The Soup Mix Gourmet: 375 Short-Cut Recipes Using Dry and Canned Soups to Cook Up Everything from Delicious Dips and Sumptuous Salads to Hearty Pot Roasts and Homey Casseroles

by Diane Phillips

Overview

Diane Phillips presents The Soup Mix Gourmet, mainstream short-cut cooking at its best, with more than 375 recipes that use dry soup mix or canned condensed soup as a key flavor ingredient. Simply put, these are easy-to-follow recipes for delicious meals that beat the clock. Because these soups pack a flavor wallop, adding them to dishes shaves down cooking times and strengthens flavors. The recipes here aren't merely variations on old recipes Mom used to make from the back of the box or the inside of the soup-can label. Phillips has used her culinary imagination and cooking skills to learn the best ways to use dried and canned soups, and she has given cooks fresh new ideas as well as old favorites reworked for today. Go beyond basic onion dip with savory Grecian Vegetable Dip. Show up at a potluck with Tuscan Green Bean Salad or Garlic Sesame Breadsticks. Explore new ways to cook the same old chicken with Friday Night Bistro Chicken. Plan a dinner for company with Lamb and Eggplant Lasagna, or a brunch with Lobster-Stuffed Potatoes. There are also recipes for casseroles, rice and pasta dishes, chilis, marinades and sauces, and, of course, soups and stews.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558325760
Publisher:	Harvard Common Press, The
Publication date:	09/15/2001
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	1,039,299
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Diane Phillips is the author of several cookbooks, including the James Beard Award-nominated Perfect Party Food, Happy Holidays from the Diva of Do-Ahead, The Perfect Basket, The Ultimate Rotisserie Cookbook, and The Soup Mix Gourmet. She is also a product spokesperson, consultant to the food industry, and culinary educator. She teaches her easy, elegant, do-ahead approach at cooking schools all over the country and in France, and has appeared numerous times on television.

Editorial Reviews

In this hearty compendium, Phillips (Pot Pies) spins that original humble time-saver, the Campbell's soup can, into a surprisingly pleasing array of dips, salads, pastas, sauces, casseroles and even in an act that might seem redundant soup. Phillips doesn't stop with Campbell's, though, listing a dozen dry mixes from such big labels as Knorr and Lipton that she is "never without." Phillips makes a point of creating recipes with fresh ingredients, using the soups merely as a seasoning element. (Many of them would be quite delicious without using soup mix at all.) On the other hand, those fresh ingredients require prep work that can all but eliminate the timesaving factor of the soup mix. The book retains a distinct vintage whiff: those who reminisce about the 1950s will be glad to see Chicken Divan, Hawaiian Chicken and Tuna Noodle Bake recipes they can "be proud to serve your family or the boss." The more contemporary-minded will enjoy Tomato-Basil Bread and Herbed Goat Cheese Potato Pie. Despite its title, the book is not for true gourmands, who will view with skepticism Phillips's claim that salmon with three packets of miso mix is "very close" to the signature miso-glazed cod at New York's Nobu restaurant. But for those new to cooking, soup mix may well be the miracle ingredient that makes an intimidating ordeal seem easy and quick. This fearless tome may show them that a straight and friendly path to the kitchen lies through the pantry door. (Oct.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The recipes in The Soup Mix Gourmet, in some ways the antithesis of Haedrich's book, use both canned soups and packaged soup mixes. Phillips (The Perfect Mix) developed hundreds of recipes based on these products, from five versions of famous onion soup mix dip to Seafood Lasagne to Beef Burgundy. She is obviously a good cook, but some of the recipes seem as if they would be better off without the soups or mixes, which usually contain both lots of salt and chemicals; e.g., it seems a shame to add a dried soup mix to a salad made with expensive, and flavorful, Stilton, roast beef, new potatoes, and fresh chives or to a pasta primavera full of fresh vegetables and herbs. The soup chapter may be the most successful, with ideas and recipes for jazzing up the canned or packaged products before serving them. And the recipes are not always quick some of the ones that include the mixes need several hours or more of standing time. Buy for demand. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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