Chef on a Shoestring: More Than 120 Inexpensive Recipes for Great Meals from America's Best-Known Chefs

I always watch the Saturday Morning show and look for the Chef on a Shoestring spot. 99% of the time I find at least one recipe that is innovative. This book gives some of the best that have been broadcast. I would recommend it to anyone that likes to try new tastes and experience some "New York" menu items. Personally if a recipe is a good one I don't care too much about what the cost is for the ingredients, my guests and I deserve the best.

Not being much of a TV watcher, never knew this was there. Now, I'll watch every now and then. The concept is terrific, shop with only $20 and then create some gorgeous food.To date have completed these dishes and found them to be innovative, complex, yet the price is just outstanding and time and techniques involved are achievable for wide grouping of cooks: loved this one: Peter Kelly's Roasted Onions with Bacon and Apple Stuffing; Walter Staib's Curried French Lentil Salad and Sausage; David Walrog's Asparagus and Cremini Mushroom Barley Risotto; and these are out of this world -- "Rick Moonen's Salmon Burgers with Green Tartar Sauce."Bonus is with this purchase that CBS donates the royalties to Share the Strength. As the cookbook in memory of Patrick Clark, cooks everywhere will want this for themselves as well as gift-giving not only for the excellent dishes but also for the cause of charity.

As a rule, I don't concern myself with compilation cook books. I simply don't like the "K-Tel" feel of the disjointed conglomerations of food from cooks that may or may not have even heard of one another. This book is surprizingly cohesive. The recipes are not really ones that I would have sought out individually, but of the ones my wife and I have tried, we've been pleased with the results.This is certainly not the end-all be-all of the cooking world in a book, but there are some surprizes for those willing to experiment. Not the least of which really is the fact that these recipes are inexpensive. I was kind of shocked. Okay, I was really shocked. The ingredients aren't that tough to find, either. I've actually bought books that I still have yet to find some of the ingredients listed, but they offer "substitute" ingredients. . . It really makes me wonder what the real ingredient would have done for the flavor.Why not 5 stars? Regardless of the recipes that I liked, it is still a compilation cookbook, and there are some pretty far to one side or the other recipes. I like knowing what I'm buying in advance.I still recommend this book to anyone willing to try something new!