The Weeknight Mediterranean Kitchen

Blogger Ferraro (Little Ferraro Kitchen) offers an assortment of quick-and-easy Mediterranean recipes inspired by both her Jewish ancestry and a trip she and her husband made to Turkey and Spain. The author’s voice is perky, but there’s a lack of authenticity: chimichurri, for example, isn’t Mediterranean (it hails from Argentina). Ferraro offers helpful shortcuts for preparation, such as using packaged puff pastry for bourekas and frozen phyllo shells for mini baklava bites, but her suggestion to use garlic powder instead of fresh garlic may not be worth the time saved in such meals as a sweet-and-savory dish of roasted squash with dates. Tips scattered throughout are fairly basic (e.g., crack eggs for shakshuka in a bowl rather than adding them directly to the pan to avoid shell mishaps). Highlights include a recipe for homemade harissa hot sauce, orzo and Turkish eggs with spinach and yogurt, and one-pot meals like paprika chicken with Castelvetrano olives. Ferraro certainly has a friendly approach, but little new ground is broken. [em](July) [/em]