Casual Suppers

This is one of the many books in my ever-expanding cookbook collection, and I aim to review and catalog them all, so hold on to your chair. As I may have mentioned before, my mom runs a used book fair, something I hope to get involved with this spring. One of the perks of this is a sneak peak access to budget cookbooks. I believe this book came from the fair, but I've had it for several years and am iffy about its origins.

No longer in print, the copyright on this is 1996. You have to consider that food does not age at the same pace as everything else. Like there are dog and cat years, there are food years. So while a mere 15 years old in our time, this cookbook is positively retro in the food world. There's a heavy focus on casseroles, and several of the recipes call for an ingredient called "spaghetti sauce mix," whatever that is. There is a vegetarian section, a nice option, but several of those recipes include meat or poultry stock. Maybe vegetarianism was different all the way back in the Clinton era, who knows.

Even with the negatives, I really enjoy this cookbook. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but the recipes I've tried are pretty tasty, and even tastier after I give them an update. This book helped inspire my "Oodles Noodles Casserole" recipe (which I hope to have up on site in the coming weeks). There's something very comforting about the simple, no fuss food in cookbooks like this. Sometimes it's nice to put dinner on the table without worrying about it being nutritionally complete or locally sourced or "omg, is this meal contributing to the obesity epidemic?" When that's the case, this book is here for you. And it's a keeper for me.