Sandra Lee Semi-homemade: the Complete Cookbook (Cookbook Review)

Sandra Lee, author and star of her own Food network cooking program, has published a very large and complete cookbook appropriately titled: "The Complete Cookbook." This book boasts more than 1,000 recipes with approximately one-fourth of them having color photographs usually showing the ready-to-serve dish.

Lee follows the same format as she does on TV, in her magazines or in her previous books, wherein 70% ready-made convenience products are added to 30% fresh ingredients. The brand names of the convenience foods are listed in the ingredients portion of the recipes, including the brand names of spices and seasonings.

There is a Basics chapter at the beginning of the cookbook covering a wide range of kitchen, shopping and cooking tips, and a "tablescapes & entertaining" chapter at the end of the book with entertaining tips for each month of the year. In between are seventeen chapters filled with her more than 1,000 recipes.

Sandra Lee obviously has attained much success with her cooking style and the semi-homemade approach that she takes in the many endeavors she pursues. That success alone should make this cookbook a big hit with her fans.

However, this book just isn't my own style of cookbook. Cooking with 70% convenience foods isn't that much easier for me to do than making foods with fresh and more wholesome ingredients. Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Uncle Ben's, McCormick, Swanson, Bertolli, etc. - these are products designed to have a long shelf life that are not as enticing to me as buying fresh fruits, vegetables and meats. Maybe it's a generational thing!

Although many will like the hard cover spiral binding of this book because it is designed to lay flat when open and in use, I am unsure how well the pages will hold up over time. The pages of the book are ring bound, and that complete ring bound part of the book is affixed within an outside cover. Because it is a thick volume, the pages stay somewhat "jammed up" on the plastic ring binding when you close the book. Also, the inner ring bound section of the book is already separating slightly from the outer cover of the library book I reviewed, even though the book is very new to my library.

One more problem for me: Probably because of the large number of recipes in the book, the type style is unusually small, making it difficult for this senior citizen to read the recipes themselves.

I would like to say otherwise, but the fact is that I am not tempted to purchase this cookbook, nor will I check it out again from the library. I am somewhat off put by the advertising of brands throughout the book, and find the use of 70% convenience foods to be much less desirable than cooking with fresh ingredients.

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Lee, Sandra, Semi-homemade: The Complete Cookbook, Hoboken, New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010