For Comfort

I acquired this cookbook very inexpensively! The Ultimate Cooking Course and Kitchen Encyclopedia by Hermes House editor Carole Clements is 512 pages thick. It is a very heavy book. Just lifting it gives you a workout! It is broken down into two parts. Part One: The Cook's Kitchen Bible comes with a full Introduction on kitchen know how and the sections are Meat, Pasta & Grains, Vegetables, Eggs, Sauces, Fruit, Breads and Pastry & Cakes... etc. With numbered step by step instructions and colour photos to guide you. The recipes in this section could be more for the experienced cook or someone who is looking to expand their palette. Part Two: American Home Cooking is broken down into more condensed sections. For example: Salads, Vegetables, Eggs and Cheese are one section, Meat and Poultry are another and Pasta, Pizza & Grains are together as well... you get the idea. Still included are the numbered step by step instructions and coloured photos. The recipes here have more to do with comfort food and down home cooking. Cooking for a hectic lifestyle. Overall this is a pretty good cookbook. Lots of recipes worth trying. Some standard and some no so standard. The recipes I have tried are, Rice Pudding, Blueberry-Cinnamon Muffins, Pound Cake, Pancakes and Baked Sausages and Beans with Crispy Topping.

Here is the Baked Sausages and Beans with Crispy Topping, served with a side of rice. I found the recipe fairly straight forward and the ingredients easy. This recipe is from the American Home Cooking part. I did find the dish a bit on the sweet side. It did have 1/4 cup maple syrup and 1/4 cup brown sugar. So fairly sweet I would say. That being said the flavours did come out in this dish. My nine year old reluctantly ate it. He is a creature of habit with his food. If I was to make this dish again, next time I would switch the crushed tomatoes for stewed tomatoes and lessen the sugar. The recipe called for three meats; Sausages, Bacon and Kielbasa. A meat lovers heaven. As always I search for the lowest sodium ingredients that are offered. - JW