5-Ingredient Cooking for Two: 100+ Recipes Portioned for Pairs Paperback – June 9, 2020

I bought this on a whim because the kindle price was low. The author wasn't familiar to me, but I desperately needed a break from cooking from "serious" cookbooks - while still having to cook - and "5 Ingredients" was enough to reel me in. I love this book so much that I'm already waiting for the author's next.Since the recipes in this book are only five ingredients (not counting things like oil, salt, pepper, water, etc), they are somewhat basic, but I actually love that because it gives me a bit of leeway to add an additional ingredient or two which makes me feel as though I'm a more natural cook than I am.Because of that, I think it would be a great book for beginning cooks who can see what's possible at a minimum before learning by trial and error to build on them.Most of the recipes have boxes at the beginning noting the following: Freezer-Friendly, 30 Minutes or Less, One Pot, Feeling Fancy, or a combination of some or all of those. Most recipes have a list of "Optional Finishing Touches" at the end.Many of the recipes are for dishes that are usually much more complicated, having many times more ingredients, taking too much time and utilizing too many pots and pans. The complexity of taste that comes from all of that may be somewhat lacking, but I will honestly take Donovan's quick and easy, pared down versions for delicious weeknight meals, saving the crazy-difficult recipes for weekends and those times when I really want to spend some time cooking.The Pork Chile Verde is a case in point. A typical recipe for it has 3x the ingredients and steps to go through that result in something only slightly more complex than this version. I added cannellini beans to mine because I didn't have rice to serve it with and we love both versions.Tailoring the recipes on purpose is also easy. The Italian-Style Oven Baked Fish was very good and reminiscent of a puttanesca sauce minus the capers. The next time I make it, I'll throw in some capers and voila! I'll feel like a chef!The Sausage with Caramelized Cabbage and Onions is as good as it sounds and took 20 min to put on the table. Changing it up is as easy as serving it with wide noodles, using another type of sausage or tipping some caraway seeds in.Note about the Kindle version of this book:It does not have an index. The recipes, however, are all listed in the Contents and are clickable links. There are not so many recipes that that is a problem.Bottom line: I have a feeling that this will become one of my most-used cookbooks... out of the 400+ I have. And that is saying something!

This is a good book to try new recipes in small quantity to see if you like it or to make changes to it before using the recipe. So far are favorite is the chicken tiki marsala recipe that I habe tweaked to make it my own.

Great recipe ideas for two. All are super easy. I mostly use it as a starting off point and add additional seasoning.

I got this book for my roommate for Christmas. It was a good deal, very well-made, and elegant, inside and out. Tasty looking recipe ideas – unfortunately we haven’t made any of them yet! But I would definitely recommend this as a gift.

Fantastic recipes. I look forward to trying them all!

This has good recipes, no pictures. The biggest problem I have is I didn’t see a single recipe with 5 ingredients. Every recipe was 7 or more. That’s not a huge deal except the title is 5 ingredient so… Got a great price on Prime day.

Perfect

The recipes are pretty simple and would be easy to follow for a beginner. The one negative I have is that about half of the 14 recipes that I've tried so far are not the greatest. Flavor is lacking depth or interest likely due to being 5 ingredients. The recipes do not include pictures of the dish. I do like that it's has nutritional facts for each recipe and additional notes/tips.