Mollie Katzen's Get Cooking: 150 Simple Recipes to Get You Started in the Kitchen is the cookbook everybody should have when they get their first place with a kitchen. Katzen covers absolutely everything in the realm of basic and essential kitchen and cooking knowledge from the kitchen equipment every home needs to how to make a great roast chicken. (For readers particularly interested in amazing yet simple roast chicken, they should also be sure to check out Nigella Lawson's recipe for roast chicken; it is absolutely divine!)
Structure of Get Cooking
Get Cooking is organized into nine logical, easy to navigate sections:
- Soups
- Salads
- Pastas
- Vegetarian Entrees
- Burgers
- Chicken, Fish, and Meat
- Sides
- Party Snacks
- Desserts
All nine sections are equally stellar and detailed. Each section begins by first providing a basic introduction before delving into the assortment of recipes. The most useful chapters that Katzen provides are Pasta, Vegetarian Entrees, and Chicken, Fish, and Meat. The aforementioned chapters provide an ample number of delicious amd easy recipes that can be customized or adapted to suit any cook's or family's tastes.
Each recipe includes incredibly detailed instructions that are never vague or unclear. Each recipe also includes a full-colour photography and every dish pictured looks amazingly appetizing.
Get Cooking does not provide nutritional information for any of the recipes and while Katzen focuses on mastering basic cooking techniques rather than eating healthfully, her recipes do call for plenty of wholesome ingredients, fruits, and vegetables.
Mollie Katzen's Best Recipes
All the recipes in Get Cooking: 150 Simple Recipes to Get You Started in the Kitchen sound delightful and delicious, but the recipes listed below are especially simple to prepare and are good enough to make again and again:
- Chickpea and Mango Curry
- Pasta Shells with Chickpeas and Arugula
- Quick and Easy Spinach Lasagna
- Linguine with Spinach and Peas
- Turkey Burgers
- Teriyaki Chicken Thighs
Resource for New Cooks
Mollie Katzen's book is an essential resource for new cooks and those not used to navigating a kitchen by him or herself. Get Cooking would make an excellent gift for kids going off to college who will have access to an apartment or dorm kitchen, adult children moving out of mom and dad's home for the first time, or for those who are still just learning how to cook for themselves or their families and want to do be able to add some variety to their repertoire.
Publication Information
Katzen, Mollie. Get Cooking: 150 Simple Recipes to Get You Started in the Kitchen. 288 pages. William Morrow Cookbooks (2009). ISBN: 978-0061732430.
Tracey Carter - Tracey holds a B.A. in English from Hood College and is an avid reader, educator, blogger, and aspiring librarian.
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