Book Review: Mad Hungry - Feeding Men & Boys

the Meat-Eater's birthday was last saturday but as of last thursday, i still didnt have any presents for him.  I tried, in vain, to get him some cool shoes but the store had closed at 645.  645!  who closes at such a random & early time???

anyway, after meeting a friend for drinks, i decided to stop at the bookstore and pick him up some books on writing - a favorite past time of his...  not the greatest present but it was something and at that point, anything was better than what i had, so...

so i mentioned drinks, right?  i know that in the rest of the country you have to worry about drinking and driving, but here in NYC, drinking & shopping is way more dangerous (cause, you know, we walk everywhere and stores?  they are everywhere and most of them are open late.  save for that stupid shoe store...)

so anyway, you are getting the picture here.  drunk girl, desperate for birthday present (and lets be honest, a bathroom at that point).   So first i headed off towards the bathrooms so that i could shop in comfort.  on my way, i happen to pass by the cook book table...  uh oh.  mental note to stop back here because, i mean, we only have like 42154 cookbooks - we TOTALLY need another one, right? 

so along with a gift card & a book on writing, i walk out with Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys by Lucinda Scala Quinn.

When i woke up sober, i wondered if this was really an appropriate birthday present for the M-E, as it was really written for moms & wives of cavemen, but i figured what the heck, it was one more thing for him to open on his b-day and i was going to keep it either way cause the recipes looked good...

Turns out it was a GREAT birthday present!  He spent some time yesterday flipping through it looking for something that would meld with my pescatarian ways and in the end, we decided on Teriyaki Salmon & Rice Pilaf.  We added some roasted asparagus to the mix (admittedly, i over-roasted) and had one of the most 'adult' meals we've had in a long time and the whole thing, start to finish, couldnt have taken more than an hour... 

One of the great things about the book is that not only does she provide pretty easy recipes but also makes suggestions for using the leftovers...  which caused us to make a VERY large amount of that rice pilaf so that we could take her up on some of those leftover suggestions...  like, 2 quarts worth of leftovers.  oops.

We've got at least 3 more recipies on our near-future radar and i believe that last nights meal will become part of the regular rotation.

Pictures & Recipes for the Salmon & the Rice Pilaf to follow.  eventually.