Cookbook shares favorite online recipes
Cookbooks can instruct, inform and entertain. A recent crop offers recipes first published online, in blogs and on Twitter.
It seems ironic, to say the least, that a recipe disseminated with such cutting-edge technology should be collected in such an antiquarian device as a book.
Maybe the whole idea of actually cooking is so antiquarian that publishers think the only way to reach the audience is the old-fashioned way.
At any rate, the happy result is that folks without Internet access can have access to these recipes, along with the fogeys — old and young — who simply find the printed page a better companion in the kitchen than a computer screen. Anyone who has ever wrecked his or her laptop by spilling milk into it while baking (we know who we are) can relate.
Most recently, GoodBite.com has teamed with Wiley & Sons publishing company to produce “Good Bite Weeknight Meals: Delicious Made Easy.”
The premise is that an hour is too long to devote to cooking on a weeknight; thus, most of the recipes purport to take 15 to 30 minutes of hands-on prep.
The “Dressed-Up Sloppy Joes” from Kate Jones' blog, ourbestbites.com, fits the bill.
Even better, the “sloppy” part of the meal can be frozen for up to three months and reheated, so consider doubling the batch.
The book includes 139 other recipes, including more sophisticated dishes such as Pork Medallions With Shallots, Dried Cherries and Spinach; Curried Lamb and Lentils; and Salmon Wellington.
Also check out “Eat Tweet: A Twitter Cookbook” by Maureen Evans (2010 Artisan).
Evans cooks up something delicious — pumpkin ravioli, scalloped potatoes, lemony fried artichokes — distills the recipe to 140 characters and presses “post.”
She has 20,000-plus followers of her Twitter feed (@cookbook) eating up these “twecipes” and presumably cooking them up, too.
You may be one of those folks constantly trolling the Internet for great recipes. But don't forget: Sometimes you can even find them in a book.
Several months ago, Evans kindly translated her “twecipe” for Guinness Stew from tweet-speak to English.
Guiness Stew: Twitter version
Brwn,rsv2lb chuck/3T oil. Brwn4c onion&rootveg; +T garlc&brsug&flr. Boil+2c beer&BeefStock/beef/bay/s+p. Cvr3h@300F.