Making dinner after a long day at work can be a daunting proposition, at least until you make the decision that tonight is “cereal night.”
However a new cookbook by a Milwaukee writer makes the case that dinner – or lunch or breakfast – need not have a long ingredient list and a complex set of prep instructions to make for a delicious meal.
Philia Kelnhofer is the author of Fast & Easy Five-Ingredient Recipes: A Cookbook for Busy People, a book with roots in a weekly blog post called "Five Ingredient Friday."
Building her fan base as a food blogger had a large part to do with the five-ingredient meals, the photos and feedback Kelnhofer received. "People could see that the recipes turned out...and people really started loving that there was this consistency of these easy recipes that they could follow," she says.
Kelnhofer is excited that a once weekly practice has turned into an official cookbook for everyone to utilize - with a photo for every meal. "I love seeing what the end result is kind of supposed to look like," she says. "You know it might be a little different, but just in general showing people what the end is going to look like when they cook a dish."
With recipes such as Ramen with Fried Egg, Spinach Alfredo Lasagna, and Peanut Butter Sea Salt Cookies, Kelnhofer's goal with this book is to turn any trepidation towards cooking into a fun and manageable activity for any busy lifestyle. "If you really like doing long specialized recipes, that's great. There are some in the book that are a little more advanced, but I'd say there's something for everyone at every level of cooking," she says.
