Monday-To-Friday Cookbook

We received this book as a wedding gift and mistakenly ignored it for several years. Two years ago, we rediscovered it and have been using it almost exclusively ever since. An incredible range of recipes, from 30 minute start-to-table meals to more elaborate menus for when you are entertaining. It's a great cookbook for the person just learning to cook as well as the more experienced chef. Michelle includes several chapters on how stock your pantry and kitchen equipment (I never learned that in Home Economics!) as well as well-organized recipes that make menu planning easy. I have given this book as a gift to most of my family - my four siblings and parents, too!I do have one complaint - we've exhausted the recipes in this book! So, am going to buy the M2F Chicken and/or M2F Pasta book to supplement. Hopefully that will keep us for another 2 years!

This book changed my life. It literally taught me how to cook. Michelle's common sense, philosophy of simplicity, and encouragement turned this intimidated, poorly fed college student into a real honest to god cook-something I never expected to happen in my lifetime : )...It will make you rethink your eating and cooking style- and priorities. A truly inspired and inspiring cook book that taught me how to enjoy eating again.PS. Especially great for those of us whose kitchens don't come equipped with microwaves, fancy food processors and trendy breadmakers. Thanks Michelle!

Michelle Urvater designed her book for those who want to eat good tasting food, but in less time. She succeeded! She begins her book by making suggestions on how to run a kitchen in today's fast paced world. Take these suggestions! She follows with a number of recipes that use ingredients easily stocked in one's kitchen. The recipes indicate preparation and cooking time, and are carefully layed out for easy reading. She offers creative use of leftovers as well, which become a new, tasty meal in themselves. This book is good for both meat-eaters and vegetarians alike.

This is a wonderful book by a professional cook who explains how she makes meals at home for her family.When the main cooking responsibilities at home fell to me -- basically a noncook for most of my life -- I needed help. Michele Urvater is now my mentor in the kitchen. I stocked the pantry of our new home based on her recommendations and threw out several kitchen gadgets bought on impulse. Michele U. is a minimalist in many ways.Her book has lots of insights from a professional's point of view -- such as, basically, don't try to broil stuff at home. I didn't need to be persuaded, having murdered a salmon steak and a piece of swordfish in recent memory. Her preferences -- for Newman's Pasta Sauce for example -- seem well-founded when we've checked them out. She loves corn in all its forms and loves cumin as do we -- I discovered it only recently by reverse engineering the ingredients of Curry powderSome things she learned at home -- such as cooking with ketchup (her little girl loved the stuff) and thinking ahead to what you are going to make out of the leftovers. Her recipes often have a leftovers plan attached. Her book is great for those of us watching our fat intake and loaded with easy and delightful recipes using all kinds of beans, rice, and pasta. Her simple Ricotta and fresh fruit salad and a bean, cucumber, and navel orange salad have become lunchtime staples.We have happily tried a number of her one-dish meals, including a root-vegetable ragout, a kasha casserole, and a several others. More than one rated a coveted "Great!" from my friend Joan when we tasted them. We even dared to have company over for one of our creations -- we are definitely feeling competent in the kitchen these days, thanks to Michele Urvater.