Strictly Sundays by Joe Fitzpatrick

In Strictly Sundays: Making Every Cook a Hero on Sundays, Joe Fitzpatrick, The Blue Collar Gourmet, offers a tempting collection of recipes to help make that Sunday supper something special. The recipes are grouped into sections for: appetizers, main dishes, salads, soups, side dishes and salsas.

This is a pretty good cookbook. The recipes are nice enough for a special occasion or a Sunday family supper, but since they aren't overly complicated or fussy, many of them could be used on a weekday. The recipes are varied, but with the exception of a few salads and side dishes, vegetarians would be disappointed (and quite possibly starving). The only other thing that is missing is a dessert section.

The book contains some standard fare (pot roast, steak, clam chowder), but also has some out of the ordinary dishes that sound intriguing: "Wasabi White Chile", "Chestnut Soup", "Crab and Scallop Lasagna", plus many more.

A lot of the recipes sound delicious; I can't wait to make a few of them: "Tomato Pie" on page 113 looks a little unusual; "Garlic Bread with a Kick" on page 134 will likely be devoured in my house, but will no doubt enlarge my waistline; "Quinoa Salad" on page 93, I'm always looking for new things to make with quinoa; "Lemon-Garlic Chicken" on page 55 contains two of my favourite ingredients. I could go on and on. There are so many good ones.

I love the photographs in the book. Photographing food and have the photo come out delicious looking is extremely hard and is best left to those who know what they are doing. Well, Steven Potter knows what he's doing. The photos are wonderful and appetizing.

The layout of the book is really nice. The adequate index makes recipes really easy to find. I especially liked the addition of the coloured pages. They make the photographs stand out and add overall interest to the book.

Recommended.

For more information about the book and the author, please visit Strictly Sundays website.

Review copy provided by author/publicist via Bostick Communications. Thanks!

Strictly Sundays by Joe Fitzpatrick, Book Publishers Network, ©2009. ISBN 9781935359197 (Trade Paperback), 146p.