Book Review: Taste of Home Best Loved Recipes

Most of our favorite recipes have some kind of story attached to them.  They are outstanding recipes in their own right but there is usually something else that makes them extra special to us.  A sister who used to bake a special type of coffee cake or a mother-in-law that could make samosas better than any street vendor in Chenai.  Maybe it was an old family recipe that doesn't even have a real name or a recipe for ni su mien bao that was shared by a friend from a distant land.  These are some of the things that make home cooking great!

Last week, a cook book was released that celebrates these best loved home cooked dishes along with the people that make them come to life.  The Taste of Home Best Loved Recipes features 1,485 recipes that represent the best of the best recipes that have been submitted to The Taste of Home Magazine over the last 20 years.  Each of these recipes was chosen from thousands that were submitted by readers.  They were subjected to numerous tests and reviews.  Each was selected because their directions are clear and simple, they use ingredients that are readily available at most grocery stores or markets, and most importantly they work!  The recipes are guaranteed to look, smell, and taste as good in your kitchen as they do in the Taste of Home's test kitchens.  Each of these recipes includes the year it was published, the name of the reader who submitted it, plus any tips, facts, or other stories submitted by the reader.  Many of the recipes include full color photographs as well. 

The book begins with a small introduction about the history of Taste of Home Magazine which published its first issue over 20 years ago.  The magazine began as a bimonthly publication and later evolved into a family of magazines, annuals, special issues, and cookbooks.  It has always operated on a simple premise - create a magazine that is devoted to delicious home cooked food and include as many high quality recipes submitted by readers as possible.  The book continues with section after section of recipes.  Overall, this is a very large, well bound volume.  It contains so many recipes that it would be easy to lose your way were it not for a set of three detailed indexes that were included at the end of the book.

For our review, it was especially difficult to choose only three recipes from such a voluminous collection.  After much consideration, we settled on two classic European dishes and one recipe for a side dish that could go with almost any meal.   We tried the German classic, Beef Rouladen along with the utility side dish, Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes.  Both were very easy to make - only a few steps - and both resulted in outstanding dishes as well as great leftovers the next day.  We also tried a breakfast recipe, another European classic, the Overnight Cherry Danish. This recipe required a little more planning as we were required to mix up the dough the day before and refrigerate it overnight.  The next morning, the dough was a perfect consistency and easy to roll out in order to construct the danishes.  This recipe was also very easy to make and we liked the versatility of it as many other seasonal fruits could be substituted for the cherries.  Overall, this is an exceptional collection of recipes.  If we were only allowed to have one cookbook, this one would be our choice.  The book includes an extensive collection of enticing recipes - we especially liked the international meal collections like Mexican Fiesta, Traditional German Meal, French Christmas Menu, Memories from India, A trip to Armenia, and Cooking to a Cuban Beat to name a few!  The recipes are easy to make and the stories included from the recipes' creators are also very interesting.  We give Taste of Home Best Loved Recipes five stars out of five.