Daisy Cooks: Latin Flavors That Will Rock Your World

wonderful values

I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to make Latin food with authentic flavors. I have made nine recipes out of the book so far, and they have all turned out well. The Pork Chops(Grandma's) were probably my favorite recipe so far. The sofrito recipe makes a huge quantity, but it is easily frozen - and so much more flavorful than jarred/ packaged seasonings sold under the same name, It is essential for many other recipes in the book; I used it to make yellow rice and my New York born guest said the flavor was true to form. Another favorite recipe is the one for Mami's potato salad - the best potato salad I ever made, and now my go-to recipe. The recipes are well tested. I had one issue with the roasted chicken scorching a bit but I think that was due to user error. I was actually able to use her directions to make a very good Pernil (Roast pork shoulder). This is not an easy task on the west coast where good pork is hard to come by. I definitely suggest shopping in a Latin market for pork if you want to attempt the pork recipes and do not have access to marbled pork. If I had one little quibble with the book, it was with the seasoning. The amount of pepper in the dry adobo rub was a bit overwhelming for me, and I found the amount of salt in some of the recipes to be shocking at first. After making her potato salad though, I realized that lack of salt was the problem behind all my bland potato salads of the past. While I would not indulge in such high sodium fare every day, the recipes are delicious enough to justify on an occasional basis (at least for me). Interestingly, when I did lower the amount of salt in the red beans and rice recipe (also delicious) a Hispanic guest commented that the dish was under-seasoned! It turns out that Puerto Rican food is traditionally very, very well-seasoned. There are only a couple of hard to find ingredients (at least for west-coasters) but easier to find substitutions are given. There are a lot of recipes with cilantro and its cousin, the very elusive and hard-to-find culantro. So if you are one of those people with the gene that makes cilantro taste like burnt plastic, this might not be the book for you.I have had a good measure of success from this book - and good reviews from several dinner guests. This book will stay on my shelf until I'm no longer allowed to eat salt :-)A very fun and successful introduction to Latin cooking.

I'm not one for watching cooking shows on tv. In fact, I hate to cook. But I saw a Daisy cooking show on pbs one day, and it caught my attention. I found myself salivating. And the type of cooking she was doing seemed so....could it be easy? A little of this, a little of that. I thought, hey, I could do that, and it doesn't take that long. Then she made IT. The IT was her Black Bean Soup. OMG. That was it. I had to buy her cookbook and try some of these recipes (I hate even saying the word "recipes," that's how much I hate to cook). There was no other way to get that food than to make it myself. I bought the cookbook and made a few thing. Delicious. And I did it myself! I still make the black bean soup every winter. It tastes wonderful, true comfort food, spicy, freezes well, and doesn't cost a lot of $. The only problem I have with the book is her use of all the different peppers. I couldn't find some of them, so I substituted with others or more of the ones she was otherwise using in that recipe. The recipes were easy to read, instructions were okay (I could've done with more instructions and explanations for idiots like me). I'm a fan, now, of Cuban food. This is down to earth food. Things you can make a lot of for a family to gather 'round the table and chow down. Good book, great food.

If you love Daisy's TV Cooking Show, then this book is a great companion!I try to watch Daisy's cooking show every Sunday on PBS. I never get tired of watching Daisy cook! Therefore, when I saw this book on Amazon, I just had to have it!Well, the book arrived a month ago and I am pouring through all the pages & trying out Daisy's recipes (see my post script below) ....I'm not disappointed. The recipes are explained just as nicely as when Daisy shows her recipes on her TV show. The photos are very colorful and crisp too! The recipes are not your typical Latin food recipes because Daisy gives her recipes her own "twist".Follow-up:.....I just tried Daisy's recipes on page 60 (Pork Picadillo) and on p.71 (Peruvian Minestrone) and they turned out great. They were not hard to duplicate. I did have to replace one of the ingredients in the first recipe for another, since I did not have it in my cupboard. But , the replacement ingredient did not alter the recipe.Tonight I plan to try the recipe on p.161 (Daisy's Chicken Diablo) since this is a recipe that Daisy showed us on her TV Show not to long ago and looks easy to make. I've had Chicken Diablo before (at a restaurant), and loved it!

I purchased this book for my sister as gift. Before I gave it to her, I reviewed the book. As a latin cook myself, I found many of her recipes very interesting. But as many a cook will know, there are as many variations to a recipe as there are cooks. Some recipes where new to me, others I found that I like my recipes better. I read a review of this book, where the reader was disappointed with her book. She had trouble finding ingredients, and wound up with a large batch of useless "sofrito." I find that I can get just about anything in regular supermarkets. Also, hispanic markets are everywhere. When making "sofrito", unless you're planning to be cooking P.Rican food a couple of times a week, you need make just enough for the dish you're preparing. To the disappointed reader, my advice is that she give it another try. She'll be glad she did. I personally have to make a recipe at least 2 times to get it just right. All in all, it's a very good book with beautiful pictures of the recipes. I recommend it to persons who enjoy latin cuisine and for those "latinos" that don't know how to cook latin food. My sister loved the book.

I have always loved Daisy's show. I am sad that she has left Daisy Cooks show. I am happy to be able to try her recipes, I bought this book particularly for her paella. I tried it once a long while ago but lost the recipe I copied from the show. Now I have the book and the book is in excellent condition. Thanks Amazon