, and thought that was pretty genius as it's a basic, quick, fresh option regardless of using the actual full salad recipe.

great idea for a cook book
I really enjoy this book.The photos are wonderfully colorful and descriptive of each and every salad and the recipes are fairly easy and delicious.I recommend. ... Read more

Product Description
Every proper salad should come to the table well dressed. Salad Dressings is a veritable wardrobe of vinaigrettes and creamy dressings that are easy to make and even easier to store. Flavors such as tarragon, roasted red pepper, or crumbled Stilton cheese enhance simple salads of tender greens, while creamy varieties such as Tart Russian or decadent Blue Cheese pair sumptuously with heartier flavors and textures. Exotic dressings like Thai Peanut or Indian Curry add distinctive, unusual flavors and elevate the ordinary. Salad recipes sprinkled throughout plus quick recipes for crunchy toppings—think flavored croutons or spiced nuts—top off this handy guide to salad fare extraordinaire. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Amazing recipes! The best!
I bought this recipe book in the wine country in California while on a trip. Salad dressings (done my own way) have always been a downfall for me. Store bought salad dressings are really not that great either.THIS book has amazing recipes and they are all delicious!I have made about 10 of them so far and they have all been 5 star in my opinion. I look forward to making them all.I am very picky about good taste in salads, as they can be alot of work in washing and cutting up vegetables. This book makes the work of preparing a salad worthwhile.

Highly recommended!

Not really what I expected
I ordered this book because of a recommendation in a Newspaper, but was a bit disappointed .the recipes lack flavor and some of them taste too oily and too lemony.,some of the ingredients I cannot find easily, not too many recipes some are the old stand-bys.I do not know why it was shown as a great salad dressing book. ... Read more

Product Description
The Gourmet's Vinaigrettes and Salads CookbookOver 180 exquisite new salads and vinaigrettes created by Chef Keith A. Huffman, offer quick, easy, and delicious ways to experiment with new flavors!Chef Huffman began his career in St. Paul, Minnesota, after graduating from the extensive Saint Paul Technical College culinary program. While perfecting his natural ability, Chef Huffman placed in two national cooking competitions and in 1996, he was awarded the coveted "Silver Toque Award."Reviews"The recipes in The Gourmet's Vinaigrettes and Salads Cookbook are easy to follow and you can almost taste the finished product as you read through the recipes! The Gourmet's Vinaigrettes and Salads Cookbook is a must for all professional and home cooks."-Chef Frankie Jedneak, Certified Executive Chef, President of the American Culinary Federation Minneapolis Chapter."The Gourmet's Vinaigrettes and Salads Cookbook contains easy to follow recipes and wonderful explanations for each. Chef Huffman uses fresh and creative ingredients to tantalize the taste buds."-Christopher J. Dwyer, Certified Executive Chef, Chef Instructor at Minneapolis College, Vice President of the American Culinary Federation Minneapolis Chapter. ... Read more

Product Description
Best Dressed Southern Salads is much more than a cookbook – it’s a gastronomic journey of sumptuous salad toppings from Key West to Washington, D.C. The South has always offered a distinctive version of cuisine, but now writer Vicky Moon slices it apart state by state. Recipes such as "South Beach" present a surprising blend of brown sugar, celery seed and dry mustard with red wine vinegar and olive oil. Served over Bibb lettuce, Florida oranges, Florida avocados and sliced tomatoes (from Florida, of course), it's best nibbled while watching the world go by in one of the liveliest neighborhoods imaginable (you’ll remember it from the movie, "The Birdcage").

"Mrs. Gotrock's Palm Beach Fruit Salad Dressing" is said to be a secret mixture from one of the most famous hostesses of all time. Meander along the trail with "Buckhead Champagne Dressing" from Atlanta, "Delicious Dandelion Salad" from Charlotte and "Caper and Caviar Dressing" all from the southern most tip of the United States to our Nation's Capitol. Discover the recipes, the people and the places that make Southern cooking such a treat, written in the style of Vicky’s previous book, The Middleburg Mystique that The Washington Times hailed as: "Titillating tales of divorce, murder, mayhem and madness among the owner-squires of exquisite hunt-country estates." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

--Enjoyable--
Vicky Moon has assembled a nice assortment of Southern salad recipes that take the reader up the eastern coast, from the Florida Keys to Northern Virginia and Washington, D. C.She calls it "Margaritaville to Egoville."The book is witty with bits of humor and antidotes about her travels.

BEST DRESSED SOUTHERN SALADS has a catchy title and the small, but compact book is filled with some luscious sounding recipes.I like the small size of the book, because you can easily take it with you to the grocery store when you shop for the dressing and salad ingredients.

I tried several of her salads and enjoyed them.I'm looking forward to trying more recipes as we get into the summer months when our produce is at its peak.

Lovely Cookbook with Juicy Stories!
This lovely, little cookbook combines recipes and fun, inside-the-loop stories about prominant Southern figures.I thoroughly enjoyed Vicky Moon's book "Middleburg Mystique," and I'm glad this book is just as good. ... Read more