I recently had an opportunity to speak to George Geary, the author of 500 Best Sauces, Salad Dressings, Marinades and More, and hear for myself his enthusiasm for food and cooking, especially chocolate!
George has written a few cookbooks before this one.
I asked how he decided to write all about sauces, dressings and marinades. Well, George often found himself in the condiment aisle of the grocery store reading the list of strange ingredients found in the bottles and sauces on the shelves, ingredients that didn’t sound like food at all.
After getting tired of bottled sauces and dressings that didn’t even taste very good plus getting rave reviews for his own salad dressings published in a previous cookbook, 125 Best Food Processor Recipes
, he decided that his next venture would be to offer a cookbook full of delicious and easy recipes for freshly made sauces, condiments, salad dressings, marinades and rubs.
Great idea!
His goal is to show us how easy it is to make fresh, great tasting food and he really does it in this book.
George travels the world teaching cooking and leading culinary tours and is constantly picking up inspiration that later shows in his recipes, such as his Old Venice Italian Vinaigrette, Green Papaya Salad or Moroccan Marinade.
Most of his recipes don’t require that you keep a lot of special ingredients in your pantry. Instead, George offers recipes that are made with simple pantry items you probably have on hand.
George urges people to “just get in there and try” a few new recipes. Unless it is over salted or burned, it’s edible, so just try it. His own favorites from the book include:
- Radda Vinaigrette, an Italian vinaigrette from the village of Radda
- Easy Vodka Sauce for pasta
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Fondue (what more can I say?!)
- and Barbecue Rubs, which are particularly wonderful for using on meat in the off-season for barbecuing. They give meats that extra special barbecue taste we crave out of season.
Most of the pasta sauces in the book can be frozen so they are perfect for busy weeknights when home cooking seems like an unachievable dream.
You may want to try:
- Chicken Mushroom Pasta Sauce
- Italian Sausage and Pepper Sauce
- Spinach and Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta Sauce
Or flavor your meat with:
- Honey Sesame Marinade
- Orange Mint Marinade
- Cajun Rub
- Cuban Spice Rub or
- Whiskey Barbecue Sauce
We have a few recipes from this cookbook on the site. You may want to try:
 Rich Caramel Sauce |
 Real Mayonnaise |
 Garden Fresh Pesto Sauce |
500 Best Sauces, Salad Dressings, Marinades and More is a real keeper. It is a cookbook you will treasure for years and use over and over and over again.
It’s a definite CookingNook.com 5 Star Choice!
Here is what a recent purchaser said about this cookbook on Amazon.com:
A. Whitehead writes:
Absolutely Superb! Very informative, and impressive, easy to make sauces. They actually utilize ingredients that you have or are easy to get. Very, very good book and comes highly recommended!
Subscribe to the site here (it’s Free!) and never miss a great recipe.
If you like George’s cookbooks, have a look at his previous offerings. They all have yummy recipes that are easy to make.
