Title: Eatingwell Serves Two
Author: Jim Romanoff
Source: gift from family
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review Summary: Some good pictures, clear instructions, but the whole “cooking for two” idea seems pricey and inefficient.
Eatingwell makes a series of cookbooks, including this one which specifically focuses on easy recipes that make two servings each. About one in three of the recipes has a picture accompanying it. The organization is pretty good. The major section headings make sense and at the beginning of each section there’s a complete list of the recipes in the section. I slightly prefer a complete list of recipes all together, but it was still easy to use.
The recipe I decided to make was broiled chicken with chipotle orange glaze – my first ever experience with broiling. And let me tell you, in the small space under the open flame in my gas oven, it was a pretty scary experience. The book gave a little bit of guidance and my cat supervised more closely than was wise, but the most useful help I found was this video from allrecipes.com.
Other than that, everything about the recipes was very easy. To the right, you see the throw-everything-in-a-bowl step which resulted in a delicious orange glaze. The book estimated that everything would take 20 minutes with only 10 active minutes on my part. This first time it took me at least 30 minutes of active work, but if I were to do it again, I think their time frame would be do-able.
In addition to working faster, there are a few changes I’d make to the recipe. First, the sauce was delicious, but not much made it into the chicken so I think a marinading step might be in order. Second and more generally, the whole idea of recipes for two is not a cost-effective way to make meals. Nothing is sold in small enough sizes that you can save money by cooking for two. You still have to buy enough for at least four meals and then you end up with inconvenient extra ingredients. I’d much rather have delicious and convenient left-overs, so in the future, I plan to double all their recipes.
Doing Dewey 
I thought there was a whole section about how to be cost-effective with ingredients–info on storing the left-overs of extra ingredients and complementary recipes? I thought that was the most useful part of the book!