America's Test Kitchen Bowls: Vibrant Recipes with Endless Possibilities

Great recipe ideas in this book. Has given me inspiration to experiment with new combinations of foods. Helpful photos to provide ideas. Would recommend.

I have used the book as inspiration for lunch and dinner boxes and the recipes are very easy and with a lot of substitutes

Lets just get the bad thing out of the way first: all units in the book are US units only. I was a bit disappointed when I saw this as I expected a big outlet such as ATC to do better. Oh, but at the end of the book I found conversion tables. And realized they converted food volumes to milliliters. So someone realized that cups and spoons are volume and not weight measurements, and simply converted to equally useless ml. Hmm.. so I guess I'll have to decide on using either 1/3 cup chopped parsley, or I simply use 79ml instead. Yeah.That aside, the book looks very interesting as an inspiration. Calorie amounts are given, and at the back there's a bit table with all nutritional information. I'll find out at some point how well this lines up with my own count. Most recipes are in the 400-500kcal range, but can easily extended to bigger portions of course. So from the food point of view this seems a very yummy and useful book for me. I'll keep it, but the units do annoy me.

This book will have your mouth water. The recipies look good and taste good. I bought 3 books of America's test kitchen and they know what they're doing. I'm trying to eat more vegetarian and this book is a great introduction on how to make veggies more attractive and also on how to use a wide variety of grains/pastas etc. The book is well built including different chapters : salads, noodles, rice and grains, soups, etc. and a section at the end on how to pickle veggies, how to build your own bowl (I think?), how to make the sauces and such like informations. Very clearly written.*Info : Eating bowls doesn't make cooking much simpler (you'll see your fridge is going to be packed with a variety of jars (sauces, cut veggies, pickled veggies, etc.). There's a lot of separate ingredients to cut and prepare. The advantage is, once that's all prepared, you can thrown a bowl together rather quickly and if you keep a good stash, you can vary it daily.Anyway, I recommand!

First of all, I am a married, working mother of two (almost 6yo and 7y5mo) that decided to stay home for in-person schooling. To help make this financially work out, I decided to be the person who does the majority of meal planning, shopping, cooking and packing up of lunches and meals-on-the-go to eliminate eating out. This cookbook has been a huge game-changer and lifesaver! I mean, I feel like a pony in a five horse circus..If you're a person who needs traditional recipes, this book has them. All of the recipes are AH-HA-MAZING! I did not think the results would have been so pleasant based off these recipes; the ingredients "look" plain.If you are a person, like me, who constantly gets odd and ends from people's gardens and are not sure what to do with it all, this book has solutions that work. In the back are separate recipes for grains, vegetables, proteins, dressings, etc. Simply pick a recipe for what you have, throw together in a bowl, and watch something delicious happen. Really!Each dish has been really healthy too. All food groups usually are represented on each plate. Nothing is deep fried. Nothing requires special equipment like an air fryer. However, you could easily use those things too if you have them. Meat is not the center star of these meals, however; the dishes center around mostly whole grains and vegetables with a protein added. Almost all recipes can be made gluten, dairy and/or meat free. They usually have something raw in them too. You can make them as basic or as complicated as you want. Many recipes offer in-can or bottle suggestions if you're that exhausted, like balsamic dressing, but also offers the made from scratch in a hurry version as well. I highly recommend taking the steps to make any of the quick pickles (especially with red onions, carrots and/or cucumbers) and doubling the recipe and keeping them in the solution in the fridge for future uses. We actually pick at them now for snacks and put them in morning eggs, they're so good.As for the kiddos, they're just not gonna eat anything spicy, fermented or pickled. So what I do is keep a serving each of protein, grain, veges and carbs set aside with a bottle of ranch dressing and use what's leftover as directed. Everyone's happy and I'm not making two different dinners.Now, if you are in a similar economic "bowl" as I am, I look through my freezer, pantry and refrigerator for what I currently own and I will go through all my cookbooks and pick out recipes that have similar ingredients. That way, I am only shopping for the missing ingredients and saving a ton of money. Because of the versatility of this book, I can usually find a recipe that will use up any leftover ingredients. (I've also been saving these grocery and recipe lists for future use and to streamline the time spent on this lol.) This book is unique for that too and saves me time. Plus, I can now spend one afternoon prepping all the ingredients so that way I'm only literally spending 15-30 minutes max cooking per night with minimal clean-up. I can usually have everything cooked, and cleaned by the time it all is ready to eat!To keep me motivated to stay cooking, I like to look through the back of the book for an ingredient that I have no idea what it is, order it and use it. Red miso and gouchujang is a staple now. Where have they been my whole life??!Since the recipes are so big and easily doubled/tripled if needed, packing up for grab-and-go meals is a snap. In fact, my husband's lunches are so beautiful and delicious, co-workers have been asking for recipes and have been offering me their pantry and garden extras if I would pack up a lunch for them! Unbelievable! If they only knew that I love hotdogs and tuna noodle casserole too...