****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I've been waiting for this book! I've had it for a week, and it is already earning its keep! Like Miss Vickie's first book, this is chock full of amazingly simple and delicious recipes, with occasional forays into more complicated dishes. The book lives up to its title, "Real Food Real Fast," which means these recipes aren't about using your pressure cooker to spend all day in the kitchen preparing gourmet food for dinner parties. These recipes are about using ingredients you probably have on hand to create delicious meals in under an hour, so the busy cook can get in and out of the kitchen "real fast" without compromising quality and nutrition. Which is not to say there aren't recipes in here that aren't perfectly suited to more fancy occasions, just that that's not the book's concentration. Like Miss Vickie's first cookbook, the recipes are designed to make the most of pressure cookers' ability to reduce the time you spend in the kitchen. At that, these recipes excel! Savory roasts in 25 minutes, pasta dishes in 10 minutes, homemade soups that take no longer than heating a can of condensed soup, and infinitely more flavorful and nutritious!Favorites so far--"Ravioli With Onions and Zucchini in Tomato Sauce," "California Chicken Salad," and "Fresh Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons." The cheese croutons are brilliant and perfect in this soup!WORDS OF WARNING BEFORE BUYING--1) This cookbook is NOT geared toward electric pressure cookers. Please read pages 5 and 6 in the sneak preview to find out why. This cookbook is designed to take full advantage of all the conveniences offered by modern stovetop pressure cookers, and electric pressure cookers just don't have the same capacity, versatility or predictability of stovetop pressure cookers. And the disclaimer that these recipes may have less-than-desired results when using electric pressure cookers is made right up front in this cookbook, so there should be no whining on that front.2) The negative reviews (not that there were all that many) of Miss Vickie's first cookbook were almost all uniform in their condemnation of her for using "processed food" in her recipes, and every one of those was a complaint about condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup. So be warned. Some of the recipes in this book call for Cream of Mushroom Soup. On that respect, it is really no different than most other cookbooks. It is hard to find a cookbook of quick, delicious comfort foods that DOESN'T include Cream of Mushroom Soup these days, so I never understood the fuss, especially when one can easily create their own homemade substitute for Cream of Mushroom Soup and it will work just as well with any of these recipes. On the flip side, as with the first cookbook, the majority of recipes DON'T call for processed ingredients. When you're talking about maybe 20 recipes out of 215, you know that anyone complaining about processed ingredients was just looking for something to complain about.3) While this book scores over Miss Vickie's first book, with its inclusion of 24 pages of color photographs of some of the recipes, there will undoubtedly be plenty complaints that there aren't enough pictures. If you're the kind of insecure cook who requires a picture of what you're creating, be warned.All that having been said, if you're looking for great tasting recipes that your family will love and never guess you didn't spend hours on, this is the perfect cookbook for you. If you're looking to expand your horizons and learn how to make the most of your pressure cooker, this cookbook is for you. If you've got no time to create something delicious when your spouse suddenly announces they're bringing home the boss for dinner, this cookbook is for you.If you are a fan of Miss Vickie's first cookbook and are expecting this one to be even better and more comprehensive, you'll probably be a little disappointed. The cooking techniques, instructions and advice which took up 100 pages in the first book are condensed into 16 pages in this one. This book is not an improvement over the first book, but rather, an expansion of it, a companion book with the focus more strictly on the recipes. It does have an expanded range, with more fast breakfast ideas, fun appetizers, a section on sauces, and a nifty section of "shortcut recipes," easy versions of popular favorites that you can have on the table in minutes. It is, simply, exactly as the title suggests--real food, real fast.A definite winner and highly recommended!
