Fetch Your Copy Chef Michael Smiths Kitchen: 100 Of My Favourite Easy Recipes Illustrated By Michael Smith Conveyed In Pamphlet

book! Love the pictures and recipes, Love Chef Michael! I guess I'm not up on my chefs because I don't know too much about Michael Smith, arguably Canada's most famous chef, I received a copy of his newest cookbook, simply titled Chef Michael Smith's Kitchenof My Favourite Recipes, The spelling of favourite is a clue that

he is from Canada,

The book, like the title, is simple but gorgeous, It is divided into the typical chapters Breakfast, Soups, Salads, Main Course, Dessert, In between chapters there are pages, like Salt amp Pepper and Knives amp Pots, where Smith describes simply what you need to know about using salt and pepper to season and the six Martha Stewart would faint! kitchen tools you need.
They are:

One large pot, big enough to boil pasta in
One small pot, big enough to make a small batch of pasta sauce
One frying pan, large enough to make a batch of pancakes
One large chef's knife, for slicing and dicing
One serrated knife, for slicing bread
One small paring knife, for opening envelopes and cutting limes for your gin and tonics
Even a small apartment kitchen like mine can handle that.


The book is beautifully done, and each recipe is divided into four sections, with different colors and fonts: the recipe name and introduction, the ingredients, the directions and kitchen tips.
Each recipe has an accompanying photo well done by James Ingram, either of the finished product or of ingredients,

The recipes are simple too, using ingredients that can be found in most grocery stores, another plus for me, I don't have room for ingredients I will use only once,

I have bookmarked at least a dozen recipes to try that I know my adult sons would enjoy, including:
Bacon Breakfast Taco with Cheddar Scrambled Eggs
Chicken Cheddar Quesadillas with Jalapeno Cilantro Pesto
Buffalo "Wing" Salad with Spicy Chicken Chunks and Spicy Blue Cheese Dressing
Sweet Potato Vegetarian Chili with Cinnamon Sour Cream
Pan Roasted Zucchini with Cherry Tomatoes and Oregano

What I like best about this book is that it is filled with recipes that aren't intimidating, they are simple, made with fresh ingredients, and I think pretty much anyone can make them.
I'll keep you posted on which recipes I try,
Chef Michael Smith, Canada's most popular chef, is passionate about cooking and sharing great food and flavours, Inside you'll find Michael's alltime favourite recipes, the ones he cooks regularly in his own home kitchenlots of wonderful, memorable flavours that you'll enjoy with your family and friends.


Chef Michael Smith's Kitchen features overfabulous, easytomake recipes, each with a mouthwatering photo, Start your day with French Toast Sandwiches Oatmeal Crusted with Blueberry Stuffing and Marmalade Mint Butter or Apple Pie Pancakes with Caramel Syrup, Enjoy Coconut Crusted Chicken with Mango Mint Salsa or Honey Mustard Barbecue Baked Baby Back Ribs, or a great fish dish like Grilled Tuna Steak or Pan Seared Scallops with House Wine Sauce for a wonderful dinner.
You'll also find lots of recipes for delicious vegetables, grains, and side dishes like Nutmeg Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Wilted Baby Spinach or Sausage Sage Bread Pudding, And of course, Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups and TripleTreat Creamsicle Marshmallows are sure to become your favourite treats to finish off any meal,

Chef Michael invites you to enjoy cooking his favourite recipes and to make them yours,

It's been a great fall for foodies in Ontario, Let's face it any season that gives those of us who love food the opportunity to experience some amazing and different dishes, prepared by some of our favourite chefs has to be celebrated.
Between the Feast of Fields event to the recent Word on the Street yes, foodies love books too there's a whole subset of them called "cookbooks", to the upcoming Soupstock extravaganza, there is no better time to be in love with quality food made from fresh and local ingredients.


No better time indeed, as Chef Michael Smith, our own Canadian rock star chef from PEI, has been making quite a splash at these events with his own cookbooks.
I've admired his recipes on his Food Network shows, and finally had the opportunity to make some of his delicious food when I received a copy of "Chef Michael Smith's Kitchen:of My Favourite Easy Recipes".
Previously released in Canada, it was recently released in the US by Pintail Books, an imprint of Penguin, and has some amazing dishes that everyone should try,

I can't lie when I first paged through the book, I did wonder about the whole "easy recipe" description, However, once you get down to it, the recipes are incredibly simple to follow, and use ingredients that aren't hard to find if you don't have them in your pantry already.
I would advise you to choose your recipes to fit the seasonal vegetables in your region there are a number of recipes that I really wanted to make when I received the book in late July, but I chose to wait so that the food would be at the best quality possible.


We chose certain dishes because I was making them with people with food concerns, and these were the dishes that had the best mix of things we wanted to eat with easy substitutions as necessary, and we also really liked the flavours that were mentioned.
In the end, we chose to make three things from the book:

Bacon Beans with Spinach

ThymeBaked Chicken with Red Wine and Mushroom Sauce

Raspberry Ginger Red Cabbage

The general consensus is that Chef Michael Smith heretofore known as CMS has a great eye mouth tongue for flavour combinations.
He has that wonderful ability to select simple ingredients that mix cleanly to create great tastes together, Case in point the raspberry ginger red cabbage recipe, To be honest, we were both concerned that the addition of the orange juice and the jam might make this dish a little too sweet for our tastes, but our fears were groundless.
The mix of the raspberry jelly we chose a black and red raspberry jam with the acid of the OJ and the tang of the ginger was a lovely mix that complimented the cabbage well.
We were sure not to let it simmer too long, not wanting cabbage mush at the end of things, and it was still a lovely brilliant red/fuchsia colour at the end, likely due to the sweetandsour mixture that returned any missing colour to the dish.
If anything, we might add a little more ginger to the dish next time, but we really like ginger in this household so we might add more than most.


I had private reservations about the beans, having visions of either a mushy baked bean scenario or hardaspebble nuggets on our plates, Thankfully, we followed the instructions to rinse the beans the night before, and we found that the addition of the bacon, onion, garlic and spinach with a dollop of red wine vinegar made for a really flavourful dish.
It's an excellent alternative to roasted potatoes on a cool fall evening, and something that everyone really enjoyed, Not surprisingly, we increased the amount of bacon, but we're almost positive that didn't influence things much, Really, can you have too much bacon in a dish

"Life is about balance like the decadence of bacon fat balanced with the hearty goodness of nutritionally intense spinach.
That's your story. Stick to it. " CMS, page


The red wine and mushroom sauce is already a family favourite, and we've made it several times, The first time it was used over pork loin, and the second over the suggested chicken while it was certainly delicious over the chicken, we agreed that the mix of the sauce over pork was absolutely divine.
We did make a few minor changes here due to dietary needs, we changed the cornstarch to potato flour but the results were just as tasty and the sauce still thickened up nicely.
Leftovers were happily spirited away by hungry university students much to the chagrin of the chef me who was hoping for lunch the next day,

There are other great recipes in the book that we've sampled, and so far we haven't found a dud within the book, This book would be a great present for that university student newly out on his/her own, or for the foodie in your life who enjoys lovely clean flavours with delicious seasonal ingredients.
If you haven't picked up one of CMS's books yourself, this is a great book to start,

"Food is fun, Over the years, I've always enjoyed cooking, Letting yourself go simply allowing your ingredients to guide you is empowering and enjoyable, You can relax, smile, laugh, and stay in the moment That's how your cooking becomes peaceful and gratifying and leaves you open to discovery, " CMS, introduction

Chef Michael Smith's Kitchen is available from all good book retailers, including Indigo, Amazon and your friendly indie bookstore, Published by Pintail Books in the US, Penguin Canada in Canada, ISBN:,pages, Okay easy recipes nice ideas for everyday cooking Had a few things I would try, Chef Michael Smith, Canada's most popular chef, is passionate about cooking and sharing great food and flavours, Inside you'll find Michael's alltime favourite recipes, the ones he cooks regularly in his own home kitchenlots of wonderful, memorable flavours that you'll enjoy with your family and friends.
Chef Michael Smith's Kitchen features overfabulous, easytomake recipes, each with a mouthwatering photo, Start your day with French Toast Sandwiches Oatmeal Crusted with Blueberry Stuffing and Marmalade Mint Butter or Apple Pie Pancakes with Caramel Syrup, Enjoy Coconut Crusted Chicken with Mango Mint Salsa or Honey Mustard Barbecue Baked Baby Back Ribs, or a great fish dish like Grilled Tuna Steak or Pan Seared Scallops with House Wine Sauce for a wonderful dinner.
You'll also find lots of recipes for delicious vegetables, grains, and side dishes like Nutmeg Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Wilted Baby Spinach or Sausage Sage Bread Pudding, And of course, Michael's Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups and TripleTreat Creamsicle Marshmallows are sure to become your favourite treats to finish off any meal,

Chef Michael invites you to enjoy cooking his favourite recipes and to make them yours, Ooodles of great recipes that don't require many hard to find ingredients! Michael Smith is one of my favourite chefs, and as an added bonus, hes Canadian, I love all his tv shows, This was the first of his cookbooks that Ive had the pleasure of trying,

I love the setup of the book, with a full page picture of each recipe, Im a visual person when it comes to food, and there is better than seeing what the recipe should look like, The recipes themselves are easy to read, with simple instructions,

I easily bookmarked over a dozen recipes to try right away, I have made two so far, and both turned out great, I was a bit surprised at how complex some of the recipes were, as Chef Michael Smith is generally known for simple, easy food,

Overall, I am very happy with the recipe selection, I will be continuing to try new recipes from the book as I buy the necessary ingredients, and hope to find a few I will make over and over.
Librarian Note: There is than one author in the Goodreads database with this name, Chef Michael Smith graduated with honors from the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in New York in, He worked in London, South American and Caribbean restaurants before coming back to North America and Manhattan, Inhe moved to Prince Edward Island, from where he has become Canadas best known chef, the winner of the James Beard Award for Cooking Show Excellence and host of Chef at Home, Chef at Large and The Inn Chef on Food Network Canada and inother countries.
He is today an award winning cookbook author, newspaper columnist, roving Canadian cuisine ambassador, restaurant chef and home cook, .