Current Cookbook - A Man, A Can, A Plan

A MAN, A CAN, A PLAN - 50 Great Guy Meals Even You Can Make! by David Joachim and the Editors of Mens Health

This cookbook has a copyright of 2002. I received this as a Christmas present. I have never cooked from this before.

I can see certain folks out there now. A cookbook using canned foods? How very Aunt Sandy. Wouldn't touch it. It should be burned. It's evil. Etc. Etc. Etc.

But bear with me a moment. Not everyone has to start out cooking like Alice Waters. The goal may be to get to a point where fresh ingredients, not processed foods, are the mainstay of your cooking repertoire. But some folks may need to start out on a smaller scale. Or maybe you rent a room and you have a refrigerator the size of a shoebox and one hot plate to concoct your meals. Yes, you could go to the store every day to buy fresh fruits, vegetables, and meat but maybe that's not always possible. And if you've ever seen some of the bags of foods given to the needy, you honestly don't find a lot of fresh peas, packages of fresh ahi tuna or enough vegetables and chicken to make your own stock.

Basically what I'm saying is that if this book gets someone into the kitchen to experiment or allows someone who maybe doesn't have access to fresh ingredients (and honestly folks, there are more people out there than you think) to be able to get a meal on the table so be it. I don't judge.

But don't think that this book is just all canned goods. The recipes do require things like fresh vegetables and meats, fresh tortillas, refrigerated pizza dough, eggs and milk.

This is a "board book" (anyone who has kids who read will understand what that means). Though there aren't any chapters, the pages are color coded and named for the basic canned ingredient featured (ham, chicken, fish, chili, beans, SpaghettiOs, Veggies, fruit and beer). There are one or two recipes to each page, all with a photo of the final dish. Each recipe shows photos of the featured ingredient (i.e. the Pig in a Pinwheel has a photo of the can of lean ham, the box of cream cheese and the cans of crescent-roll dough) with any other ingredients listed next to the final dish photo. There are directions for each recipe along with a list of calories, sodium, fat etc. Every now and then you will find a brief blurb about an ingredient such as blueberries are good for you or the nutritional value of SpaghettiO's (who knew it's a good source of lycopene which may help reduce prostate-cancer??).

Some of the recipes aren't too far off from things I've had. Such as Beans-on-Fritos Pie where the only basic difference is that I used fresh tomatoes instead of canned. Or Beer Clams on the Barbie which is just canned beer, bottled barbecue sauce, some lemon juice and the clams. A lot of the recipes actually ask for low cal or "healthier" versions of things (lean ham, reduced-fat shredded cheddar cheese, low sodium canned corn).

There were only a couple of recipes that didn't require an "extra" ingredient that didn't have to be refrigerated (like cheese, a frozen vegetable, eggs,) so I can't recommend this as a good alternative cookbook to have on hand in case the power goes out. A few recipes sound intriguing, but I'd probably go and look for recipes that require more fresh ingredients. And then there are some recipes that I admit, I probably would never try unless I was really really hungry and all I had were a few canned foods. SpaghettiO Stir Fry with canned SpaghettiO's, extra lean ground beef and frozen broccoli? Not gonna happen anytime soon.

Comments

I started off using processed foods and just doctoring them up, which led to me learning to cook for real. So like you, I don't judge. Except for the SpaghettiO Stir Fry....I'll judge the **** out of that. :)

Posted by: Chris | November 27, 2010 at 11:21 AM