Reviews of AG cookbooks-esp. Kirsten's

[Savannahsmom]

I'm very interested in getting some of these as my daughter and I love to cook. Does anyone have these especially Kirsten & Samantha's. I have a great-great grandmother from Sweden so I'm very interested in Kirstens. I have a recipe of my grandma's that is for Swedish cinnamon rolls that are really good so some more recipes that are Swedish would be fun. Any help would be appreciated. You all have so much info to share, I love reading everyone's comments.

[Skittl1321]

I have the original cookbook (molly, samantha, kirsten) altogether.

The meals are a lot of fun, and the sidebar information is great. I used to take the book down to read as if it were a regular book. I never made any of Samantha's meal (each girl had 1 meal, hers was a multicourse dinner) it was way to fancy, but it was incredible to imagine and the information it presented was great.

Molly had lunch- I make a variation of her vegetable soup all the time.

Kirsten is breakfast. I made her eggs, rice porridge, ginger cookies and rye bread. The bread was the best. I felt very accomplished as a kid making bread from scratch.

I would love to have the seperate cookbooks.

There are lots of reviews on each cookbook on amazon.com The main downside is the meals are not very nutritionally balanced- but they are very accurate for the time, and nutrition needs were different. (Kirsten would have needed a mucher higher calorie breakfast then we do, and Samantha likely would have ate until her hearts content at a fancy meal)

But the original cookbooks is fantastic, and I imagine the others to be even better, since they are even more expanded.

It even came with a plastic page protector to use while cooking- mine has long been lost though.

[mayergirl]

I have Kirsten's and I absolutely recommend it. Unless, like me, you're a vegetarian. Then it doesn't have a whole lot to offer. I used to cook for my parents out of it all the time. It's not hard to make healthy substitutions [img]smile.gif[/img] It's tons of fun [img]smile.gif[/img]

[TaffyCheerful]

I have Kirsten's cookbook and can enthusiastically recommend the recipe for Swedish pancakes. I have found at least one place for lingonberry jam on the web and the resulting dish is better than the Swedish pancakes at IHOP...

Taffy

[Lissiefan]

We have all of the cookbooks, craftbooks, and plays. Kirstens is very good (although I personally think saffron is an expensive spice that tastes like powdered aluminum [img]graemlins/gulp.gif[/img] ). Felicity's and Josefina's are my favorites. Queen's cakes are AMAZING. [img]tongue.gif[/img] Bizcochitos and green chile stew are too! Each cookbook has at least one stellar recipe! Great for teaching kids to cook too! [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

[QNPoohBear]

Originally posted by Taffy Cheerful:
the Swedish pancakes at IHOP...

Taffy

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">[img]graemlins/gulp.gif[/img]
I concur! Kirsten's Swedish pancakes are the best! I always add more cinnamon though because I don't think the recipe calls for enough. They are also a lot better than Ikea's Swedisn pancake/waffle mix.

I LOVE Kirsten's cookbook and every year I make St. Lucia buns and rice pudding for Christmas morning breakfast. I've also made Pepperkakkor (ginger cookies). I love all the historical information included too. I have the original cookbook with the three girls, Kirsten's single cookbook, Felicity's cookbook, Addy's cookbook and Samantha's Friendship Fun. They are all great!

I have Felicity's cookbook up for sale if anyone wants it. PM me!

[mayergirl]

Originally posted by Lissiefan:
(although I personally think saffron is an expensive spice that tastes like powdered aluminum [img]graemlins/gulp.gif[/img] )

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">[img]rolleyes.gif[/img] no way!!! I [img]graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/heart.gif[/img] saffron! maybe you just haven't had it in its all time best dish: persian rice.

[judiaci]

Originally posted by Lissiefan:
[QB]We have all of the cookbooks, craftbooks, and plays. Kirstens is very good (although I personally think saffron is an expensive spice that tastes like powdered aluminum [img]graemlins/gulp.gif[/img] ).

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Do you just leave out the saffron in the St. Lucia buns or do you substitute something else for it? The St. Lucia bun, the Swedish Pancakes and the Swedish Meatballs are recipes that I would like to try.

[Lissiefan]

We've left it out after the first time. To us it was a big improvement. I bought these cookbooks for the AG history classes I taught last year. Each week we cooked something out of them...sometimes 2 things. The girls all liked playing with the dough for the saffron buns, but I only had 1 girl out of the 15 that liked them. I LOVE the bright yellow color. Maybe the saffron strands I got were stale or something. At $13.50 for just enough to make one batch of buns, I wasn't about to get more just to find out! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[jenndon]

Thanks for starting this thread. I often see a lot of the pasttimes books going for pretty cheap, and often wondered what they were like.

Skittl--I still take down many of my cookbooks and read them like a book, so these sound right up my alley!