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| Seriously Delish |
Title: Seriously Delish: 150 Recipes for People Who Totally Love Food
Author: Jessica Merchant
Publication Date: 9/2/14
Pages: 304
Genre: Food / Nonfiction
How I Found It: I've been reading Merchant's blog, How Sweet It Is, for years.
Date Completed: 8/14/17
Summary: Merchant pulls no punches with flavor or flair in her debut cookbook.
What I Thought: I have been reading Merchant's blog for so, so long. I've made many of her recipes and loved everything I've tried from her site. My favorite salad of all time is a recipe from her blog. So, when she debuted her first cookbook a few years back, it seemed like a no-brainer.
Of course, 2014 was the year we moved to a new region of the country and everything felt in flux there for a while (in a good way). I never forgot about the cookbook, but since it came out the week we moved, I never got around to picking it up.
Flash forward to present day.
Merchant is getting ready to release her second cookbook. I figured it was finally time for me to grab the first one. Since it's been out so long, I snagged it from the library, which is what I usually do with cookbooks I'm interested in these days. I figure it's a good way to give them a test run and see how many recipes I really would want out of them before buying them or putting them on my wish list. More often than not, I copy down 3-5 recipes out of the book and feel like I have all the info I want. No need to buy the whole book if I only want 10 of the pages out of it (look, I get that it would always be better to buy the book and support the author, but I'm a girl on a budget here).
As I read through this cookbook, though, I found myself marking so. many. recipes. Tons. Unsurprisingly, Merchant's appeal to my palate carried right over from her blog. Plus, she has 150 recipes in this book. That's no joke. That is a serious cookbook. Of course, I don't want to make every single one, but there are so many good looking ones. So many that I didn't bother copying down a single one before returning the book to the library. I just put it promptly on my wish list and hope someone indulges me for Christmas so I can indulge myself in the new year by cooking my heart out.
It was definitely tough reading this book while I'm still on this diet (20 lbs lost so far!). Merchant is no health food writer. Like Chrissy Teigen, though, she does include some healthier options. Basically, she cooks like I do. She's most concerned with flavor. If you can get that while also subbing in some healthier choices, then awesome. If not, then it's no big deal for an occasional treat.
I can't wait to get my hands on this one for real. In the mean time, I'll keep reading Merchant's blog and be eagerly awaiting the release of her new cookbook.
Recipes I Want to Try: There were so many! A few that especially stood out: Roasted Maple-Balsamic Mushrooms with Bacon, Roasted Pork & Pineapple Baked Taquitos, White Cheddar Apple Crisp, and Lemon-Herb Chicken Romano
Rating: ★★★★☆
Will I Re-Read: Definitely! I put a copy on my wish list.
I own this book! Back when I worked at the library in Ohio, a patron raved about how amazing it was and after flipping through it I decided to buy a copy. I'm bad about actually USING cookbooks, but I have made a few recipes and I can totally vouch for those balsamic bacon mushrooms -- mmmmmmm!
ReplyDeleteI tend to be bad about USING cookbooks, too. That's why I've started just getting them from the library unless I KNOW there's enough there to justify buying it.
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