Kitchen Nightmares Turned to Dreams.

Some interesting and contemporary cookbooks grab the spotlight this week at the .

Everyone is always looking for a new recipe. Whether you want to prepare for an impending visit from the in-laws, throw a smashing dinner party for your friends, or dig yourself and your family out of the weekly ground beef rut that we all more cheerfully refer to as taco night, something new can make the night.

Of course you can turn on the TV and see what Ina Garten is making on Barefoot Contessa, chances are it will lean towards French and call for garden-fresh herbs. This week however why  not  be more hands on and check out the following new cookbooks from the Mansfield Pulbic Library when planning your nightly meals.

The Everything Guide to Macrobiotics:

You don’t have to adhere to a strict Macrobiotic* diet like Gwyneth Paltrow to take something out of this book. Paltrow herself even claims she ditched the diet when she became pregnant with her daughter, the aptly named Apple, because she craved French fries, grilled cheese, and yogurt. The book however is teeming with recipes, 150 of them to be exact, and lifestyle tips that are certainly useful if you’re feeling like you’ve put nutrition on the backburner lately.

*Macrobiotic diet typically means eating grains as a staple food balanced with vegetables and avoiding foods that are deemed over-stimulating and exhausting to the body such as sugar, coffee, chocolate and hot spices among other things. It derives from the Taoist principles of the balance of yin and yang. Drop your vices, there is no room for them in this diet.

The Everything Vegan Cookbook:

Veganism like the macrobiotic diet is very strict, it is not only a diet but a lifestyle choice. The consumption and the use of animal products is prohibited. To those of you who are vegan, this book is for you. There are 300 vegan recipes in this book. However if you admire thoughtful vegetable recipes this book is certainly worth a look.  Even the most ardent of meat eaters would have trouble turning down the Gingered and Pralined Sweet Potatoes in this book!

My Cooking Class – Sauce Basics:

This is the book that really caught my eye. It is brilliantly laid out. My Cooking Class prides itself in not just telling but showing the reader how to cook. The ingredients and steps are illustrated through photographs. It is simplistic in the best of ways. The photographs are so complete that at times you don’t even have to read the instructions, which by the way, are as succinct as the pictures. For instance on the pages containing the homemade ketchup recipe, all of the ingredients are laid out, chopped and prepared, cooked, and plated in pictures.  This is one of the more complex recipes in the book. Classic, and contemporary sauces are covered, as well as pasta sauces, salad dressings, foams and lastly the sweet sauces. Do you want a homemade crème anglaise for desert? Me too, and My Cooking Class proves that it’s shockingly easy to make.