Final judgment: Off the Shelf

Let's see how "Off the Shelf" measures up to its claims.

Fast, Fresh, Inspiring, Simple.

I have to say it lives up to the claims. In fact every meal was easy and relatively quick to make. The recipes provide a nice change of pace by not relying on too many pre-processed ingredients, nor does it use cheese to solve all their flavor problems (which is an overused ingredient in lots of quick food cooking). Instead it relied on higher quality pantry items that, I'm guessing, most American pantries don't have. We had to buy our pantry item for nearly every recipe, but now that the investment is made and we know how to use these ingredients, we are inspired to experiment more.

The pantry information was well organized, putting stock ingredients in categories. It helped me get a feel for what went together and also gave me ideas for how to use ingredients more creatively.

This book is an excellent example of attractive presentation - thank goodness for a beautiful picture of every recipe. Sadly, the attractive presentation set us up for a let down with most of the food ranging from "okay" to "good". However, each recipe has a lot of potential to be tweaked - this is a great book for adapting recipes. I suspect we'll go back to this book for quick pinch meat dishes, easy sides and good sauces.