Review: In the Kitchen

About the book:
Savor your favorite family memories—ones that start right in your kitchen. Popular TV personality Allison Waggoner brings her family’s recipes to your table in this beautiful collection of meals. With recipes for brunch, dinner, dessert, and drinks, this cookbook invites you to create your own family memories, full of delicious food, fun with friends, and love that lasts a lifetime.

About the author:
Growing up in the chocolate industry inspired a journey filled with delicious and innovate cuisine for Allison Waggoner. Allison began her career developing her family’s gourmet chocolates, creating some of the finest, award-winning confections in the world. Her culinary designs have been featured in Crate & Barrel, Culinary Product Magazine, Ghirardelli Chocolate Company, Godiva Chocolatier, Walt Disney World, Fancy Food Magazine, Sally Foster Magazine, Target, Universal Studios, William-Sonoma and The Food Network. As a classically trained chef, Allison’s culinary and marketing career brought her to the attention of television executives. She first appeared as a guest host, bringing her confections and family history to the home shopping industry. Allison is presently seen in more than 80 million homes as a host on ShopHQ, a leader in retail broadcasting.
Now, Allison brings her love of food and favorite recipes to you in her first cookbook. A nostalgic collection of recipes accumulated through the course of her life and career, In the Kitchen is filled with simple, delicious dishes for every day of the week.

FROM REIDHEAD RANDOMNESS:
This is an interesting cookbook.....there is something for everyone!  It starts with Breakfast/Brunch recipes (the morning cheese danish one looking the most tempting on its 2 page picture).  She has some fun tidbits about her family chocolate business and histories of different recipes.  One of the recipes that I enjoyed was the Chocolate Cashew Butter (on apple slices).  It was really easy to make and yummy to eat!

Entrees is the next section that I discovered a wealth of tempting dinner choices.  Some of them, I might someday be adventurous enough to try....Maybe.  The entree that did jump out at me was the asian cashew chicken lettuce taco's (see...you can use the leftovers from this to make the cashew butter mentioned earlier!)  Also, the green enchiladas were yummy.  The one my 6 year old requested was the Mac and cheese.  (This has a tiny bit of cayenne and nutmeg to give it a unique flavor.) 

The next section to be......wait for it......TRIFFLED with is DESSERTS!  Some of them are fancier than my kids could appreciate.  They are more a "grown - UP" taste (Fig Crostata, strawberry mille-feuille), but there were plenty that were family treat worthy (elephant ears, salted caramel hand pies, raspberry lemonade slices, salted caramel chocolate chunk cookies...with a 2 page picture enough to make your mouth water!)

Pressure cooking provided 4 recipes that leads to cocktails that wraps up the book.

The pictures are beautiful!  They make your mouth water and entices you to add "just one more" recipe to your menu for the week.

The recipes that I tried were fairly easy to make and used common ingredients, although there are several "exotic" recipes ( Creamy Asparagus Soup with seared scallops....maybe it's just the scallops part that makes it exotic to me???!!) that you would need to make a trip to the store.

There really is something for everyone!

Cedar Fort provided me with a free copy to be able to write this review, however all opinions are my own.