After missing the opportunity to download, I purchased this book, it's a great collection of recipes I'm glad to hear in my collection

30-Minute Cookbooks for Beginners was a great resource!! I enjoyed the quick recipes and easy to follow instructions. Being someone who is attempting to learn to cook, I value any book that can help me learn, and makes sense at the same time!

Thank you for the advanced review copy of this book.

30-MINUTE COOKBOOK FOR BEGINNERS by Colleen Kennedy contains "100+ Recipes for the Time-Pressed Cook." Ideal for beginners, with sections on how to prep your 30-minute kitchen, creating a grocery shopping list, food storage, and measurement conversions. This cookbook's time saving techniques might also appeal to more experienced cooks and I am looking forward to trying easy recipes like Mini Ham and Cheese Breakfast Puffs or the no bake Chocolate Oatmeal Energy Bites. Sounds good, right? Sadly, there are not many pictures and while recipes are labeled (e.g., gluten-free and/or vegetarian), more detailed nutritional information is also lacking.

Almost everyone is in a hurry these days, and the idea of 30 minute meals is very appealing. Colleen Kennedy has her own ideas on getting out of the kitchen in 30 minutes, and explains it in her excellent cookbook, 30-Minute Cookbook for Beginners: 100+ Recipes for the Time-Pressed Cook. Not only does the book contain family-friendly quick recipes, but also a chapter on setting up and organizing your kitchen to make the best use of the time you have allotted to fix dinner. While this is a cookbook that is supposed to be for beginners, it has recipes that will appeal to everyone. Experienced cooks will appreciate the ease of putting the recipes together – they are mostly no-brainers - and beginning cooks will appreciate the ease of putting out dishes that don’t challenge them. Being able to complete good dishes with ease eliminates the stress of “what am I going to make for dinner?,” and “do I have time?”

The recipes mostly call for minimal ingredients, and the steps to make them are easy-to-follow and concise. There is a good variety to please even picky eaters, and a mix of influences from all different cultures, making it nice. One of the best recipes is for Shrimp Nachos, which everyone in my house loved. Kennedy also adds bacon to her guacamole, which is delicious. There are soups and salads, and extremely good vegetables – the Zucchini Cakes and Brussels Sprouts and Walnuts are scrumptious – as well as mouthwatering chicken, seafood, beef, and pork dishes. Unfortunately, there aren’t many photographs

This cookbook would make a nice gift for a young newlywed, or anyone who is just starting to cook.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

Thank you to Netgalley for giving me the chance to read and review, "30-Minute Cookbook for Beginners" by Colleen Kennedy. A perfect cookbook for beginners! I love the idea of making meals that only take 30 minutes. It is nice to put the effort in to cook but not waste hours of the night, slaving over a stove! The cookbook was easy to understand.

Perfect book for beginning cooks a cookbook I will be gifting.This book is so well organized your taken step by step through all you need to learn to cook.Delicious recipes gorgeous photos a really excellent guide.# netgalley #callestomedia

I was attracted to this cookbook by the "30 minute" aspect--I like quick and easy recipes, though I've been cooking for over 50 years and am not a beginner. So, I had to put myself in a beginner's shoes when reviewing this book. The first 40 or so pages are a primer to learning how to cook. They include advice on stocking the pantry, food storage, necessary equipment, food safety, and various cooking methods/terms. I thought it was comprehensive without being overwhelming. Each recipe is easy to follow, and many also contain suggestions for leftovers and tips on ingredient substitutions. There are also notations as to whether vegetarian, gluten-free, or other handy categories. I found many interesting recipes that I'd love to try, including Grilled Peach and Ricotta Flatbread, Parmesan Baked Zucchini and Tomatoes, or Veggie Burritos (uses mushrooms!) The only thing I didn't like about the book is the lack of photographs. The visual appeal of food is a huge part of whether someone wants to make it or not. So much white space--this could be filled with photos.

I have always hated cooking, as it seems like so much work and I never know how to do things that are in the recipe or what items are needed until I am mid-recipe. The author of this book not only provided easy to make recipes, but provided the much needed essential background information that all cooks should know. I highly recommend this to other hesitant cooks out there!

30-Minute Cookbook for Beginners by Colleen Kennedy is an excellent cookbook for novice cooks. Kennedy's cookbook starts off with how to prepare your kitchen so you can cook meals in 30 minutes. She also shares tips on how to save time during meal preparation.

What I loved most is how she created easy and varied recipes. Some easy cookbooks stick to very basic recipes, which are good, while some could say boring. You will find no boring recipes in the 30-Minute Cookbook for Beginners.

Some of the recipes you'll find include:

Yogurt Pancakes
Breakfast Burritos
Sweet and Spicy Nuts
Drop Biscuits
Caesar Salad
White Bean and Bacon Soup
Homemade Veggie Burgers
Parmesan Baked Zucchini and Tomatoes
Halibut in Thai Curry Sauce
Sticky Chicken Meatballs
Bacon Fried Rice
Quick Chili
Grilled Peaches
Caramel Apple Dip
Chocolate Chip Mug Cookie

Recommend.

Book review written after downloading a galley from NetGalley

Although I am not a novice in the kitchen I am always looking for new quick and easy meal ideas. I really liked this cookbook, and would recommend it to both beginners and busy families. The first two chapters offered concise and solid basics on meal planning and shopping, kitchen tools and basics, and helpful hints. Very often when looking through cookbooks I find a few recipes I think sound good and that my kids would eat, but not enough to justify a purchase. This book however was full of family friendly recipes that sound delicious. I would definitely purchase this book, and can't wait to try out these meals!

*** I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review ***

I enjoyed going through this cookbook and found quite a few recipes that I’d like to make myself. The recipes themselves didn’t have overwhelming ingredients lists for this beginner, something many other cookbooks do tend to have. The instructions were easy and straight forward to understand.

I did wish there were some more good pictures and I have some nitpicking about the gluten free notes, but otherwise this is a solid cookbook for the beginner looking for fast meals to make.

An excellent, if short, cookbook for beginners. The opening chapters are outstanding, covering organizing, shopping, equipment, and techniques. The recipes are easy and the instructions are very detailed, given step-by-step.

This approach is great for teaching how to cook.

At the top of each recipe is informarion, letting you know if the recipe needs only one-pot, is vegetarian or vegan, or gluten-free.

It would be a grat first cookbook for anyone starting out.

30-Minute Cookbook for Beginners is a tutorial guide and recipe collection for streamlined food-prep using simplified ingredients. Due out 17th March 2020 from Callisto on their Rockridge Press imprint, it's 176 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats (ebook available now). It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers this book is currently included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free.

The book has a logical and easy to follow format. Chapters 1-2 cover the background meal planning and ingredient buying for a weekly menu (including a pantry staples lists and tools and supplies) as well as a very general beginner-accessible discussion of the time-saving and streamlining techniques. The author also includes some logical pointers about containers, ingredients, and supplies. The recipe chapters are arranged thematically: breakfasts, snacks and sides, sandwiches salads and bowls, meatless mains, seafood, poultry, pork and beef, and desserts (in 15 minutes or less). There is no included nutritional information, although special dietary information is included (gluten-free, nut-free, dairy, etc).

The recipe chapters include a surprisingly varied selection of different world cuisines: Italian, American, Asian, and more.

The recipes have their ingredients listed bullet style in a sidebar. Measurements are given in US standard only. Special tools and ingredients are also listed, along with yields and cooking directions. Most of the ingredients are easily sourced at any moderately well stocked grocery store. The book also includes a short author bio, and a metric conversion chart, but lacks any index or general ingredients index.

My one small quibble with the book is that the recipes are mostly not photographed. There are some photos, and they're clear and attractive, but they only represent about 5% of the recipes included in the book.

Four stars. This would be a nice selection for a young person living on their own for the first time, or anyone who has the desire to learn to prepare tasty food simply. This would be a nice skill-building cookbook for a young kid with adult supervision.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.