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In Mary's Kitchen: Stress-Free Recipes for Every Home Cook
The kitchen is Mary's happy place, where worries melt away, a busy mind calms, and time seems to slow down. But she knows that for many people, the exact opposite is true! However you feel about mealtimes, Mary is here to help, with uncomplicated but delicious recipes, packed with tips and tricks, to produce flavorful results—every time.
It's What You Need: With chapters broken down into their main ingredient to facilitate easy searching, you'll love Mary's ideas for breakfast, veg & starch, pasta, fish, chicken, beef, pork & lamb, and, of course, sweets.
Make It Easy! It's not just the name of her award-winning TV program, it's her culinary ethos. Mary's recipes look easy because they are easy, and the ones in this book are her most straightforward yet!
Find the "Why": With notes in the margin of each recipe giving you the reason behind a certain ingredient or technique, you'll learn tips that act as building blocks for all your culinary endeavors. And with call-outs that point to recipes where you can get ahead, build fast flavor, or get more bang for your buck, home cooks of all skill levels will find something to entice.
With every recipe Mary writes, her goal is to show you that cooking for yourself, your friends, and your family doesn't have to be boring, difficult, or stressful. No matter the time of day, or day of the week, with In Mary's Kitchen, you'll find everything you need to make the kitchen your happy place too.
It's What You Need: With chapters broken down into their main ingredient to facilitate easy searching, you'll love Mary's ideas for breakfast, veg & starch, pasta, fish, chicken, beef, pork & lamb, and, of course, sweets.
Make It Easy! It's not just the name of her award-winning TV program, it's her culinary ethos. Mary's recipes look easy because they are easy, and the ones in this book are her most straightforward yet!
Find the "Why": With notes in the margin of each recipe giving you the reason behind a certain ingredient or technique, you'll learn tips that act as building blocks for all your culinary endeavors. And with call-outs that point to recipes where you can get ahead, build fast flavor, or get more bang for your buck, home cooks of all skill levels will find something to entice.
With every recipe Mary writes, her goal is to show you that cooking for yourself, your friends, and your family doesn't have to be boring, difficult, or stressful. No matter the time of day, or day of the week, with In Mary's Kitchen, you'll find everything you need to make the kitchen your happy place too.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 10, 2023
22 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 18, 2023
I love Mary Berg. She's perky and fun, and her recipes are delicious.
This cook book is certainly stress free. It's beautifully printed with full page photos of her completed dishes, dishes that all look easy to cook without too much hassle. Each recipe has a little blurb from Mary, and some have extra notes for ingredients and hints. Recipes are in sections to make them easy to find.
I am definitely making several of these recipes...Roasted Mushrooms with Blue Cheese Rosemary Crumb will be the first for sure. Can't wait to eat!
This cook book is certainly stress free. It's beautifully printed with full page photos of her completed dishes, dishes that all look easy to cook without too much hassle. Each recipe has a little blurb from Mary, and some have extra notes for ingredients and hints. Recipes are in sections to make them easy to find.
I am definitely making several of these recipes...Roasted Mushrooms with Blue Cheese Rosemary Crumb will be the first for sure. Can't wait to eat!
April 29, 2024
Mary Berg is a true gem – in every sense. It’s been close to a decade for me since I started to enjoy the energy, kindness, and skill Berg brings into the kitchen. First, as a competitor (and winner!) of MasterChef Canada, then through her TV programs (Mary’s Kitchen Crush, Mary Makes It Easy, Cross Country Cake-Off, and The Good Stuff), and finally in the pages of her cookbooks. For Berg, food is about connection – nourishing ourselves and the ones we love, she looks to help us discover the simple pleasure of cooking. In her latest cookbook, In Mary’s Kitchen, Berg shares with home cooks “straightforward, cookable recipes that will hopefully make the kitchen [our] happy place too.” I see this book as an extension of her show, Mary Makes It Easy, where home cooks from all across the country asked Berg for help solidifying their skills using simple to prepare recipes.
I appreciate what Berg says in the opening sections of In Mary’s Kitchen: “Life is stressful enough – cooking shouldn’t have to be.” And, in speaking with friends and family, putting a meal on the table at the end of a long day can feel like a feat but with Berg’s approach she makes excellent use of ingredients so that dinner is delicious and nourishing rather than onerous. The recipes are organized into 8 chapters: 1) Eggs & Things, 2) Veg & Starch, 3) Pasta, 4) Fish, 5) Chicken, 6) Beef, Pork & Lamb, 7) Sweets, and 8) Basics. As a vegetarian, cooking for a family of vegetarians, I found so many recipes for us to enjoy! And, since receiving the book, several of the recipes have become part of our weekly meal schedule.
Maybe you’re wondering what my favourite recipe is – the one that I dream about? It would be Berg’s Green Eggs sans Ham! Spinach is cooked in a cast iron skillet, basil pesto is stirred in, then a couple of eggs are put on top. Served with some toasted bread, this is one of the easiest, most delicious breakfasts! I adore cooked greens (after making this recipe many times, I’ve found that kale works too) and the pesto kind of ties it all together. This meal has transcended breakfast to include lunch and after school snacks (Katie will often enjoy an egg after school, and when I make a smaller version of this dish she says it feels “fancy”).
Another recipe that we love (that Katie wrote “fan favourite meal” across the top of the recipe in the book) is Pan-Fried Halloumi with Greens and Romesco. Romesco – a tomato and bell pepper-based sauce from Spain – is a great, no-cook sauce that tastes delicious with everything. For Berg’s version, she uses jarred roasted red peppers as well as oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes as the base. Then garlic, fresh herbs, toasted almonds, smoked paprika, lemon and olive oil are added to round out the sauce. It’s as flavourful as you can imagine, and it pairs really well with seared slices of halloumi (a type of Cypriot cheese) and cooked kale.
One thing I don’t often make are veggie burgers. Is it because good recipes are hard to find or is it that the frozen, pre-made versions feel easier? All I know is that when I do make them, my husband feels extra-loved because I made the effort. Needless to say, when I tried Berg’s recipe for Black Bean Chipotle Veggie Burger, everyone felt loved! Like most veggie burger recipes, this one is multi-step and requires a food processor but it’s not too time consuming. The base of the burgers contains a mixture of pan-fried mushrooms, onion, and garlic, toasted nuts, as well as black beans. I appreciate that these burgers are flavourful and dense because no one enjoys a mushy patty that tastes pasty. This was also a great recipe for us, as it yielded 6 patties – meaning that I had leftovers for the next day! In this case, I don’t mind if a recipe takes a bit more time when it cuts down on meal prep for the next day.
Now that the temperatures have dropped and the sweaters have come out, it definitely feels like soup season! To celebrate the best season (imho), I made a batch of Berg’s Lemony Lentil Soup. The base of the soup is bright, herby, and vegetal with lemon, mint, parsley, chopped carrots, onion, and leafy greens. While we like lentil soups, this recipe contains thinly sliced zucchini which I wondered if it would turn slimy in the broth. I worried for nothing because it cooked up well in the soup and really added to the texture. As suggested, I topped the soup with crumbled feta and a dollop of plain yogurt.
The recipes throughout In Mary’s Kitchen show how thoughtful she is and what an excellent job she’s done to anticipate the needs of home cooks. For instance, we need cinnamon rolls now, but they can take hours to make. This is where Berg’s genius comes in – her recipe for Apple Cinnamon Biscuit Buns gives us a delicious, quick alternative. Here, she’s combined a flaky, fluffy biscuit dough with an apple pecan cinnamon filling to create a truly delicious and easier version of the classic cinnamon roll. Instead of topping ours with the cream cheese frosting, I opted to use a vanilla icing sugar glaze.
As I continue to cook through In Mary’s Kitchen, I appreciate her joyful attitude towards cooking and how her recipes so easily fit into my weekly meal repertoire. Looking at the book sitting on my kitchen counter, I still have so many recipes bookmarked to try! Aren’t the best cookbooks the ones that both entice and nourish us? All of her books fit into this category. As with her other books, Berg invites us into her kitchen so that we can learn tips and recipes that offer stress-free meal prep.
Please note: a version of this review was posted to www.shipshapeeatworthy.com
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Appetite by Random House for providing me with a free, review copy of this book. I did not receive monetary compensation for my review.
I appreciate what Berg says in the opening sections of In Mary’s Kitchen: “Life is stressful enough – cooking shouldn’t have to be.” And, in speaking with friends and family, putting a meal on the table at the end of a long day can feel like a feat but with Berg’s approach she makes excellent use of ingredients so that dinner is delicious and nourishing rather than onerous. The recipes are organized into 8 chapters: 1) Eggs & Things, 2) Veg & Starch, 3) Pasta, 4) Fish, 5) Chicken, 6) Beef, Pork & Lamb, 7) Sweets, and 8) Basics. As a vegetarian, cooking for a family of vegetarians, I found so many recipes for us to enjoy! And, since receiving the book, several of the recipes have become part of our weekly meal schedule.
Maybe you’re wondering what my favourite recipe is – the one that I dream about? It would be Berg’s Green Eggs sans Ham! Spinach is cooked in a cast iron skillet, basil pesto is stirred in, then a couple of eggs are put on top. Served with some toasted bread, this is one of the easiest, most delicious breakfasts! I adore cooked greens (after making this recipe many times, I’ve found that kale works too) and the pesto kind of ties it all together. This meal has transcended breakfast to include lunch and after school snacks (Katie will often enjoy an egg after school, and when I make a smaller version of this dish she says it feels “fancy”).
Another recipe that we love (that Katie wrote “fan favourite meal” across the top of the recipe in the book) is Pan-Fried Halloumi with Greens and Romesco. Romesco – a tomato and bell pepper-based sauce from Spain – is a great, no-cook sauce that tastes delicious with everything. For Berg’s version, she uses jarred roasted red peppers as well as oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes as the base. Then garlic, fresh herbs, toasted almonds, smoked paprika, lemon and olive oil are added to round out the sauce. It’s as flavourful as you can imagine, and it pairs really well with seared slices of halloumi (a type of Cypriot cheese) and cooked kale.
One thing I don’t often make are veggie burgers. Is it because good recipes are hard to find or is it that the frozen, pre-made versions feel easier? All I know is that when I do make them, my husband feels extra-loved because I made the effort. Needless to say, when I tried Berg’s recipe for Black Bean Chipotle Veggie Burger, everyone felt loved! Like most veggie burger recipes, this one is multi-step and requires a food processor but it’s not too time consuming. The base of the burgers contains a mixture of pan-fried mushrooms, onion, and garlic, toasted nuts, as well as black beans. I appreciate that these burgers are flavourful and dense because no one enjoys a mushy patty that tastes pasty. This was also a great recipe for us, as it yielded 6 patties – meaning that I had leftovers for the next day! In this case, I don’t mind if a recipe takes a bit more time when it cuts down on meal prep for the next day.
Now that the temperatures have dropped and the sweaters have come out, it definitely feels like soup season! To celebrate the best season (imho), I made a batch of Berg’s Lemony Lentil Soup. The base of the soup is bright, herby, and vegetal with lemon, mint, parsley, chopped carrots, onion, and leafy greens. While we like lentil soups, this recipe contains thinly sliced zucchini which I wondered if it would turn slimy in the broth. I worried for nothing because it cooked up well in the soup and really added to the texture. As suggested, I topped the soup with crumbled feta and a dollop of plain yogurt.
The recipes throughout In Mary’s Kitchen show how thoughtful she is and what an excellent job she’s done to anticipate the needs of home cooks. For instance, we need cinnamon rolls now, but they can take hours to make. This is where Berg’s genius comes in – her recipe for Apple Cinnamon Biscuit Buns gives us a delicious, quick alternative. Here, she’s combined a flaky, fluffy biscuit dough with an apple pecan cinnamon filling to create a truly delicious and easier version of the classic cinnamon roll. Instead of topping ours with the cream cheese frosting, I opted to use a vanilla icing sugar glaze.
As I continue to cook through In Mary’s Kitchen, I appreciate her joyful attitude towards cooking and how her recipes so easily fit into my weekly meal repertoire. Looking at the book sitting on my kitchen counter, I still have so many recipes bookmarked to try! Aren’t the best cookbooks the ones that both entice and nourish us? All of her books fit into this category. As with her other books, Berg invites us into her kitchen so that we can learn tips and recipes that offer stress-free meal prep.
Please note: a version of this review was posted to www.shipshapeeatworthy.com
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Appetite by Random House for providing me with a free, review copy of this book. I did not receive monetary compensation for my review.
January 27, 2025
I think there's 2 camps of people who will rate this book. Mary simps, who will love it regardless, and then the rest of us. Don't get me wrong I'm not a Mary hater, but as a person who doesn't live and die to cook her cook book is meh at best.
Why meh, because of all the recipes in the book, only 3 seemed like something my family and I would enjoy. I made all 3 of them. 1 was a stand out, the other 2 were good, but my real grip with this book is it's ease of use. The steps aren't always in the order I'd set them up in, the directions are overly verbose it places, as someone who's neurodiverse it was hard for me to follow along at times. Also one of the recipes just skipped a whole step (toasting the pine nuts). Basically I needed more steps and for each of them to be concise.
Honestly, my biggest gripes with this book are 1. Accessibility 2. Recipe variety 3. Ingredient requirements, some of them had one off ingredients that I generally wouldn't have and I'd just be buying for one recipe never to see the light of day again.
TLDR: If you love Mary you'll probably like it, but you may have a hard time following along.
Why meh, because of all the recipes in the book, only 3 seemed like something my family and I would enjoy. I made all 3 of them. 1 was a stand out, the other 2 were good, but my real grip with this book is it's ease of use. The steps aren't always in the order I'd set them up in, the directions are overly verbose it places, as someone who's neurodiverse it was hard for me to follow along at times. Also one of the recipes just skipped a whole step (toasting the pine nuts). Basically I needed more steps and for each of them to be concise.
Honestly, my biggest gripes with this book are 1. Accessibility 2. Recipe variety 3. Ingredient requirements, some of them had one off ingredients that I generally wouldn't have and I'd just be buying for one recipe never to see the light of day again.
TLDR: If you love Mary you'll probably like it, but you may have a hard time following along.
June 4, 2024
There are so many free recipes online that I rarely will buy a cookbook any more. We took this one out of the library and made a couple of the recipes. There are so many more that I want to try... so I'm going to buy it. I figure if Mary is going to develop so many compelling recipes, she deserves the credit and the money!
October 25, 2023
Mary Berg is so likeable, it's hard not to smile while reading her down to earth recipe descriptions. I even made a few of the recipes and they were most definitely stress-free while also being absolutely delicious. Mission accomplished, Mary.
June 1, 2024
Library book Although this was a nice book to look at and browse through, I didn't find the majority of the recipes conducive to my way of cooking and a lot of the ingredients, are ones that I don't have in my kitchen
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews