**Giveaway Closed: 1/10/12**
Brette Sember is onto something.
Her new cookbook, The Parchment Paper Cookbook, is a volume dedicated solely to dishes cooked in – you guessed it! – parchment paper. One hundred and eighty recipes of parchment-paper cooking: oh, the possibilities. And with the promise on the cover – No Pots! No Pans! No Mess! – how could I not be excited? I’m a sucker for cleanliness. And exclamation points.
So I happily forged ahead, sharpening my origami skills with the step-by-step parchment paper folding-technique, moving aside my Pots! and Pans!, basking in the glory of an uncluttered counter space. For a student with a small kitchen and limited cooking supplies, this was promising. This was beautiful.
It almost delivered. But boy, was it fun.
I was disappointed in the amount of times Sember called for pre-cooked items in her recipes; her Party in a Packet calls for prepared French Onion Dip, for example, and her Succotash calls for canned creamed corn. Some things, it seems, are not meant to be cooked in a parchment paper pouch. Some things, it seems, do need Pots! and Pans!
But for the ingredients that lend themselves well to parchment-paper cooking – fish, vegetables, and fruits, more specifically – this book served as a fantastic springboard. Simple Baked Apples were fantastic with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and the Green Tea Salmon with Ginger turned out tender, flavorful, and mess-free, of course. Green Beans with Dates and Walnuts were simple and delicious, and her Baked Brie was properly indulgent and oozy. With a discerning eye, and the folding technique, the possibilities are endless. Experiment away – there’s no mess to clean up.
If maneuvered carefully and thoughtfully, The Parchment Paper Cookbook is a great reference for any college student with a small kitchen and a penchant for adventure. Use it as a springboard; use it as a muse. Get creative; try new things. Because isn’t that what college is all about, anyway?
Comment below for a chance to win a copy of The Parchement Paper Cookbook! To enter, you must:
- Leave a comment below and tell us about your biggest kitchen mess
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***Recipe***
Baked Apple
Serves 1
Ingredients
1 apple, cored
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt
½ tablespoon melted butter
2 tablespoons chopped pecans
2 tablespoons water, apple juice, or apple cider
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cut a 12-inch piece of parchment.
3. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
4. Place the apple on the parchment.
5. Mix remaining ingredients then stuff them down inside the center of the apple.
6. Allow excess ingredients to mound around the bottom of the apple.
7. Fold the parchment and bake for an hour and a half.
8. Be sure to spoon out all they gooey sauce that has formed on the bottom of the parchment!
PDF Originally posted on Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
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13 Responses to “Review and Giveaway: The Parchment Paper Cookbook”
December 21st, 2011
I made red sauce and left it simmering on too high of a heat without a cover… needless to say it boiled over and splattered all over the nearby walls. Awful mess.
December 21st, 2011
My biggest kitchen mess may or may not have involved a blender that was not fully sealed..smoothie splatter!!
December 21st, 2011
I’ve had a lot of kitchen messes: no knead bread that didn’t rise at all and stuck really bad to the bottom of my Le Creuset French oven, exploding blenders, sauces that were way too thin or thick… I think we’ve all been there… learning experiences! This book looks great, I love cooking en papillote! I’m a subscriber and fan on Fb (as pão e queijo blog).
December 22nd, 2011
Oh last year when the blender exploded! Hot chocolate went everywhere.
December 22nd, 2011
Email Subscriber as Ladytink534(at)gmail(dot)com
December 22nd, 2011
I LIKE you on FB~ Jen Tink
December 22nd, 2011
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December 22nd, 2011
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December 22nd, 2011
Biggest kitchen mess was a horrific one — I left the kitchen with a wok filled with hot oil (was going to make homemade tortilla chips?) - the dogs were making a ruckus. When I came back in the flames were licking the ceiling. It’s a long and dreadful but never forgotten story. No one was physically injured.
I love cooking/baking with parchment - as it involves no oil
Really, I have been using it for years. I like baking fish best in it.
December 22nd, 2011
Already a fan and subscribing
My biggest kitchen mess is always making sugar cookies. Flour everywhere for rolling. I love decorating them but hate making them.
December 23rd, 2011
I love baked apples
I would say that one of my biggest kitchen messes was shared in a two x two with my former awesome foodie roommate. I love her, but we cannot cook some things together lol! I was baking a Paula Deen recipe for triple chocolate chip cookies (enough of a mess alone) and she was baking pound cakes (yes, more than one). It was for a campus bake sale. Needless to say…we fought over the oven given the different temps needed and, us nor the kitchen was a pretty sight when all was said and done! Haha. But the cakes and cookies were DELICIOUS! 
December 23rd, 2011
My biggest kitchen mess was the Dumplings of 2011. A friend and I made pork dumpling from scratch - down to the wrappers. Needless to say, every surface of my kitchen was covered in flour, and everything I touched with my dough-covered hands were cursed with sticky globs of dough. The dumplings turned out delicious, but my friend and I learned our lesson: buy dumpling wrappers.
December 30th, 2011
One Thanksgiving many years ago I misread the sparkling cider bottle as “Serve well shaken” instead of “Serve well chilled”. I gave that bottle a couple of good shakes and I painted the ceiling, and my mother’s holiday vest, with cider…
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