Meet Me in My Cape Cod Kitchen by Linda Maria Steele

My rating: 3 of 5 spoons

ggg

I love New England, and I absolutely adore seafood. I couldn’t wait to get into this cookbook. You’d think I’d dive right into a great seafood dish, but that didn’t happen. I received the book a day or two before my oldest daughter’s 16th birthday. She doesn’t care for cake, but she loves cheesecake, so I had given her the option this year of either buying her a classic New York Cheesecake, or we could make one together. She opted for the two of us to make one and this cookbook happened to have a recipe for Fancy New York Cheesecake. It had to stay in the oven longer than the recipe called for, but the results were more than worth it. It was amazing!! She’s already asked that we make it again next year for her birthday. Actually, I think it was more along the lines of every year until she leaves home!

So, surely the seafood came next! Nope. Though it was calling my name, it was time for holiday baking. With multiple neighbors to make plates of baked goods for, we had to get hopping. While browsing this book, I ran across the Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies. Ahhh! Hazelnuts are my favorite nut…well, they probably tie with pistachios. I knew I had to try them. These little gems are keepers!! Everyone who tried them loved them. It’s just going to make it that much harder on me that hazelnuts are only available around the holidays here. Sigh!

We also made the Dr. T’s Date & Bacon Appetizer, though we stuffed some of them with a whole almond, and some with a small stick of Asiago cheese. They are so delicious!

Okay, I’m going to make some seafood!! I decided to go with a classic…clam chowder. Unfortunately, things started to go downhill here. If you are a novice cook or have never made clam chowder before, I do NOT recommend you starting with this recipe! I don’t know if she was assuming people had made it before and so everything didn’t have to be listed or stated, but ingredients and steps in the recipe were just completely missing!! I had to posit from common sense and past experience to get a decent pot out of this. It didn’t end there. The more I looked through the book, the more issues I found. The picture for the Seafood Fettuccini (which is also one of the photos on the front cover) doesn’t match the recipe. It looks like the fish is coated with something, but there is nothing in the recipe about coating the fish. In fact, the directions for cooking the fish itself are fairly vague. It also shows chopped tomatoes in the photo, but they are nowhere in the recipe or ingredient list.

While this cookbook was not exactly everything I had hoped for, it is still a pretty good cookbook. It’s worth it for the cheesecake and Hazelnut Shortbread Cookie recipes!!

I received a copy of this book from Schiffer Publishing for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.