cover image Betty Crocker Bisquick II Cookbook: Easy, Delicious Dinners, Desserts, Breakfasts and More

Betty Crocker Bisquick II Cookbook: Easy, Delicious Dinners, Desserts, Breakfasts and More

Betty Crocker. Wiley Publishing, $24.95 (255pp) ISBN 978-0-7645-4339-5

It's a branded product recognizable to most Americans, whether grabbed blearily from the cupboard on weekend mornings to produce a pancake breakfast or picked up in the supermarket to make quick biscuits alongside whatever else is for dinner. In this follow-up to the first Bisquick Cookbook, recipes for""Ultimate Bisquick Favorites"" (including Best-Ever Waffles and Melt-in-Your-Mouth Pancakes) are used as endpaper, while the inside pages hold dozens of recipes for quick family meals. Salty dishes like Roasted-Vegetable Egg Bake (which gets a""Kids Love"" icon) and Mini Rosemary Garlic Focaccias (which doesn't) complement recipes for sweet breads, tarts, snacks and desserts. Full-page pictures illustrate about a third of the recipes--this is one of the highlights of this conveniently spiral-bound book, which has its pages inset to prevent staining when it's laid out on the counter. Each recipe comes with explicit prep and cook times, and offers a""Betty's Tip""--serving suggestions or pointers when shopping for non-Bisquick ingredients.