Beth Hensperger

I realize bread machines are a little out-of-fashion, and I do have non-machine bread baking experience -- I really enjoy it, but almost never do it because I don't feel like I have the time / don't want to heat up the kitchen / don't think about it. I also am not totally satisfied with the browning capabilities of my current oven -- it just doesn't do bread that well. My lovely bread machine though, is so easy! I get the feeling of accomplishment from making a homemade loaf of bread without show more getting myself and the kitchen totally covered with flour, and the enclosed little oven doesn't heat up the kitchen and browns the bread just the way I ask it to. This book is an exhaustive look at all the things you can do in your bread machine and includes recipes for pretty much every kind of bread or roll or pastry or dough that I've ever heard of. Hensperger is an accomplished and enthusiastic baker (both with and without the machine) and her notes on ingredients, baking processes, baking science, and the history of different kinds of bread are fascinating. I actually read the whole cookbook!

[full review here: http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-bread-lovers-bread-machine-cookbook.ht... ] show less

I’m 66 years old now, but I still remember my mother making rice in el Hitachi — a daily occurrence, as we were Cubans. Hitachi doesn’t even make rice cookers any more, but I still swear by the electric rice cooker.

The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook lives up to its name. Not only is it packed with recipes, the cookbook also has descriptions of and instructions for every type of rice, including lots I had never heard of. So, if you want to make plain Wehani rice, Riz Rouge or Kalijira show more brown rice — congratulations! — this cookbook will lay out the amount of water to use and whether or not you should pre-wash it. (Spoiler alert: Most of the time, author Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufman think you should.)

The rice cooker isn’t just for rice anymore, and it hasn’t been for decades. In addition to some great rice side dishes (as well as side dishes featuring quinoa, millet, barley, farro, couscous, bulgur and more), The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook includes main dishes, such as Arroz con Pollo, Steamed Chicken Breasts with Warm Mango Sauce, potatoes with tarragon butter, Rice Cooker Paella, Shrimp and Grits, Italian Sausage Risotto, Barbecued Pork Buns (Char Siu Bau), and more. A super-deal with Kindle Unlimited, but definitely worth paying for. show less

Beth Hensperger’s updated and expanded cookbook has it all: step-by-step explanations on how to use an electronic bread machine, pros and cons of different types of machines, directions for machines from the more primitive to the fancy-pants kinds with all kinds of settings.

The bread machine’s heyday came in the 1990s, and, sadly, they’ve fallen out of favor — which is a real shame, as families are looking to cut out ingredients they can’t pronounce out of their food. Someone can show more just place the ingredients in the bread machine (the correct order is paramount!), close the lid and pop out a loaf in less than three hours. No work at all! Also, with a bread machine, cooks can dispense with the onerous kneading and still mold the bread and bake it in the oven. This cookbook has something for everyone, from the newbie to an experienced baker eager to make the apple butter for their Apple Butter Bread or wanting to try their hand at Challah or holiday breads where you candy your own fruit peels. (Whew! Way more than I’m going to do!)

Hensperger includes everything from plain, white bread (so much better than that nasty Wonder bread!) to rye breads to DIY hotdog and hamburger buns to Italian Chocolate Bread with Amaretto Icing (where you glacée your own dried fruit). She even includes recipes for using up leftover bread, including a dozen bread pudding variations. I cannot recommend this book enough! show less

I borrowed this from the library, renewed it three times, and then caved and bought it.

I was surprised to find such a large collection of slow cooker recipes where tinned or powdered soup is so rarely mentioned. And there are more bean recipes than I I can shake a stick at. I also appreciate the details given for how different foods cook in a crock pot - gives me enough confidence to adapt some of my own stove-top recipes to the slow cooker.

One warning - the, er, hints for non-slow cooked show more side dishes are terrible - but that's not why I bought the book show less