Dining In: Highly Cookable Recipes: A Cookbook

Here's my interpretation of what’s happening in this cookbook--the rhyme and reason, the practical and logical, the science and intuition of it: It's a beautiful, easy, exciting cooking style that Alison Roman has developed, and she walks us through that unique style in these recipes. With her excellent communicative writing, she has graciously offered us the insight into how her cooking style develops: Dish by dish, dish after dish, ingredients are paired to get a balance of textures: Meaty, creamy, crunchy, crispy, chewy. Hot and cold, raw and cooked, dimensions are utilized to help create interest and excitement. Roman's recipes exhibit how to keep pairing to get a balance of flavors: Savory, sweet, salty, bitter, bland and intense umami. She uses herbs and spices, plus home-made condiments (recipes included), to help complete the dish and bring it all home. When plated, tweak for a pleasing look. Most importantly—Alison Roman shows us how easy this all can come together. Shows us how all this can be accomplished with a minimum of effort and short ingredient lists. It seems to be her nature to do things in an easy way. And isn’t it grand that she is willing to show us her way? She says her kitchen is unorganized, but it is obvious to see that her thoughts and ability to plan are anything but. Her intuition and thoughtful planning combines to give us perfect, easy-going, stress-free recipes. Her writing is so personable: Her logical, quirky, laid-back attitudes are touched with a sense of humor, and I sometimes found myself chuckling while I read. Not only are the recipes accessible and very do-able, straightforward and easy to understand, the book is very pleasing to read, too. She uses a lot of vegetables, but does not shun meats, chicken and seafood. She uses a lot of greens, lemon and lime, nuts and seeds. She does not hold back the salt or the butter. It’s up to you to cut back, if necessary. Don't let me scare you off, talking about butter. I think she is likes to act the playful temptress. She is set on eating healthy, it's obvious in her food choices. And for those few butter-heavy dishes, well, there is plenty of kale, too! Her vegetable dishes shine brightly and I love them best (because there can only be one “best”.) But all the chapters shine, and I’ve marked so many to try that I may as well have not marked any! Her salads are fun and full of themselves, not dainty and perfectly composed. She loves veggies and has incorporated them effortlessly into many, if not most of the dishes. (This is NOT a vegetarian cookbook, but vegetables are very prevalent.) Her fruit salads are really exciting and different, playing up more heat than sweet. I was very pleased to see the large chapter "Grains and Things" and besides grains, includes fresh and dried beans, and a few pasta dishes. There is a unique and very pot-luck-able Four Bean Salad with a green romesco sauce, a split pea salad with both fresh and dried peas, "Kinda-Sweet" and "Not -Sweet granolas, There is an amazing baked bean recipe without ketchup, without BBQ sauce, and NOT sweet. My husband, the biscuit and scone maker in the family, picked up the book and went directly to the back of it, where he got excited about her biscuits—both the recipe and her two-page essay on biscuit making. (There are many essays in this book—all of them fun to read, and you will come away with valuable and interesting information.) Then he got excited about the refrigerator chocolate chunk shortbread slice cookies. Then I had to see what he was so happy about, butted in, (sorry dear), turned a page, and got excited about the banana bread. All gems, all keepers. Many of her baking recipes are everyone's old time favorites, but her take on them will have us rethinking, tweaking, or even replacing those old recipe cards. By the way, the biscuit recipe alone is worth the price of this book. She also loves pickles, and adds them to many dishes for crunch, tang, variety and visual appeal. She offers a brine and ideas for simple refrigerator quick pickles. And she loves boiled small potatoes and stores a bowl of them in the frig. Since the cooking chore is completed in one big batch of potatoes at a time, taking them out of the frig and creating something with them, (a page full of ideas, essay form), is easy-peasy. (We love boiled potatoes, too… and I usually cook a big batch, skin on with a belly band peeled off, in a bath of heavy salt and Zatarans’s shrimp boil) Her ideas are the kind that make you think, “Hey, why didn’t I think of that?!” For instance, I have already made the move to roasting my winter squash whole, then removing the seeds, and if necessary, the skin. Then I read this idea: Slice raw acorn and delicate squash—and leave the seeds attached to the slices. THEN roast the slices with their seeds. Tried her technique yesterday, about two hours after reading the tip. Gives an extra textural and visual feature to the dish, without any extra effort—actually it’s all less of an effort. Don’t want the seeds inside the slice on the plate? Fine, leave them in the pan and pick out just a few of the choice crunchy seeds and crispy-wispy threads to top each slice. As a further interpretation/description of this book: I think “Dining In” is nestled in comfortably somewhere right between one of those approachable, well-thought-out-but-uninspiring “5-ingredient” cookbooks and those inspiring, but somewhat unapproachable, restaurant-chef exhibits of self-love. This book works exceeding well to get the creative juices flowing. You will want to set the book aside and head to the kitchen. Yet, as you are walking to the kitchen, you realize the book is still held tightly in hand.... You'll find you just don't want to let it go. Here are some examples of how easy her style of cooking can be: --A spicy hot honey browned butter recipe for drizzling over roasted sweet potatoes or winter squash. It can be made days ahead. It’s a recipe that can be doubled or tripled. It can be stored and reheated. It takes five minutes to make. --Roasted Broccolini (or broccoli) with Lemon: Sound too easy? Or like something you’ve made before? Maybe. But there are a few other simple ingredients, and a roasting temperature and time that make it special. And easy. --A toasted coconut gremolata for winter squash or sweet potatoes. I think it might work for other winter veggies, too. Like a mélange that includes parsnips and carrots and rutabaga and turnip and beets. --Her favorite dish in this book is similar to one of my favorite vegetable braises: Radishes in butter. Except she does a quick cook of her radishes with tops on, and she adds fresh Za’atar. And there's so much more to get excited about in this book. I love it. Do you remember Rozanne Gold's cookbook "Radically Simple"? Back in 2010? I can't really pin down exactly why, but this book somehow reminds me of that one--maybe the excitement that rumbles through it like an undercurrent?. I still use that book by Gold, and I still wax poetic about it and urge people to buy it--even at almost 8 years old. If you liked Gold's book, I'm pretty sure you will like this one.

Was so happy when this book finally came off back order! So far I have made -chocolate chunk shortbread (4xs... each time amazing.) -baked eggs with crushed chickpeas, chorizo and bread crumbs (YUM) -crunchy chili oil (I now put this on everything) -spring onions slowly roasted in olive oil (do not make a small batch, you will be sooo sorry like I was haha) -roasted salmon and citrus (i used the oil from the slow roasted onions!) -“shrimp in shells with lots of garlic and probably too much butter” (HOLY CRAP AMAZING) -perfect steak and buttered radish toast (best best best technique and combo-do not skip the radish toast part of this meal haha. also she talks about dipping her radish in the steak juices in the end and calls is a “radish snack” YES. ITS ALSO DELICIOUS haha) -roasted tomato and anchovy bucatini (used roasted tomatoes I had made this fall and stored in my freezer and it turned out wonderful❤️. The recipe uses red onion which added an amazing sweetness! And the anchovy gave it a great deep and rich flavor in contrast. Don’t let that ingredient scare you! I used to favor Marcella hazan’s butter onion tomato sauce... and I can’t belive I’m saying it... but this is my new absolute favorite. So many thingsI have yet to try and am very excited for. So many basic recipes for fridge staples like pickling and “mayo for people who hate mayo” aka aoli =) and other awesome staple sauces. Her fresh breadcrumb recipes are great! She has tons of vegetarians recipes, a good sized grain section, plenty of fish and all kinds of meat option. So many great savory breakfast options and TONS of easy and beautiful desert options. I loved reading through this book as much as I’ve loved cooking through it! She is a great writer and really drew me in and captivated me haha. She is hilarious and relatable. She says she will never ask you to dirty more than one pan if it’s not necessary and will never ask you too take the leaves off the parsley because she promises that we will like the stems anyways lol. Do yourself a favor and go on Instagram and check her page out. Also look at the # DiningInCookBook she has started a cookbook revolution with this book! Everyone is sharing what they have made and it will give you an amazing idea of what you will get out of purchasing this book. It will not gain dust on your shelf- I pinky swear 🤞🏼 NOW GO BUY

This is my favorite cookbook ever. Alison has her own unique style and way of combining flavors. She’s confident with food and goes all in - using lots of ingredients I might typically use sparingly, and combining ingredients that don’t seem like they should work, but they really, really do! I could see how some people would think the recipes seemed weird - I was skeptical at first, but I decided to just go for it. After cooking 15 or so of the recipes, I’m sold! I now cook from this book almost every day, sometimes for multiple meals. Most ingredients are simple enough to find, and for the few that are a little more unusual (like Aleppo pepper), she uses them often, so they’re worth purchasing. So far, I love the eggplant with harisa (harisa is now available at Trader Joe’s!), the charred green beans with hazelnuts, all of the fruit salads (salty and savory fruit salads are a revelation!), the 4 bean salad, the kimchi and cheddar omelet, and the roasted chicken with tiny potatoes and sour cream. It’s all so good! Not only are the recipes great, cooking through this book has taught me a ton about food, and really improved my cooking even when I’m just improvising, or adjusting a recipe I found on the internet. One note - if you like sweet flavor in your food (sugar in salad dressings, for example), you may feel something is missing in these recipes. The author seems to prefers salty and savory flavors. It took me a bit to get used to, but I don’t find I miss the sweet anymore. Thank you for an amazing book Alison!!

I follow Alison on Instagram — a gorgeous & witty feed, especially her Stories. In an age of endless dietary restrictions, including some I'm sticking to due to a prickly digestion, Alison is a true bon vivant, indulging in glorious food that's not too hard to make. My requirements for recipe books is pics for every recipe (check, gorgeous) and nothing too involved in terms of cooking (check). These recipes have 6-7 incredients on average, including maybe 1 thing you have to buy (like flaky Jacobsen salt, in my case). Recipes are so much about the chef's persona. I feel like I'm cooking with this fascinating woman who's about my age but is super grounded, sensual, funny, who's seen the good & bad in life and knows how to create a feast in good times & bad (2017, anyone?). I just skimmed the book again & laughed at 5 out of 5 recipe intros I read. "In my opinion, homemade ice cream, like homemade ketchup, is rarely worth the effort and never as good as you think it's going to be." (And then she offers a glorious frozen labne desert.) My favorite recipe is the Salted Butter Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies, her version of the chocolate chip cookie. Easy to make, and the salty & sweet combo plus light texture means I'll be making them again.

I am convinced Alison Roman is brilliant. These recipes are simple but come together so flawlessly at the end, like a ribbon tying everything up nestle at the end. It’s genius and very rewarding. All done w only a handful of ingredients that are all easily accessible. Other cookbooks in this style call for many ingredients or obscure ingredients that get annoying. Photography is hipster and trendy but the recipes themselves are approachable and easy. 4 stars instead of 5 because, as reviewers said, editing errors. Some recipes are incomplete, forgot about a previously mentioned ingredient, or have confusing contradictions within. But none of the errors are so big that it ruins a dish, apply a little common sense and you’ll figure it out.

These recipes have completely changed my approach to cooking vegetables. The contrast of flavor and texture in every recipe is astonishing. The blistered green beans, for example, are crisp-tender and delectable with flaky salt straight out of the pan, but laying them atop a savory, creamy nut-butter-and-yogurt spread and drizzling them with a fresh hot sauce of vinegar and jalapeño, well... yeah, I'm very confused anyone would call these recipes bland lol, each one brings an exciting balance of salt, acid, spice, and texture. My faves so far include the celery-based salads (who knew celery deserved a starring role like that? Alison knew), the blistered beans, the raw-and-roasted kale salad, the hot honey butter sweet potatoes, the roasted corn salad, the sticky-spicy pineapple chicken, and the AMAAAAAZING "impostor al pastor". The recipes don't call for bizarre ingredients and lend themselves well to substitution (you can see I swap out all kinds of nuts, and it works just fine). After cooking a dozen or so of these recipes, I had to spring for Roman's next book, Nothing Fancy... and it's another five-star gem. She knows what she's doing!

Amazon knows I buy a lot of books, a LOT of cookbooks, probably 1,000 a year, So I don't write a lot a reviews. In fact, I try not to write a lot of reviews, bcs it gets in the way of reading those books and the other 500 or so books I read for pleasure and life that also goes on. But this book...this gorgeous, glorious, joyful chance at preparing dinner as a family sweetly commands me to tell everyone I can that this is FUN kitchen love. Ms. Alison Roman adds an aria to the hum instead of ho and I add a little dance to these old arthritic fingers and toes and POOF!!! there is magic in Rancho Tejana's kitchen again. I really didn't have to add to the pantry to cook most of the dishes I wanted, it was all pretty much there already: just missing the flair, excitement, and pure d leap of faith that flavors who had met in my house but not in my cooking could fall in love and marry in dishes would find love happily ever after. Talk about cross cultural relationships! Yes, they can happen and they should! Wake up America, there's a new world out there, and we can be a part of it, share it and maybe even not politicize it or polarize it, just enjoy and participate in it. Cook with Alison, (and me!) we'll both love you for it. Six stars - one for you taking a leap of faith in two strangers, oh my, well one. Alison isn't strange.

Several months ago, I checked this book out from the library. My son and his girlfriend kept looking at it, so I bought them a copy. They have mentioned several times how they really love it. So, I recently bought myself a copy and see why. Tonight, I made Alison Roman's crispy chickpeas and lamb with greens and garlicky yogurt (p. 126)--SO DELICIOUS! My husband and I polished the entire thing off, even though it was designed for four people. The recipe seemed a bit strange, but I had some ground lamb in the freezer and wanted to use it. My husband raved about how good it was! I like to cook and I have to say it is one of the best things I've made lately. Her recipes are not complicated, but they are creative and different (in a good way). Roman writes for the NY Times food section every week, and she's a good writer as well. I highly recommend this cookbook!ll

I trust Alison Roman. I have many recipe books, but not all of them have recipes that consistently turn out. This book is different - not only do the recipes turn out, but it’s visually stunning and the recipes are a modern spin on ingredients that have become boring (particularly her use of vegetables. So far recipes I’ve made include: ~ the Split Pea Salad - my family LOVED this. It’s basically a deconstructed pea and ham soup, but it’s delicious and different from your average salad (and it can be a meal in and of itself) ~Baked eggs with crushed chickpeas, chorizo and bread crumbs - a delicious breakfast or lazy dinner ~Crispy chickpeas and lamb with greens and garlicky yoghurt ~Olive oil fried lentils with cherry tomatoes and a Chile fried egg ~Roasted tomato and anchovy bucatini - this is delicious and not just your standard tomato sauce. Definitely recommend using the olive oil roasted tomato recipe to make this!!! And others on my soon cook list include: ~caramelised winter squash with toasted gremolata ~cold garlicky pasta with capers and salsa verde ~whole roasted snapper with harissa and tomatoes This book has stayed close to my kitchen since I’ve bought it. I strongly recommend it.

Fiyat performans. Aman aman değil ama gideri var içeriğin.

I thought I didn’t need another cookbook, but this is a gem. I ordered it because it had so many rave reviews and those reviews were spot on. It arrived on a Monday morning and I’d read most of it by dinner time. The recipes are imaginative, very well-written, and I love that she devotes some attention to substitutes and variations. I think both new and experienced cooks would benefit from her ready exuberance with experimentation. And a whole chapter on condiments! That may not sound exciting, but in my experience condiments are a great way keep your menus interesting and varied. I’ve only tried four recipes so far, but they have all been keepers and I will certainly continue to work my way through things in the coming months.

Ricette straordinariamente fantatiche.

Love love love Alison Roman recipes, they are simply perfect.