What Can I Bring? Cookbook (Cake Mix Doctor)

By Anne Byrn

Book Overview

Potlucks and picnics, dinner parties and church socials, fundraisers, toasts to the teacher, reunions, cookouts--it's the busy age of shared meals, which means with every invitation comes the question: " What can I bring?" Anne Byrn, an inspired cook, problem solver, and bestselling author of The Cake Mix Doctor cookbook and other books with over 2.6 million copies in print, knows exactly how to answer the question. Cutting through menu block--a condition familiar to everyone who cooks--here are over 200 delicious suggestions for crowd-pleasing food that's designed to travel. There are finger foods, canapes, and "trios"--Trio of Marinated Goat Cheese, Asian Summer Rolls with a Trio of Sauces, Trio of Pastry-Wrapped Camemberts. 25 surprising salads: White Corn Salad with Fresh Thyme, Asparagus and Grilled Peppers with Asian Soy Dressing. Main dishes for a party, from Southern-Style Pulled Pork to Creamy White Bean and Spinach Lasagne. Desserts (of course, 25 of them), and a full chapter of loaves and other gifts from the kitchen, including Chocolate Sour Cherry Bread and Sun-Cooked Peach Preserves. Each recipe comes with Tote Notes (how best to transport the dish), Big Batch (how to multiply the dish), and When You Arrive (how to put the finishing touches on the dish). Plus there are "Grab & Gos"--super-quick recipes--for each section, etiquette tips for working in someone else's kitchen, and a "Notes" area for each recipe, to jot down tips and log in when you made the dish and for what occasion, so you don't repeat yourself.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0761143920
• ISBN13: 9780761143925
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: Workman Publishing
• Length: 506 Pages
• Weight: 1.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.9" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

What Can I Bring?Cookbook

This is a book I wish I'd had when my kids were young. So many times I could have used this. But now my husband belongs to clubs which from time to time we have a potluck and this is very, very, helpful. Since we live in an age of color and pictures, I wish they had included pictures of the finished product and that way you'd know if yours was too soupy or too dry or whatever. Very helpful though and the receipes are very good.

Get this one, you won't regret it!

Anne Byrn does it again! She makes entertaining less stressful and very enjoyable. I have already tried a bunch of the appetizers as well as main courses and friends and family requested the recipes. It's so easy to double up and/or do ahead with her tips and how-tos. And she even includes suggestions on what container to tote it in and to serve it in. Great cookbook!

Must Have

This is a marvelous resource for young marrieds and oldtimers too. Everyone is called upon to "bring a dish" for one occasion or the other, and this cookbook is a real winner for variety and information. The ingredients are things most of us have on hand or are readily available at regular grocery stores, not speciality markets. This is one book that you need in YOUR kitchen and in your gift cubby for friends.

Now we know what to bring!

I'm a big fan of Anne Byrn's The Cake Mix Doctor cookbook, a dog-earred favorite that stays in my kitchen, not on the coffee table. Her recipes continually bail me out when I'm frantically running around in need of a birthday cake, a treat for school, or a fancy dessert. In fact, I've recommended it to plenty of food snobs who are all now cake mix converts. It's no surprise that I love her What Can I Bring? Cookbook. And who hasn't had a panic attack when uttering those very words? This book is like looking through your best friend's recipe box--a nice combination of nostalgic favorites and new cool easy recipes. There is plenty of advice for toting food around and I especially like the space to jot notes and make the book truly my own. Anne Byrn's books have a nice tone to them. She sounds like she gets it, like she's living a busy life and having some fun along the way. Her books are good friends in my kitchen.

Now I'm prepared for any type of potluck, without the worry!

I'm a good cook and baker, but every time I have to bring something to a get-together, I end up obsessing over what to bring. I fall back on the same old things so much that I get bored, even though people seem to enjoy what I bring. Recently, I have been asked to bring food for various organizations/activities--probably at least once a month. This book, which is under $20.00, is well worth the price. It has more than 200 recipes, and there is a very good variety of recipes, including vegetarian ones or ones that could be easily made vegetarian/vegan. That's important to me because I have a vegetarian daughter. It is great that the author provides information on how to increase the amount of servings if practical, and provides a time-line of how long to expect to take to make the dish. Her notes on "how to tote" the dishes are helpful, since getting the dish there intact is important. There are some recipes at the end of the book for gift-giving and they will be wonderful for Christmas gifts. I like that the author did all my trial-and-error work for me--testing what goes over well at a pot-luck, is fairly simply to make, and travels well. I want to buy more of her books after purchasing this one, because her recipes are "real life, without too many exotic ingredients, and food that people would actually eat.