REVIEW AND #GIVEAWAY - @Southern_Living Quick Start Homemade #Cookbook - With Tomato ’n’ Beef Casserole with Polenta Crust #Recipe

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Quick-Start Homemade: 101 easy meals with store-bought convenience

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Oxmoor House (September 17, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0848742281
ISBN-13: 978-0848742287
Cover Price $15.95

ABOUT SOUTHERN LIVING QUICK START HOMEMADE

With over 180 recipes, Southern Living Quick-Start Homemade gives moms a jumpstart on making dinner after a long day. Using pantry staples and go-to ingredients like pasta, salad greens, bought pizza dough, eggs, rotisserie chicken and other short-cut essentials easily picked-up from the store, it’s now simple to have a homemade dinner on the table every night of the week.

Each nutritious recipe has been triple-tested by the Southern Living test kitchen and Quick-Start Homemade includes great pasta dishes like Skillet Ziti, made in half the time of baked, and Green Bean Pasta Salad with Lemon-Thyme Vinaigrette, a 30-minute recipe with an extra tip for preparing the recipe ahead of time and freshening up before serving. The “Pastry & Pizza Dough” chapter lets fresh pizza dough, piecrust dough or puff pastry do most of the work and features inventive pizza recipes perfect for a mid-week meal, as well as savory hand pies and pot pies. In “Rotisserie Chicken,” crowd-pleasing dinners like Chicken Enchiladas and Chicken Pot Pie with Cheddar Biscuits are no-hassle, but with a homemade touch.

MY THOUGHTS

Chapters in this cookbook include:

Pasta
Pastry and Pizza Dough
Eggs
Salad Greens
Rotisserie Chicken
Chicken Breasts
Pork Loin and Chops
Ground Meat

The very first thing that springs to mind when I look at Southern Living Quick Start Homemade is color. It’s everywhere. The edge of the pages in each chapter are a different color, making it easy to find a section just from looking at the side of the book. Your eye is drawn to helpful prep and cooking tips, substitutions, and even suggested side dishes, by brightly colored arrows. Photos. They are colorful and they are everywhere. The recipes are all very clearly written out and easy to understand. Serving size, prep and cooking time are all included. There’s not a single two page spread in this book that doesn’t have a colorful photo.Some of the recipes that I’m looking forward to tring include Four Cheese Macaroni, Savory Hand Pies, Italian Style Pizza Pot Pie, Tomato Herb Mini Frittatas, Kentucky Hot Brown Tart, Baked Chicken Risotto, Baked Chicken Roulade, Baked Linguine With Meat Sauce, and Tomato N Beef Casserole With Polenta Crust.

This cookbook is definitely a keeper. It would be a great addition to any kitchen, and make a great gift for anyone that is learning to cook or enjoys cooking and wants to add more recipes to their routine. I can say that this is one of the few cookbooks that I’ve seen where I have no room for improvement, it’s awesome just the way it is. Well wait, maybe one thing. Make more cookbooks just like this one.

Here’s a recipe from Southern Living Quick Start Homemade, courtesy of the publisher.

Tomato ’n’ Beef Casserole with Polenta Crust

Makes 6 servings
Hands-On Time 35 min.
Total Time 1 hour, 10 min.

INGREDIENTS

1 tsp. table salt
1 cup plain yellow cornmeal
1⁄2 tsp. Montreal steak seasoning
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded sharp Cheddar cheese, divided
1 lb. ground chuck
1 cup chopped onion
1 medium zucchini, cut in half lengthwise and sliced (about 2 cups)
1 Tbsp. olive oil
2 (14 1⁄2-oz.) cans petite diced tomatoes, drained
1 (6-oz.) can tomato paste
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Bring 3 cups water and salt to a boil in a 2-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat. Whisk in cornmeal; reduce heat to low, and simmer, whisking constantly, 3 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat, and stir in steak seasoning and 1⁄4 cup Cheddar cheese. Spread cornmeal mixture into a lightly greased 11- x 7-inch baking dish.
2. Brown ground chuck in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, stirring often, 10 minutes or until meat crumbles and is no longer pink; drain and transfer to a bowl.
3. Sauté onion and zucchini in hot oil in skillet over medium heat 5 minutes or until crisp-tender. Stir in beef, tomatoes, and tomato paste; simmer, stirring often, 10 minutes. Pour beef mixture over cornmeal crust. Sprinkle with remaining 3⁄4 cup cheese.
4. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until bubbly. Sprinkle casserole with parsley just before serving.

Quick Tip: Whisk polenta while adding to boiling water and while cooking to ensure a smooth consistency.

Try This Twist:
Italian Sausage Casserole with Polenta Crust: Substitute Italian sausage for ground chuck and Italian six-cheese blend for Cheddar cheese. Prepare recipe as directed, sautéing 1 medium-size green bell pepper, chopped, with onion in Step 3.

WIN IT!

ONE winner will receive their own copy of Southern Living Quick Start Homemade.

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THE SMALL PRINT.

The winner will be selected using the “And the winner is” plugin. US addresses only please, no PO Boxes. This contest will end on Saturday 09/28/13 at 11:59 pm est. If you’ve entered any of my giveaways before then you know that only comments containing all of the requested information will be eligible for entry. The winner must contact me to confirm they wish to receive the prize within 24 hours of my email notifying them they’ve won. Good luck to everyone!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.