The Big Book of Sides – Rick Rodgers

I have been looking for a book like this for a long time.  In fact, I own several cookbooks that are dedicated to side dishes.  None are as good as The Big Book of Sides. It contains 450 recipes for vegetables, grains, salads, etc.

I don’t know about you, but when I am preparing a main dish that makes my guests go ‘wow’ I don’t want to plop an ordinary spoonful of broccoli or asparagus onto the plate.  The side dish needs to say ‘wow’ as well. Not only that, I get tired of eating vegetables prepared the same old way all the time.

The author, Rick Rodgers is an award-winning cookbook author and cooking teacher. He has written more than forty cookbooks on subjects from baking to grilling and more. Rodgers often works behind the scenes as a recipe tester, co-author, and consultant on cookbooks by other authors, including Lilly Pulitzer and Sarabeth Levine of Sarabeth’s Bakery. Rodgers’s recipes have appeared in Bon Appétit, Cooking Light, Men’s Health, Food and Wine, and Fine Cooking, among other magazines. He has received Bon Appétit Magazine’s Food and Entertaining Award as Outstanding Cooking Teacher and an IACP Cookbook Award for The Chelsea Market Cookbook.

One of the reasons I like this cookbook so much is that it is organized by food type.  Let’s say that asparagus is in season and on sale. Thumb through the chapter on vegetables – organized alphabetically by vegetable – and you’ll find eight asparagus recipes.

The second reason I like this book is that all the recipes use only commonly-available ingredients and they are easy to make.