The Best Simple Recipes: More Than 200 Flavorful, Foolproof Recipes That Cook in 30 Minutes or Less

I used this book for my entire menu this week, and am extremely impressed. Each recipe was a big winner, and they did NOT taste like typical thrown-together simple recipes. A real standout for me was the chicken and dumplings recipe. It made use of supermarket rotisserie chicken, chicken broth, and a few fresh veggies and all-purpose flour. It was amazingly flavorful, with perfect soft-springy drop dumplings, and the most complicated thing you had to do was chop the onion. THAT is how you do semi-homemade, Ms. Lee. The pork schnitzel with apple coleslaw was also especially good, especially for a 20 minute recipe. The book is very clearly written with big, beautiful pictures, and helpful hints and tips about the preparation, ingredients, etc, in typical ATK fashion. These recipes are also more forgiving than usual of mistakes, ingredient substitutions, and other inaccuracies that can happen when you're in a rush. Any ATK or Cooks Illustrated fan will love this book, and even those who maybe are iffy on their typical cookbooks should give this one a try. This is simple, straightforward home cooking that will be welcome on any family table, and the recipes are easily scaled for larger or smaller families thanks to the simple preparation and generally forgiving nature of the recipes in the first place. Give it a shot!

I am not a good cook by any means. I can bake, but when it comes to cooking I either over-cook or under-cook, or it just comes out a mess. This book has been awesome! It has simple directions and gives good detail on timing - which is the hardest part for me!! The way it's written is easy for beginners to understand without being overly wordy or "dummied down" for those that are more of a proficient cook. They use mostly ingredients I already have in the kitchen. If I am missing something, the recipes are usually simple enough that I can swap out an ingredient easily for something I have without ruining the entire dish. So far my husband and I have both been really impressed by these recipes. Now if only there was an easier way for me to have all of this information when I go grocery shopping to generate my list for me... Update: we have now had this for a few months and have been able to try a bunch more recipes out and haven't found a single one we don't like. My favorite so far has been the fish tacos (better than i've ever had in any restaurant!) Plus I was the one who found this cookbook, but now my husband acts like it's his cookbook because he likes it so much. This coming from someone who used to hate cookbooks and he never understood why anyone would use one. Well i think he gets it now. I even recommended a substitute for something we didn't have in the pantry and he had to go to the grocery store to get the exact item because he wanted to make it exactly how the recipe said. My how he has changed his tune.

Easy recipes. We now have a tiny kitchen and not all the appliances we have in our other home. Looking for easy ideas this fits the bill.

My whole family is in love with this cookbook. My 14 year old was so excited to sit down to dinner last night. My husband picked a recipe and bought the ingredients for it, I came home and had a blast making it! (His arm is in a sling right now, kind of glad or he would have made the whole meal himself. lol) My adult kids are planning to come over and pick meals we can make together. I told my husband I’m so tired of how boring online recipes are. I want to have more fun in the kitchen and make food I’m excited to try that doesn’t call for cream soups or standard one sheet pan meals. All the recipes look amazing in here. I’m excited to build my confidence making fish and pork too! I love that the recipes give some technique and specifics too! This is such a great cookbook!!! Update: we just keep loving this cookbook. Everything turns out so beautiful and flavorful. My son and daughter both asked me to send them recipes to make with their spouses. We were all cooking from the same book, the same night and send pics to each other. Everyone loved what they picked. Get this book and have fun!

This book seems like an overall good cookbook. It’s The first one I’ve bought so far and so I wanted something simple but solid. However, although I think most people would enjoy the recipes here, it’s not the type of food I was hoping for. It has lots of text and some small demos as well as recommendations for products and dedicated pages for learning how to go about Serrano things like broth or useful things to know about steak It’s also not a start-from-scratch sort of cookbook. The ones I’ve looked at so far (I just got it 5 min ago so take what I say with a grain of salt) have things like rotisserie chicken witch is the go-to for a fast chicken soup and precooked rice that you get in those small bags at the store. Anyway, I will still be trying some of the recipes and I’m sure they’ll turn out just fine :) Update: I don’t find myself using this book very often as I feel some of the recipes lack seasoning's and are a bit too experimental rather than a classic meal you can feel confident that you’ll enjoy. It’s just not a good book for beginners who are looking for something simple and classic. But if you want to try something new that’s outside of the normal food combinations you usually eat, then I think this book is fine.

OK I've had a chance to go through it, I haven't read it cover to cover as I will eventually but I did spend some time with it today. First thing I noticed was the size.......WOW I LOVE IT! It's THE PERFECT size. It isn't large like the Best Of series. It's probably 7 inches by 8 inches, I really do love the size. Secondly, as I flipped through the book I noticed IT'S FULL of color pictures. Not just small ones that focus on a technique, but FULL PAGE color pictures of finished dishes. Much more than we've seen in the past. Not just a couple of sections in the book, know what I mean, a lot through the entire book. Third, the quality of the pages. WONDERFUL! Heavy,glossy, quality pages. Not whimpy flimsy like the ATK Family ring binder book. Finally, the content. Are these new dishes? Um.......nope, but really did you think they would be? :) They are BASICALLY the same but changed up a bit. And who knows, maybe there ARE new recipes. I only have two Best Of books, the 30 Minute and Skillet Meals books and frankly, they don't inspire me and have looked through them a few times. I know the content is good if I just take the time to read it but I am visual. I need to be inspired to cook something and I think that's why I LOVE this book. It's very visual, has a lot of pics, and some great recipes. Here's the break down in Chapters: Introduction Soups and Stews Salads Poultry Beef Pork Seafood Vegetarian (not a lot thankfully) Hot Off The Grill Pasta Pizza and Sandwiches Stir-Fries and Curries and then the Index..... Really, I have to say I LOVE this book. I'm a huge ATK fan so you have to take that when considering what I've written. I have A LOT of cookbooks. And I use them. Of all the times I've cooked with a cookbook ATK recipe's are the ONLY ones I've been asked to share the recipe for. I'll continue to purchase their books until they cease to print them. I can't think of a negative thing to say about this book, my only complaint in the past with their "Best Of" series would have been the size and lack of colored pictures, they just aren't 'pretty' books. Well ATK must be listening because they have changed it up completely and as a result, there are no negatives with this new book. It's a keeper!

This is a cook book I'd love to love. As an avid and adventuresome home cook, I'm a great fan of the Cook's Illustrated series. I'm a good cook, but, yes, I use recipes. And I cook for my family every night after work. So when a book claiming "simple" and "30 minutes" came out for ATK, I grabbed it up. I've had the book for about 10 months and made about 8 of the recipes, some multiple times. Here's my take. First, none of these recipes is easy to do in 30 minutes or less. And if you try for the 30 minutes, it's a nerve wracking, intense process. This isn't a Rachel Ray approach, or Gold's Three Ingredients approach. A lot of ingredients, multiple cooking techniques and lots of dirty dishes to clean. So far, I put the recipes into three categories: 1) the surprisingly delicious (e.g., the salmon cakes and the modern twist on the ruben sandwich and bistro slaw; 2) the surprisingly tasteless (penne with tomato vodka sauce); and 3) the tasty, but at a price (what chicken casserole wouldn't taste good with a whole package of Boursin cheese in the mix??) I'm hoping as I work my way through the book that more fall into category 1 than categories 2 or 3. I'll update this review as time goes on. If the book were not billed as simple and 30 minutes, I might have given it 4 stars. We'll see as I get through more of the recipes if they are worth it, even at more than 30 minutes and not so simple. UPDATE: I want to comment on a great and not-so-great recipe. The Oven Grilled Rueben sandwich and the suggested bistro slaw were spectacular. What made them so great was not that they made a traditional Ruben in 30 minutes or less, but that the authors rethought the whole sandwich, changing up the sourkraut and the dressing into homemade varieties. Very easy and so flavorful both adults and kids loved it. (And you dont' have to use the recommended 4 oz of corned beef per sandwich; enough other ingredients are on the sandwich already.) The Bistro slaw, composed of thinly sliced fennel and apple was something you'd find in a high end cafe. On the other hand, we made the Skillet Pastisio last week. It was pasta, lamb, cream and feta. My kids liked it a lot but I thought it was very so-so. Flavors muted. If the kids didn't like it, I wouldn't make it again. And this is the problem, I'm finding, with many of the recipes. They are lack brightness. Fresh, sometimes expensive ingredients are put together with uninspiring results. Other recipes, like the Rueben and the Southwest Salmon Cakes are inventive, fresh, very flavorful and worth the investment of time and money. UPDATE 2: We ventured out: for Meatless Monday we made the Chickpea Cakes with Cucumber-Yogurt Sauce. This meal is a winner--completely tasty, especially when combined with the yogurt sauce. It's a real Indian inspired dish, the yogurt sauce being a Raita, and the cakes infused with a bit of Garam Masala spice that made the whole house smell great. BUT, this is not a 30 minute, nor weeknight meal. It required one first to make toasted fresh breadcrumbs, the sauce with its various steps, and the labor intensive cakes. I had to use the food processor, sheet pan, oven, stove, 2 colanders, and about 5 bowls. A very intense 45 minutes was required before we could sit down,and by that time I was too tired to make a salad. Not a big loss as the cakes and sauce are loaded with veg and beans. Great for a weekend family dinner or lunch, but not a weekday dinner. UPDATE 2017: A WINNER--Barbequed chicken sandwiches. A quick saute of chicken breast in butter (we used boneless thighs we had on-hand) and then a braise in same pan in a "doctored" barbeque sauce made a great, taste chicken base. But the slaw was astounding. A bag of slaw (we had a bag of broccoli slaw from wegmans that needed eating) mixed with mayo, buttermilk and a touch of apple cider vinegar was full of great flavor and crunch. I put this recipe in category #1--surprising flavor from a few ingredients and easy to make.

The recipes in this book are straightforward, fairly quick, and most importantly delicious! I have made recipes from America's Test Kitchens before and they were time consuming and expensive to make. NOT SO with this Simple version! Once you start cooking with it, you will discover what ingredients to keep on hand. You and your family will be surprised by the fantastic looking and tasting dishes you put at the table. I love this cookbook so much that I purchased it for my daughter and her husband and plan to get one for my niece and her fiancé. The tips in this book are SO helpful. The test kitchen has already done the legwork concerning different brands of things like broths and hot sauces. The preparation tips make life easier too! If I had to get rid of all my cookbooks except one, I'd keep this one, hands down! Our all time favorites are Greek pita pizzas, Crisp skinned Bourbon Chicken, and Pork Chops with Pears and Blue Cheese. There are so many recipes in this book, you could eat a different dish for almost a whole year! (The only drawback-no nutritional info. But this isn't a book for dieting!)

Disappointed with the recipes

Lots of great, delicious, recipes! Easy to follow.

Gosto muito desse livro. Tenho vários da ATK, mas esse em especial tem algo muito valioso: receitas práticas, deliciosas e que podem ser executadas num dia de semana com pouco tempo e ingredientes fáceis.

Meh..Not very good.. The recipes are barely heard of

Perfect