With grilling season about to begin in earnest, I was looking for a cookbook that could help freshen up our usual party fare. Sure you can buy salsa and hummus and already pre-marinated meat, but where's the fun – and bragging rights – in that? And though I love true BBQ, there is no grill master in our household. So as much as I yearn for tender, long-smoked ribs or sweet & saucy chicken, what I really needed was a book with simple, impressive, quick recipes to get the party started without days of effort.
Food Network Magazine 1,000 Easy Recipes definitely fits the bill. It covers everything from Breakfast through Dessert (even Cocktails) with clear instructions – some are so short they could be tweeted – utilizing easy-to-find, inexpnsive ingredients. The book is strewn with a fair share of lovely photographs, usually of the more colorful, "labor-intensive" recipes. Seriously though, I don't think many of them take more than a half an hour of prep or cook time. The first recipe I made was Hash-Brown Eggs. I'm a Breakfast whore. It wasn't complicated – I had everything on-hand already – but man did it hit the spot.
