If you’re into fun snacky dinners, you’ll want to pick up Girl Dinner: 85 Snack Plates and No-Cook Meals. The authors have taken a unique take on making fun, tasteful dinners in small amounts of time and with ingredients picked up at the store or ones that are around the house. There are dozens of ideas for putting together good meals without needing to cook or do anything fussy. Some of the menus do require cooking, such as making homemade fries (that’s what an air fryer is for), and once anyone reads the menus, the possibilities seem endless.

Most of the ideas don’t really require a recipe, but the ones that do are straightforward and succinct, with ingredients listed first, followed by step-by-step instructions. However, most readers won’t need much in the way of instruction, since most of the meals are no-brainers. That is not to say they are unexciting or boring – rather they are fun and most readers will want to make something from this book often.
One thing that makes a good cookbook is good, professional photographs. This cookbook has plenty, and they make it hard to decide just what to make next. Many of us have too much to do and don’t want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen; this makes it possible to get more done at home and still eat.
All told, these fun snack-type meals will make it seem like you’re attending a fun party and grazing a buffet table. Fun! Fun! Fun!

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

As a girly who barely remembers to feed herself and loves a little pull together meal, this book is everything for me. Also, this book is so cute and fun and definitely for the girls. There’s not just recipes but advice for different dining situations and the photos were so sticking aesthetically pleasing. Everything was so instagrammable, it was definitely made to be showcased on social media. I won’t say that this was the most detailed or revolutionary cookbook out there but this would be such a cute gift to a friend that doesn’t cook much or if you have like a teenage daughter or niece. It’s not meant for the avid chef, but I think they definitely knew that whilst writing the cookbook. I loved it and my favorite recipe was ‘All I Care About Is Pasta and Like Three People’

Not sure how this constitutes a cookbook, when it is not really recipes but photos and assembling things.

Book Name: Girl Dinner
Author: Jamison Diaz-Imlah

ARC
Thank you to [**Cider Mill Press](https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/publisher/94605) and Netgalley** for an ARC

Stars: 5

- Thoughts.
- Love the Ideas
- Easy to use
- The intersection of Girl Dinner and toddler friendly appeals to my life
- Overall Great Reads
Great Ideas

This is hands down the silliest book I’ve read…I mean some of it is just put frozen food on a plate in a pretty way. Lol, clearly I’m not the target but actually not sure who is- teenagers maybe but even so..

I did not like this at all. I don’t feel this was a recipe book needed or maybe it is I just wish it was done better

This is really not what I expected. Some of those recipes that is in the book have things that are impossible to find here in my area. The recipes look meh .

It’s just not for me.

I love the concept of this book. I love eating girl dinners with my daughter and other groups of friends. However, this book is not what I expected. I wanted more recipe ideas, not inspiration ideas.

Pictures were stunning and most of the recipes sounded amazing. I would definitely try a lot of what was in this book. Recommend for sure.

'Girl Dinner' from TikTok - didn't know it was a thing.
Lots of lovely images to match each recipe/instructions More of a snacky type book rather than dinners as such.

Thanks to #GirlDinner #NetGalley and #CiderMillPress

I received a copy of this eBook from netGalley for a honest review.

Girl dinner is a quick, no fess way of cooking plates of food to snack on or get a meal in without too much work. I would love to own this book to get the basics but also feel free to expand my girl dinner options. The photos are great and the recipes are easy to recreate.

This is a great concept and a beautifully presented book. The photograpy is lovely!
I also very much enjoyed the fun names for the recipes.
Although I love to cook, I still enjoy a "girl dinner" from time to time and this book will keep those nights (or lunches, or brunches) fresh and interesting for a long time to come.
Some of the recipes that caught my eye were:

Holey Art Thou
Take Out Takeover
Broke Madame
Sometimes You Get The Bear

My only reservation around this book is that some of the short cuts for example store bought beef birra or salsa roja may not be readily available to all readers. Having said that, I think there is enough variety within Girl Dinner that if some ingredients can't be found, there are still plenty of recipes that have items that are readily available, or could be made when one was feeling like exerting a bit more effort.

I will write a more detailed review of my cooking from the book shortly and post here and on my social media. (I'll add a link when done).

Thank you for the opportunity to read this! I am really looking forward to the cooking!

Girl Dinner by Jamison and Alejandra Diaz-Imlah includes creative recipes to follow the 'Girl Dinner' Tik-Tok trend. With simple or themed ideas, this cookbook provides varied recipes to be on trend and keep things easy.

'Girl Dinner' is definitely titled after the social media trend, but, unfortunately, it doesn't adhere to the idea of delicious simplicity which is synonymous with the popular term. It's off-putting to have boxed or premade frozen materials serve as the core part of a dish, especially the 'nostalgia, refined' recipe which is literally a box of mac and cheese served in an alcoholic beverage glass. It's important to treat your readers as if they are intelligent and be encouraging and, in this case, I really don't feel like that's the case at all.

As a no to little cook plate inspiration/girl dinner book, this is good enough.
Had this been better organised, designed, presented and included 30% more fresh and unique inspiration, it would have been great.

My immediate thought was that I completely misunderstood the blurb. What I think of as “casual cooking” and “low maintenance meals” is nothing like what is offered here, and to be honest, I don’t think this even classifies as a cookbook. One of the “recipes” tells you to make boxed mac and cheese and place it into a glass (think martini glass)…but why? Many of the ideas in this book can easily be found on Pinterest or Google.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a book I would recommend to anyone, but thank you to NetGalley and Cider Mill Press for providing me with an ARC.

These are not really recipes but more lists of foods to assemble on a plate to act as a meal. Not sure a book of this was really needed but the photos are nice.

I found the recipes to be quick, simple, and cheap. Meals were perfect for one or could be upsized for a group. I liked how simple items like frozen waffles could be dressed up to make an epic meal. Perfect for someone who needs a quick meal.

I love the idea of this book.
I love how it's layout. I love how simple the instructions are and how easily it flows.

I do feel it missed the mark labelling itself as girl dinners...has anyone got that repetitive tiktok tune playing in their head?

The trend was ridiculously simple, non complex meals with very little presentation to them.

Think a cup of gravy and some yorkshire puddings, a pot of noodles with extra soy sauce added etc etc whereas a lot of these while simple did look to be trying to be more complex.

Interesting but for me it misses the mark a little bit.

Girl Dinner is a cookbook of no-cook recipes - which, apparently, is a massive social media trend that I had no idea about since I live under a social media rock...
The concept was great - we all find ourselves with little to no time to cook sometimes - and I really like how the authors elevated the no-cook meals with plating tips (I'm not completely sold on serving mac and cheese in a wine glass as a plating tip, but that's just me), demonstrated with beautiful photographs.
I probably wouldn't have this on my cookbook shelf and that's entirely because of my own preferences - as I read through the recipes, I couldn't picture myself being satisfied by most of them. I suppose I just have a different approach to managing time when it comes to cooking and would have enjoyed more a cookbook of super quick, cooked recipes; but that's on me for not thinking about this when I picked up the book.
I also thought that some of the snack ingredients were fairly niche and not necessarily easy to find, which sort of defeats the purpose of the concept of girl dinner.
I'm sure there's people who would enjoy this more than I did - students, for example, or people who order takeaway most of the time. It would be a great way to get started making meals for yourself.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.