Ten Dollar Dinners: 140 Recipes & Tips to Elevate Simple, Fresh Meals Any Night of the Week - Softcover

D'Arabian, Melissa; Pelzel, Raquel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0307985148 ISBN 13: 9780307985149

Publisher: Clarkson Potter, 2012

Synopsis

Melissa d’Arabian, host of Food Network’s Ten Dollar Dinners and season 5 winner of The Next Food Network Star, makes good on the $10 promise of dinner for four in her debut cookbook.

For home cooks who care about what they feed their families and want to stretch their dollars, Melissa is the best guide for putting delicious meals on the table. She focuses on savvy budgeting, efficient shopping, and full-flavored cooking. Ten Dollar Dinners has 140 recipes and more than 100 creative, practical tips on great money-savers (“Clear-Your-Pantry Week”); inventive takes on old standby dinners (try her Moroccan Meatloaf); and how to get ingredients to last longer (keep your green onions in a glass of water and they will regrow several times over!). And with a coding system to help you create your own $10 menu, Ten Dollar Dinners celebrates spending with purpose, cooking with love, minimizing time spent in front of the stove, and savoring your homemade meal.

Melissa is a pro at creating satisfying meals that adults and kids alike will enjoy, using everyday ingredients and transforming them into delicious dinners. Her Potato-Bacon Torte (which, at 50 cents a serving, was one of her winning recipes on The Next Food Network Star) shows how basic and inexpensive supermarket ingredients can be turned into an amazingly satisfying dish. Her Roasted Vegetable Tian is a great way to take advantage of deals in the produce aisle. The Four-Step Chicken Piccata offers a plan for getting food on the table in just minutes, using almost anything in the pantry.

Anyone can use this book—especially those who want to save money—and feel great about cooking sensibly for elevated, simple meals that are healthy family-pleasers.

About this title

Review

Featured Recipe from Ten Dollar Dinners: Salmon Cakes

Serves 4; Preparation time: 25 minutes; Cooking time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 large russet potato
• 2 bacon strips
• 1/2 small yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• Zest of 1/2 lemon
• 14-ounce can wild salmon
• 1/4 cup dried bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

Directions

1. Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Add the potato and cook until a paring knife easily slips into the center of the potato, 10 to 15 minutes. Drain and, once the potato is cool enough to handle, peel it and place it in a bowl. Use a fork to break up and fluff the potato. Set aside.

2. Heat a medium skillet over medium heat and cook the bacon on both sides until browned and crisp, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel–lined plate (save the fat in a small bowl), cool, and then crumble. Place the bacon in a medium bowl and set aside.

3. Heat 1 tablespoon of the reserved bacon fat in a small skillet over low heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent and soft, about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the onion cool, then add to the bacon along with the egg, mayonnaise, mustard, sugar, and lemon zest, stirring to combine. Add the salmon and then the potato, mixing gently after each addition. Then form into 12 small patties.

4. In a small, shallow baking dish, mix the bread crumbs, Parmesan, and pepper. Press both sides of the salmon patties firmly into the bread-crumb mixture to evenly coat both sides.

5. Heat 1/4 cup of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook the salmon cakes in 2 batches until they’re golden on both sides, 6 to 8 minutes total, adding more oil when necessary. Serve warm.

Amazon Asks Melissa d'Arabian

What's your elevator pitch for Ten Dollar Dinners?

It's about so much more than cooking with inexpensive ingredients! It's a full philosophy of spending with purpose and managing our resources wisely while nourishing our bodies.

Which new cookbooks or chef memoirs are you most excited about?

I can't wait to read Marcus Samuelsson's Yes, Chef and Michael Symon's Carnivore.

What’s the best place you’ve eaten recently?

I had an incredibly special dinner at Uchi in Houston... truly one of the best dinners I've ever had.

What's been your most memorable author moment?

Opening the envelope that had the very first copy of my cookbook in it. I opened it with my husband, very delicately, as if it were fragile.

What other talent would you most like to have (not including flight or invisibility)?

I'd love to be a genius at organization. (To do that, I think you have to be able to really think in 3-D, and I'm very linear.)

What are you obsessed with now?

Doing splits. I'm almost there!

What's your most treasured possession?

My grandma's confirmation bracelet. She gave it to me as my "something old" at my wedding, and I wear it all the time--unless I'm filming Ten Dollar Dinners. She passed away last month, so it's extra special now.

What's on your nightstand?

They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan by Benjamin Ajak, Benson Deng, and Alephonsian Deng.  

What's next for you?

After book tour, I'm settling into the new school year with my four daughters--and then get straight back to work on Book # 2!

About the Author

MELISSA D’ARABIAN was the host of Food Network’s Ten Dollar Dinners and Cooking Channel’s Drop 5 Lbs with Good Housekeeping. Melissa is the season 5 winner of The Next Food Network Star and has also appeared on Food Network’s The Best Thing I Ever Ate and Food Network Challenge. Melissa has a BA from the University of Vermont and an MBA from Georgetown University. She lives with her husband and their four young daughters in San Diego.

Edition details

• Publisher: Clarkson Potter
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0307985148
• ISBN 13: 9780307985149
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 368