Health-conscious readers can embrace this value-priced trade paper edition that boasts more than 500 of Cooking Light magazine's greatest recipes presented in a new kitchen-friendly format.

    From a hot and hearty stew for a cold night to a cool, refreshing Vichyssoise for a sizzling afternoon, there's a recipe here for every occasion. Also included are nostalgic classics (like everyone's favorite Chicken Noodle Soup) as well as innovative new creations inspired by the cuisines of the world--from Thai Ginger Chicken to Mexican Seafood. With a wonderful selection of quick bread recipes and a crockpot full of tips and hints to help soup-makers hone their skills, The Big Book of Soups and Stews is the ultimate one-stop comfort food cookbook.

    Though the subject is so familiar to us all, her approach is totally original, just as it was in her award-winning Roasting: A Simple Art and Microwave Gourmet. In a wonderfully diverse collection of nearly three hundred recipes from all over the world--some traditional, some newly minted, many so simple they require no cooking at all, each of them very much a part of our spiritual and emotional lives--she offers up a lifetime worth of pleasure:icy soups for steamy days (ceviche soup with ginger) and hot soups for cold days (winter duck soup)rustic potages (great green soup) and elegant consommes (beef madrilene)simple soups to start (Moroccan tomato) and complex soups that make a meal (beef short ribs in a pot)fifteen-minute specials (mussels and tomato soup) and those that simmer all day (pot-au-feu)a magical garlic broth, among other vegetable broths and bases, gives vegetarians hundreds of recipes to enjoy As always, Barbara's intelligence and talent for innovation have resulted in a vast body of ideas to make your life in the kitchen easy and interesting. Nearly thirty stocks are offered, as well as dozens of ways to use seasonal produce to cook and freeze soup bases for year-round fresh taste. You'll find cooking times for everything from dumplings and piroshki to noodles and pasta, simmering times for every possible cut of meat, and yields and blanching times for dozens of vegetables. There are easy-to-follow charts to answer every cooking question.And then there's Barbara's "memory pieces." Woven through the recipes, they form a book within a book, one family's personal and culinary history. They're fascinating and warming and enriching on their own. They also remind us why soup is a vital part of our lives. And why Barbara Kafka is a vital part of our cooking experience.

    Simple to Spectacular introduces a unique concept developed by one of the world's top chefs, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything and the New York Times's hugely popular column "The Minimalist." Ever since their award-winning collaboration on Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef, the acclaimed duo has been cooking up a repertoire of new dishes that can be prepared in any of five progressively sophisticated ways.Simple to Spectacular features a total of 250 recipes in 50 groups. Each group begins with a simple, elegant recipe--a few ingredients combined for maximum effect--followed by fully detailed, increasingly elaborate variations. For example, a recipe for Grilled Shrimp with Thyme and Lemon leads to Grilled Shrimp and Zucchini on Rosemary Skewers, Grilled Shrimp with Apple Ketchup, Thai-style Grilled Shrimp on Lemongrass Skewers, and Grilled Shrimp Balls with Cucumber and Yogurt.Every aspect of the meal is covered, from superb soups and salads to unforgettable side dishes, entrees, and desserts. In Simple to Spectacular, everything--from the basics to innovations by a four-star chef--is tailored for a quick Tuesday night dinner or an elegant weekend party.  And in the now-classic Vongerichten-Bittman style, all of the recipes can be made in the kitchen of any home cook. With 80 full-color photographs giving a mouthwatering view of the Simple-to-Spectacular transformations, readers and cooks will eagerly explore the possibilities.Jean-Georges Vongerichten (right) won the 1998 James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef and Best New Restaurant. His Manhattan restaurants include Vong, Jo Jo, The Mercer Kitchen, and Jean Georges, which earned a rare four-star rating from the New York Times.  In Simple to Spectacular, two titans of the food world have created a truly groundbreaking cookbook.  Here are 250 superb recipes arranged in a uniquely useful way: a basic recipe and four increasingly sophisticated variations, with each group (there are 50 groups in all) based on a given technique.  This ingenious organization enables cooks of all levels of expertise to understand how a recipe is created and to re-create the brilliantly simple recipes and dazzling variations from one of our best food writers and home cooks teamed with one of America's greatest chefs.

    For meals that are meant for sharing with friends and family but created with busy cooks in mind, Martha Stewart's Dinner at Home is a new classic that cooks of all levels will depend on. Whether you're making a Sunday supper or hosting a casual get-together, Martha Stewart has put together 52 diverse menus that make the most of each season's flavors—and the various ways we like to cook as the weather changes. The menus—featuring starters, main courses, side dishes, and desserts—are cleverly designed with a simple preparation schedule that enables you to plan and cook dinner so that it is on the table in about an hour. Using easy-to-find ingredients from the grocery store or farmers' market (and Martha's helpful tips and shortcut techniques), each meal is fresh and inspiring without demanding too much effort. Examples include:  •  Watercress-Cauliflower Soup, Roasted Pork with Sage and Garlic, Braised Fennel and White Beans, Pears with Candied Walnuts and Gorgonzola  •  Asparagus-Parmesan Tart, Shrimp in Saffron Broth, Couscous with Golden Raisins, Apricot-Almond Ice Cream Sandwiches•  Roast Chicken Breasts in Creamy Tarragon Sauce, Warm Lentils with Spinach, Caramelized Endive, Poached Pears with Chocolate Sauce  •  Avocado and Lemon on Toasted Rustic Bread, Seared Tuna in Tomato-Basil Sauce, Green Beans with Lemon Butter, Peaches in Honey SyrupMartha has put so much thought into Martha Stewart's Dinner at Home that cooking for family and friends will be something you look forward to doing again and again.

    She combed through community cookbooks and searched out long-lost heirloom recipes, sure-handedly reworking every recipe in her own kitchen. THE ALL-AMERICAN COOKIE BOOK celebrates regional gems from every corner of the country: Pennsylvania Dutch Soft Sugar Cookies, New York Black and Whites, New Mexican Biscochitos, Key Lime Frosties from Florida, and Mocha Espresso Wafers from Seattle. A sophisticated hazelnut chocolate sandwich cookie that was the closely guarded secret of an Oregon hostess is here, and so is a delightfully crisp (and easy to roll out) old-fashioned gingerbread cookie recreated from a handwritten 1880 notebook. Homespun classics abound: Chocolate Whoopie Pies, Caramel Apple Crumb Bars, Chocolate Chunk Brownies, and Caramel-Frosted Brown Sugar Drops. The collection also features devastatingly delicious contemporary creations like Chewy Chocolate Chunk Monster Cookies and Cranberry-Cherry Icebox Ribbons. For children and adults alike, one of the most exciting chapters will be the lavishly illustrated “Cookie Decorating and Crafts,” which includes everything from simple projects like Christmas cookies and Chocolate Gingerbread Bears to an elaborate gingerbread house. As Nancy Baggett tells the story of America’s heritage, she slips in fascinating bits of history, showing the evolution of our homegrown baking traditions.

    The heavy sauces, the long-cooked roux, and the smothered foods that were the heart of old-style New Orleans cooking have been replaced by simple fresh ingredients and easy cooking techniques with a light touch. Emeril serves up a masterpiece in his first cookbook, Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking.Emeril offers not only hundred of easy-to-prepare recipes, but plenty of professional tips, shortcuts, and useful information about stocking your own New Orleans pantry and making your own seasonings.

    The subtle, surprising results complement seasonal menus.

    As party invitations pile up in the mailbox, Rebecca Rather is up to her elbows in sticky meringue, creamy chocolate, and a sleigh full of savory treats to meet the entertaining needs of her neighbors.In The Pastry Queen Christmas, Rebecca shares nearly 100 traditional recipes reflecting her made-with-love-from-scratch philosophy and the tastes of small-town Texas. Show-off desserts such as Chocolate Cookie Crusted Eggnog Cheesecake, Sticky Toffee Pudding with Brandy Butterscotch Sauce, and Warm Pear Ginger Upside-Down Cake with Amaretto Whipped Cream are the perfect toppers to a family-style feast of Texas Spice-Rubbed Roast Pork, Baked Apple Pear Chutney, Brown Sugar Bacon, and No-Peeking Popovers. Still hungry the next morning? No problem-this country girl does an impressive breakfast, too: Bite-Sized Sticky Buns, Sweet Potato Scones, Cast-Iron Skillet Potatoes, and Mexican Ranch Chilaquiles ought to fill you up.And if you're still looking for excuses to entertain this season, you'll find ooey-gooey baked goods wrapped up as gifts, homemade craft and décor ideas to make your home sparkle, and holiday-worthy menus guaranteed to make your gathering a Texas-sized success. Tree-trimming, cookie decorating, and Santas running down Main Street . . . Christmastime is here.

    And the book itself, rather like its controversial author, represents something new in cookery books. Ramsay has, of course, made a reputation for himself not just for his considerable abilities as a chef, but as a short tempered martinet, tearing into his luckless students with expletive-filled rage. But that spleen is crucial to the man's philosophy (born out of a desire for perfection), and it is conveyed between the delicious-looking recipes presented here (cooking, as Ramsay forcibly reminds us, can't be made up as you go along -- you've got to work, work, work). The recipes themselves look absolutely amazing, such as pan-roasted fillet of John Dory with Cromer Crab, crushed new potatoes and a basil vinaigrette (and it should be noted that Quentin Bacon's beautiful photographs are a massive asset to the book, doing full justice to the visual appeal of the food). In deserts, too, the aspirational appeal here is impressive -- perhaps most of us would not be able to turn out (without trial and error) a raspberry, lemon and basil millefeuille with milk ice cream that looks quite as breathtaking as it does here, but Ramsay's book is calculated to inspire us. Perhaps reading Chef is the perfect way to help us try to cook like Gordon Ramsay; for most of us, a spell in his restaurant kitchen would mean blood on the floor -- here we can learn from his cookery genius without having to put up with the tirades. What more could any aspiring chef want? --Barry Forshaw

    Paula's key to weight loss is moderation and accountability and one day a week she still enjoys good old southern cooking with biscuits and all. Only now she will have one biscuit instead of three. One does not have to give up taste when reducing calories and these recipes are a testament to that. Paula shares 250 of her favorite recipes lightened up. This brand new cookbook presents lightened up versions of fifty of her classic southern recipes and presents new recipes that cuts the calories but not the delicious taste. Including:- The Lady's New Cheesy Mac- New Savannah Gumbo- Flourless chocolate cake- Beaufort Shrimp Pie- Nutty Sweet Potato Balls- All-New Peach Cobbler

    Gathers recipes for cakes, cookies, pastries, crepes, blintzes, popovers, cream puffs, puff pastry, pies, cheesecakes, ice creams, and souffles.

    Holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter are full of homemade cakes that family and friends look forward to every year. The smell of a cake baking in the oven brings back fond memories for most of us and gives children the comforting feeling of home.100 delicious recipes for cakes baked in Bundt pans or tube pansIncludes:Cakes with FruitChocolate CakesCoffee CakesPound CakesFruit CakesNut CakesHoliday Cakesand more!

    Adam's new techniques, from roughing up meat and vegetables ("scruffing") to cooking directly on hot coals ("clinching") to constantly turning and moving the meat while cooking ("hot potato"), produce crust formation and layers of flavor, while his board dressings and finishing salts build upon delicious meat juices, and his "fork finishers"—like cranberry, hatch chile, and mango "spackles"—provide an intensely flavorful, concentrated end note. Meanwhile, side dishes such as Creamed Spinach with Steeped and Smoked Garlic Confit, Scruffed Carbonara Potatoes, and Charred Radicchio with Sweet-and-Sticky Balsamic and Bacon, far from afterthoughts, provide exciting contrast and synergy with the "mains."

    In his first, long awaited book, Nobu: The Cookbook, Matsuhisa reveals the secrets of his exciting, cutting-edge Japanese cuisine.Nobu's culinary creations are based on the practice of simplicity the art of using simple techniques to bring out the flavors in the best ingredients the world's oceans have to offer and on his unique combinations of Japanese cuisine and imaginative Western, particularly South American, cooking.While simplicity may be the rule in his cooking, exotic ingredients are the key to his signature style: in Matsuhisa Shrimp he combines shiitake mushrooms, shiso leaves, and caviar; Octopus Tiradito is made with yuzu juice and rocoto chili paste; he even gives away the secrets to making his world-famous Seafood Ceviche, Nobu Style.In all, fifty original recipes for fish and seafood are included with step-by-step instructions and lavish color photographs. It features all Nobu's signature dishes along with salads, vegetable dishes, and dessert recipes, while a special chapter about pairing drinks with the meals rounds out the selections. A chapter dedicated to sushi instructs readers how to make Nobu's own original Soft Shell Crab Roll, Salmon Skin Roll and House Special Roll.Throughout the book the author shares stories of his rich and varied life: his childhood memories of rural Japan; the beginning of his career; his meteoric rise to the top, as one of the most renowned chefs of his generation.Featuring a preface by Robert De Niro, a foreword by Martha Stewart and an afterward by Japanese actor Ken Takakura, Nobu: The Cookbook is sure to be the season's hottest cookbook and a sure-fire classic for Japanese cooks and foodies alike.