This Old Gal's Pressure Cooker Cookbook

by Jill Selkowitz

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Food in many cultures is more than just nutrition. Cooking and feeding our friends and loved ones, the whole idea of hospitality and eating is cultural identity and a way to strengthen bonds of friendship and love. Philosophy aside, comfort food is probably a part of most of our lives and the author of this cookbook 'gets it'.

This Old Gal's Pressure Cooker Cookbook is packed full of recipes for new and old comfort food favorites. With the addition of pressure cooker preparation, these recipes are tasty and convenient.

One thing I really liked about this cookbook was the addition of a large number of ethnic favorites. Hot and sour soup is one of the things I always order in a new-to-me Chinese restaurant. This version of the standard ubiquitous spicy soup was a perfect blend of spicy and succulent. It's -definitely- on the standard family recipe list now. This version is vegetarian friendly and nicely spicy but not overly so.

Beef and broccoli is another one of those Chinese restaurant standards that very few people bother to make at home. The recipe in this collection is a nice substitute. We honestly didn't find it exactly like the restaurant version, but it was certainly a wholesome (and cost effective) substitute.

The third tryout from this collection in our case was another ethnic recipe... in this case sweet and sour stuffed cabbage. I hail from a very 'mixed' family and this eastern European/Jewish dish was a staple comfort food from my childhood and my wonderful stepmom. I have such fond memories of this dish growing up and this version is wonderful.

I review a fair number of cookbooks and this one was really great. Well prepared flavorful dishes made from easily sourced raw materials. There is a really wide variety of cultural cuisine covered, from Jewish to Asian to fusion to good ol' American. The photography is well done and the dishes themselves are superlative.

I find nothing at all to detract from this being a useful staple cookbook in the kitchen.

Five stars. I'm going to try all of these.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.