Synopses & Reviews
A marriage of the fast and fantastic,
The Dinner Doctor proves that it's possible to cook meals for your family that taste great—and require little time, preparation, or hassle.
This is cooking that's not only about coping, but about pleasure. The first and most important step is choosing ingredients wisely. For the Dinner Doctor, that means prepared foods, whether canned, frozen, jarred, dried, or fresh from the salad bar or deli counter. Then comes the doctoring.
Jarred roasted red peppers are puréed with canned chicken broth and sour cream, and garnished with fresh chives for a memorable chilled soup for a summer dinner party. Bagged coleslaw mix is dressed up with nuts, bottle ranch dressing and pre-crumbled cheese for a Blue Cheese, Walnut, and Apple Slaw. Jars of marinara turn into Linguine with Red Clam Sauce (just add a can of clams, dry white wine, and parsley) or a zingy Saturday Night Fever Pasta—with the help of black olive paste and capers.
Even deli potato salad, as tasty as it often is, can take on a variety of personalities—enhance it with crumbled cooked bacon, or prepared horseradish, or curry powder and chopped scallions and shredded carrots. And bland chicken tenders—those saviors of quick cooking—are reinvented as Chinese Chicken, Chicken Piccata, and Curried Chicken and Apple Stew.
Making excellent use of slow cookers, embracing myriad shortcuts, boosting flavor and freshness with hundreds of ideas and quick touches, The Dinner Doctor brings all the joy of serving from-scratch meals into harried lives.
Review
"Byrn tackles appetizers, salads, main dishes and her trademark desserts with her customary aplomb. The result is full of flavor and easy to produce in a minimum amount of time....[W]ill satisfy even the sweetest tooth." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Andrew Schloss's recent Almost from Scratch also offers 'convenience cuisine' recipes, but...overall Byrn's recipes seem fresher and more imaginative....[S]ure to be in demand." Library Journal
Synopsis
For cooks who enjoy making meals from scratch, but who are short on time, The Dinner Doctor is in! The best-selling author of The Cake Mix Doctor cookbooks over 1.5 million copies in print doctors the rest of the meal, offering recipes for delicious family-style dishes for any night of the week. Anne Byrn has created 200 full recipes and hundreds of short takes to help get tasty, homemade meals on the table in no time flat. Full of fast and kid-friendly recipes for appetizers, salads, soups, sides, pasta and polenta, main dishes (including one-dish and vegetarian options), and desserts of course.
Synopsis
The doctor's back, and now she's curing dinner woes! Anne Byrn, the award-winning food writer and author of
The Cake Mix Doctor and
Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor, does for dinner what she did for dessert shows how to take common, convenient supermarket ingredients and turn them into meals that taste like they're made from scratch.
Making excellent use of the Crock-Pot and other labor-saving appliances, incorporating hundreds of shortcuts and tips, and cooking from a pantry of prepared foods whether canned, frozen, jarred, dried, or fresh from the salad bar the Dinner Doctor shows how to make over 200 fast and kid-friendly appetizers, salads, soups, sides, and main courses. Take, for example, a can of tuna, and think outside the sandwich: Add beans, tomato, and a vinaigrette, and it becomes a Tuscan Tuna and White Bean Salad. Turn that healthy mixture into a pasta salad with the addition of cooked penne. And make a speedy pasta supper by tossing the salad with sautéed zucchini and a generous shower of shredded Parmesan. Or, whip up a Tuna Noodle Casserole like mom used to make but faster and healthier by lightening the traditional cream of mushroom soup with lemon juice and lowfat milk and using precooked pasta and frozen peas. There are dozens of ways to doctor deli-counter basics into stunning hors d'oeuvres. Five quick casserole toppers. Five zippy garlic breads and 30 ways to dress up frozen peas and frozen spinach. And the "15s" 15 cold pasta sauces, 15 ways to doctor deli chicken, 15 meals made from summer tomatoes, and more.
Synopsis
The doctor's at it again—and never has a deli chicken tasted so good.
Serve Wow! for dinner tonight. Sharing hundreds of inventive ideas and tips, the Dinner Doctor shows how to transform convenient supermarket foods, Cinderella-like, into meals that are downright delicious. Coastal Shrimp and Tomato Rice, Five-Minute Gazpacho, Asian Chicken Salad, Savory Pork Carnitas, Frozen Mud Pie, and a baker's dozen of brand-new Cake Mix Doctor cakes—in all, over 230 kid-pleasing, plate-cleaning, ask-for-seconds appetizers, soups, salads, main courses, sides, and desserts.
About the Author
Anne Byrn is an award-winning food writer who has been featured as the Cake Mix Doctor on Good Morning America, Later Today, All Things Considered, QVC (regularly), and more than 75 other TV and radio programs. She lives with her family in Nashville, Tennessee.
Table of Contents
Introduction: A PRESCRIPTION FOR DINNER
Dinner Doctor 101
Amazing Appetizers
Soups and Stews
Salad in the Bag
The Main Dish
One-Dish Comfort Food
Pasta Presto
Hands-Off Cooking
I'm in Veggie Heaven
Lightning Fast Breads--Savory and Sweet
Desserts from the Doctor
Dinner Doctor Pantry
Conversion Table
Bibliography
Index