Cookbook Reviews - 20 Minutes to Dinner

20 Minutes to Dinner
Publisher: The Book Publishing Company
© 1996 by Bryanna Clark Grogan
ISBN: 1570670277

Try out a Sample Recipe: Mattar Tofu

From the Author

Bryanna Clark Grogan:

I love to cook, I love to eat good food, I love the animals and the earth, and I want to keep myself and my husband healthy. Those are my motivations, and they are just about in that order of importance.

I've cooked since before I can even remember, according to my mother (and I'm a 54 year-old grandmother now!), so cooking has always been something I love-- love to read about, love to do, love to share, love to write about. It kind of defines me, or part of me, anyway.! (More...)

Nice Extras:

Nutrition, cooking and shopping tips. Includes information on fat, allergies and organic ingredients.
Tips for quick, low-fat cooking.
Homemade basics. Includes information on bean cooking.
Information on textured vegetable protein.
Ingredient glossary.

Reviewer: Søren from Copenhagen, Denmark:

This is Bryanna's third cookbook, and like the two first, 'The (Almost) No Fat Cookbook' and '(Almost) No Fat Holiday Cookbook', this is a collection of great-tasting vegan recipes that are not only quick to cook but also extremely low-fat, the only fat used being virtually a teaspoon of oil for greasing a pan! Bryanna has since loosened up her strict no-fat policy in her recent cookbooks, yet these recipes still manage to be full of flavour. If you're sceptical, try her "you won't believe it" pesto for a start! Yum! The book has 8 chapters:
I: Nutrition, Cooking & Shopping Tips
II: Homemade Basics - including recipes such as 'Breast Of Tofu' (tofu marinated in a tasty soy marinade to provide a vegan alternative to chicken) - this has become a staple in our fridge - dairy-free alternatives and vegan mayonnaise.
III: Quick Dips, Spreads & Drinks
IV: Speedy Soups, Sauces & Salads - mmm ... the sea vegetable chowder and ditto manhattan-style are extremely delicious. Plenty of useful sauces, including rich-tasting low-fat alternatives to cheese and Hollandaise sauce, and worcestershire sauce. We're also fond of the oriental noodle salad for a quick light meal.
V: Pasta & Pizza Express. Italian-style pasta dishes alongside Chinese-style pasta dishes - Bryanna goes even further on these subjects in her extraordinary books 'Nonna's Italian Kitchen' and 'Authentic Chinese Cuisine'.
VI: Fast Food Tonight! relies a great deal on tofu and meat analogs for burgers, patties, grills & rapid wraps. These are very tasty too, lots of ideas for hot and cold sandwiches.
VII: Flash-In-The-Pan features stir-fries (the Chinese 'Beef' and Broccoli in Vegetarian 'Oyster' Sauce is a favourite), stews and oven meals, all easy to make and delicious.
VIII: Swift & Easy Side Dishes. How to make rice and potato dishes a little more interesting!
The only minor complaint would be about the title being a bit misleading in some cases since '½ Hour To Dinner' would have been more fitting in most cases (the unusual but delicate Soy "Fish" Cakes took me about 45 minutes to make) but there's nothing to criticize about the recipes. As always there are plenty of alternatives and ideas for variations so you'll be able to easily use whatever you have around in your fridge. I award this book 'only' 4 stars because Bryanna's subsequent Italian & Chinese cookbooks are so terrific!