The Minimalist Cooks Dinner: More Than 100 Recipes for Fast Weeknight Meals and Casual Entertaining

Like the companion volume, "The Minimalist Cooks at Home", this is an excellent collection of recipes. His hints on techniques are very helpful, and his recipes use good ingredients and result in clear, strong, delicious flavors. If you're a vegetarian, this isn't a great choice, but otherwise, this is one of my two favorite cookbooks. We have 50 or so cookbooks, but this and "The Minimalist Cooks at Home" are the two I use the most. His recipes make sense, and they don't waste your time or effort.

My usual routine was to open a can of sauce and throw it over spaghetti weeknights, and then make something fantastic (and complicated) on weekends. Not anymore. Although the recipes in this book are delicious, easy and quick, the real value for me was in the technique lessons he sneaks into every recipe (like searing and steaming chicken breasts) and the encouragement to create your own variations of the recipes. I also liked his flavor combinations- he includes some that I've never tried before as well as the classics, but they've all been very tasty. I can't recommend this book enough. I also liked "The minimalist cooks at home".

Why do you want to buy a cookbook? If you're a restraut chef or caterer who needs to add several very high quality, very repeatable recipies to their menu, then this book is likely not your best choice. However, if you're an ordinary person who buys what's on sale at the grocery store, wants to emprovise to use what they've got in the refridgerator, and doesn't mind an ocassional dish coming out only so-so, then this is a very good book. It doesn't include instructions for everything (like Joy of Cooking or How to Cook Everything), but does include about 200 very good recipies, each with explanations of what purpose the ingredients serve and suggestions for substitutions, ways to kick it up a notch, or skimp on prep time. That's what makes this such a useful book.

Before I had a baby 19 months ago, I was interested in recipes with maximum ingredients and complicated preparations. There was usually a 50/50 chance that it would taste good enough to cook again. After the baby, I stopped cooking altogether. I have started again with this book. The recipes are uncomplicated, and the results are sublime. I am eternally grateful to Mark Bittman for bringing joy back to my cooking.

I have three of Bittman's cookbooks: This one, The Minimalist Cooks at Home, and How to Cook Everything. The two Minimalist books are GREAT. (How to Cook Everything is good, especially if you don't have a basic cookbook.)I have professional culinary training and cook a lot, but even beginners can use Bittman's recipes because they are simple, and he gives very good instructions. Plus, each recipe has an introduction where the author often gives tips, such as why the dish calls for chicken thighs instead of breasts. And at the end, he gives easy suggestions on how to vary the recipe -- like using different flavorings, or substituting shrimp for chicken.I love the recipes because they pare things to their essentials without making them boring -- even though all the recipes are quick and easy, they include hints of Thailand, India, China, Italy, etc. I had not made much Thai food before because it seemed to require so many unusual ingredients, but a Minimalist recipe demonstrated that only a few key items are needed to create "Thai-type" flavors. With that foundation, I can now explore Thai food on my own.One review of The Minimalist Cooks at Home complained that the recipes require things you can only buy in NYC. That's not literally true, but Bittman does use ingredients like fish sauce, balsamic vinegar, and sesame oil (not in the same recipe!). If you've never used such things before, the Minimalist recipes show you how without spending hours on a complicated dish.The difference between this book and Minimalist at Home? at Home focuses mostly on entrees, with a few vegetable and dessert recipes. Cooks Dinner also focuses on entrees, but then has a back section of starters and side dishes. For each Cooks Dinner entree, Bittman suggests which side dishes would go well with it and recommends a wine. The recipes in the two books don't overlap.