Recipe Software Guide

Looking for some cookbook gift ideas for Christmas?
Maybe pick up one for yourself (don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone!).

Today, Recipe Software Guide is taking a look at the 5 best cookbook gift ideas for Christmas 2009!
(Excerpts taken from Amazon.com)

Canadians please visit my Amazon.ca store, provided by Amazon.ca, to order.

1) The Pioneer Woman Cooks

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl(Ree Drummond)

My name is Ree. Some folks know me as The Pioneer Woman.

After years of living in Los Angeles, I made a pit stop in my hometown in Oklahoma on the way to a new, exciting life in Chicago. It was during my stay at home that I met Marlboro Man, a mysterious cowboy with steely blue eyes and a muscular, work-honed body. A strict vegetarian, I fell hard and fast, and before I knew it we were married and living on his ranch in the middle of nowhere, taking care of animals, and managing a brood of four young children. I had no idea how I’d wound up there, but I knew it was exactly where I belonged.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks is a homespun collection of photography, rural stories, and scrumptious recipes that have defined my experience in the country. I share many of the delicious cowboy-tested recipes I’ve learned to make during my years as an accidental ranch wife—including Rib-Eye Steak with Whiskey Cream Sauce, Lasagna, Fried Chicken, Patsy’s Blackberry Cobbler, and Cinnamon Rolls—not to mention several “cowgirl-friendly” dishes, such as Sherried Tomato Soup, Olive Cheese Bread, and Creme Brulee. I show my recipes in full color, step-by-step detail, so it’s as easy as pie to follow along.

You’ll also find colorful images of rural life: cows, horses, country kids, and plenty of chaps-wearing cowboys.

I hope you get a kick out of this book of mine. I hope it makes you smile. I hope the recipes bring you recognition, accolades, and marriage proposals. And I hope it encourages even the most harried urban cook to slow down, relish the joys of family, nature, and great food, and enjoy life.

2) Good Eats

Good Eats: The Early Years (Alton Brown)

Alton Brown is a foodie phenomenon: a great cook, a very funny guy, and—underneath it all—a science geek who’s as interested in the chemistry of cooking as he is in eating. (Well, almost.) Here, finally, are the books that Brown’s legion of fans have been salivating for—two volumes that together will provide an unexpurgated record of his long-running, award-winning Food Network TV series, Good Eats.

From “Pork Fiction” (on baby back ribs), to “Citizen Cane” (on caramel sauce), to “Oat Cuisine” (on oatmeal), every hilarious episode is represented. Each book—the second will be published in fall 2010—is illustrated with behind-the-scenes photos taken on the Good Eats set. Each contains more than 140 recipes and more than 1,000 photographs and illustrations, along with explanations of techniques, lots of food-science information (of course!), and more food puns, food jokes, and food trivia than you can shake a wooden spoon at.

3) The Conscious Cook

The Conscious Cook: Delicious Meatless Recipes That Will Change the Way You Eat (Tal Ronnen)

A former steak lover himself, Chef Tal struggled for years on a vegan diet that left him hungry and filled with cravings for butter and meat. By applying traditional French culinary techniques to meatless cuisine, he found that he could gratify his cravings for rich flavor and fat.

The Conscious Cook shows readers that avoiding the health risks and ethical dilemmas of eating meat and dairy does not mean sacrificing taste and appetite. This is not a cookbook of sprouts and tofu burgers, but of mouth-watering, hearty meals that keep the protein at the center of your plate. Featuring 75 original recipes that will satisfy the fussiest foodies and the most dedicated of carnivores, The Conscious Cook is a breakthrough in meatless cuisine that will revolutionize the way readers experience food.

4) More Diners, Drive-ins and Dives

More Diners, Drive-ins and Dives: A Drop-Top Culinary Cruise Through America’s Finest and Funkiest Joints (Guy Fieri)

Join New York Times bestselling author and Food Network star Guy Fieri for a second helping of the best diners, drive-ins, and dives across America!Guy Fieri strikes again with More Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, giving you a road map to road food that’s earned its culinary citizenship in “Flavortown.” Join Guy on a cross-country noshing parade, mapping out the best places you’ve never heard of-more than fifty establishments off the beaten path. Compete in a (no hands) apple-pie-eating contest at Bobo Drive-In in Topeka, Kansas, dip your taste buds in Sweet Spicy Love sauce at Uncle Lou’s Fried Chicken in Memphis, Tennessee, and get a load of the killer four-cheese mac-and-cheese at Gorilla Barbeque in Pacifica, California.

Filled with Guy’s hilarious voice and rampant enthusiasm for these hidden culinary gems, More Diners, Drive-ins and Dives is the perfect book for lovers of the American food scene and fans of Triple D.

Also available is his first: Diners, Drive-ins and Dives: An All-American Road Trip . . . with Recipes! (Food Network)

5) Ace of Cakes

Ace of Cakes: Inside the World of Charm City Cakes (Duff Goldman)

When Duff Goldman, Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes,” envisioned Charm City Cakes in Baltimore nearly a decade ago, his goal was to make wonderful cakes for friends and family. As word spread about his fabulous creations, his dream grew into a nationally renowned business staffed by a team of talented professionals, including musicians, artists, and creative souls with experience in architectural modeling, graphic design, deejaying, coffee making, performance art, dog walking, sculpture, painting and more.

Aces of Cakes: Inside the World of Charm City Cakes is a celebration of the bakery that started it all. This colorful scrapbook is loaded with stories about Duff’s early days as a graffiti artist turned young chef, his successes and hilarious disasters, and the amazing team he built step-by-step. Through candid interviews and profiles and hundreds of photographs, illustrations, and collages, the book shows how energy, inspiration, collaboration, and a bit of luck can conspire to help anyone achieve their creative vision.

Of course, at the center of this stunning book are Charm City’s Cakes. From the simple to the breathtakingly complex, Duff shows off some of the bakery’s more unusual techniques and tools that shape their famous creations. He also offers a behind-the-scenes look at his Food Network show, shares his most incredible customer stories and requests, and reveals some of the bakery’s favorite cake facts and tips–along with a comprehensive episode guide and a monster cake montage featuring seven years’ worth of the bakery’s astonishing cake creations.

Well, hopefully this post will help you cross someone off of your gift buying list!

Now its time to get back to testing.
Ian

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