Review: Fast Fresh and Fabulous by Janelle Bloom
A Cookbook with Quick and Easy Recipes for Family Meals and Desserts
Nov 9, 2008
Janelle Bloom, a well-known presenter of the Australian version of the popular television program Ready, Steady, Cook, believes that it is possible for anyone to prepare delicious meals easily using fresh ingredients.
Fast, Fresh and Fabulous (Ebury Press, 2008) contains not only recipes that can be easily prepared at home, it is also jam-packed with Janelle’s tips and ideas for demystifying the art of cooking and equipping everyday home cooks with the knowledge they need to prepare mouth-watering meals.
Simple Recipes With Fresh Ingredients
Fast Fresh and Fabulous proves that you don’t need to pare ingredients down to a bare minimum to create recipes that are easily achievable by the everyday home cook.
Janelle Bloom offers a range of recipes to suit all tastes and lifestyles. Janelle’s tips throughout the book with alternative ingredients or preparation instructions cater to less experienced cooks to encourage them to get involved in preparing meals.
For those who prefer their meals in a simple meat + salad/vegetables/side-dish style, there are a range of dishes suitable to serve with steak, lamb, pork or chicken. Vegetarian tastes are also well catered to.
Dishes range from the Cheat’s Lasagne (15 minutes preparation time) to the more elaborate but still simple Barbecued Lamb with Bean, Asparagus and Pine Nut Salad and standard favourites such as Salt and Pepper Squid, Sticky Pork Spare Ribs and Finger-lickin’ Chicken Drumsticks.
There are recipes to appeal to both gourmet and simple tastes, suitable for families with children as well as more developed adult palates.
Delicious Desserts and Sweets
Recipes suitable to serve for dessert or with coffee include Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake and Cherry Cream Cheese Strudel alongside more refreshing Watermelon and Lychees with Passionfruit Slush and Shaved Pineapple with Minted Sugar. Janelle’s Chocolate Brownies and Marshmallow Hot Chocolate are sure to become family favourites and the Jelly Cakes will no doubt appeal to modern children as much as Janelle recalls enjoying them as a child preparing them herself when younger.
In addition to a variety of tarts, strudels, cakes, biscuits and slices, Janelle has included recipes for favourites such as scones and sticky date pudding and a more creative Baklava ice-cream loaf.
Included in the dessert section are recipes for jams and drinks such as Frozen Cosmopolitans and a Pineapple and Coconut Mocktail.
Practical Everyday Cooking Tips and Ideas
Following each main recipe chapter, Janelle has included a “Fast Inspirations” section with quick recipe ideas to dress-up everyday favourites for appealing side-dishes, snacks and 10 minute desserts. A final section also includes basic cooking essentials for less experienced cooks.
An Ideal Cookbook for Australian Summer Dining
Janelle’s main meals are generally quite light focusing on lighter soups and meals rather than heavy stews and rich sauces. With a range of pork, lamb, fish, chicken, beef and vegetarian mains and side-dishes, Fast, Fresh and Fabulous has something to offer for casual family dining as well as entertaining. Desserts are decadent and are sure to delight anyone with a sweet tooth.
Supremely suited to Australian tastes and lifestyles, Janelle Bloom has compiled a collection of her own family favourite recipes sure to find new fans in households across the country. With detailed, easy to follow instructions, easy to obtain ingredients and a focus on encouraging cooks to enjoy the time spent preparing meals, Fast, Fresh and Fabulous is sure to become a frequently-used, favourite cookbook for many Australian families.
Fast, Fresh and Fabulous (ISBN: 9781741666465, 256 pages)
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