cover image The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

, . . America's Test Kitchen, $34.95 (864pp) ISBN 978-0-936184-87-6

The 800-plus pages in this thorough volume are crammed with accessible, family-friendly recipes, variations, tips, product and brand information, and technique instructions from the crew at America's Test Kitchen. At the same time, it feels almost as intimate and friendly as a specialty cookbook from a single chef. Recipes range from utterly simple (Easy Homemade Pita Chips, Perfect Popcorn, and the Simplest Green Salad) to somewhat more involved—but never intimidating—contemporary interpretations of such dishes as Pasta Primavera, Chicken Piccata, Rosemary Foccacia, and Triple Chocolate Chunk Pecan Pie. All the basic food categories are included, starting with appetizers, salads, sandwiches, soups and stews and moving through fish and shellfish, poultry, meat (plus a separate chapter on grilling), slow cooker and pressure cooker meals and all kinds of baked goods and desserts. The preface promises that "the recipes in this book will work in your home kitchen almost all the time," and the extensive, repeated testing reportedly conducted in America's Test Kitchen backs up that promise, meaning this volume could easily become a foolproof go-to resource for everyday cooking. (Nov.)