Combs Books

My objective was simple-fast, small amount of common ingredients, appealing meal ideas.

This book called for some strange ingredients, some of the recipes looked tedious, and I really just wasn't very attracted to any of the meal ideas in here. Not the type of food I am going to be able to get husband to eat either, so I wound up sending it back.

I have had great success so far with a few other books:
Diabetic Low-Fat & No Fat Meals in Minutes
The Busy People Series of cookbooks.

This is the most used cookbook in my house. It features simple to find and use ingredients and all recipes are quick and tasty, not to mention quite healthy. I have given this book out as gifts to two others already and they both have given it similar reviews.

I have about 12 lowfat cookbooks in my collection. This cookbook and volume 1 in the series are my favorites because the recipies taste great and they are very easy to make. You will love this cookbook!

A superbly organized and presented introduction to low-fat, carb conscious dining, Quick & Healthy Low-fat, Carb Conscious Cooking showcases more than two hundred new and/or updated, delicious, nutritious, "heart healthy", diabetes appropriate, weight control friendly recipes. Quick & Healthy Low-fat, Carb Conscious Cooking is enhanced with easy to follow low-fat menus, detailed nutritional analysis for each recipes, tips for trimming fat and sodium from a diet, a listing of foods and their fiber content, conventional and microwave directions, time saving ideas, weight loss and exercise tips, and "Products Worth Trying". From Hot Artichoke and Spinach Dip; Three Bean Soup; and Pear Salad with Raspberry Dressing"; to Low-Fat French Fries; Green Chile Chicken Enchilada Casserole; and White Chocolate Mousse with Berries, this completely revised and updated second edition of Quick & Healthy Recipes and Ideas offers a highly recommended compendium of palate pleasing, appetitive satisfying, kitchen cook friendly recipes.

This is the cookbook I depend on. I am a Lifetime member of Weight Watchers, and I used this book (and the other Quick and Healthy) when I was losing weight, and still use it all the time now that I am maintaining. There is enough nutritional information to calculate points. The ingredients are all readily available in our small town. You don't spend all afternoon in the kitchen. Everybody likes the result! I can't say enough good things about these books.

I used it teaching beginner lessons. It really helped me come up with new and creative exercises for the kids to do. You replace the jumps for rails on the ground for students that do not jump yet. I love it and use the exercises in this book all the time.

Brilliant diagrams, excellent keys, simply mapped out and laid out information for difficult and also the easiest of dressage manoevres. It's bound at the top for a vertical flip, with a hole punched down near the bottom so you can hang the book on a nail on your bulletin board or at home and keep it open while you study it. It has handy hints how to achieve positions and gives you ideas to improve certain flaws. It is by far the best book on jumping exercises I have read so far that is dedicated purely to jumping exercises.

Just about EVERY page has another full A4 riding arena on it showing the pattern where the horse is going, it shows crossbars and it shows trotting poles, verticals, gymnastics and where to place them, it shows where you should be directing your horse and what way to approach with an excellent use of diagrams and patterns which have a key right next to it so the design remains uncluttered and simple to read. It even gives you cheap alternatives to make some jumps yourselves and offers quick solutions. A best buy for anyone serious about jumping - or even dressage - to keep their horse supple and to keep their horse (and themselves!) from boredom. Brilliant.

The best how to book on ground poles and jumping that I have experienced. It's a great tool by an expert to keep your horses (young and old) interested as well as the rider thinking. Linda laid out the book very well. Good illustrations and great explanations accompany each exercise. The ground pole exercises are very helpful to use between jumping lessons. This one is a book to keep and give as a gift to a riding friend!

This book has so much info on different exercises and each exercises has little hits about when to use this exercise and what to watch out for while riding it.

This book breaks the demands or jumping down into a logical progression of skills until it takes the insecure beginning rider into a confident partner to the jumping horse. If these lessons are followed correctly, it can also take a training level horse into a skilled show jumper. This book is a must for anyone interested int he discipline of jumping.

I own over a thousand cookbooks (great reading, good ideas, good stories) and this book is on my TOP TEN list. I have been using it over 25 years to great raves from dinner party guests.

I am a native Louisianian and believe this is, by far, the best cookbook available. It is beautifully written and illustrated.

Someone gave us this book as a gift about 10 years ago and we use it for every holiday as it reminds us of our southern roots and holidays at my grandmother's. If you are a southern cook or love southern cooking, you can't go wrong with this one. I am living out of the country for a year and this is the one cookbook I want to have with me. The desserts are especially scrumptious!

I have gone through 3 copies of this cookbook. All the recipes are given by folks that have cooked them in their own homes. Darlin's you cannot go wrong. Try the artichoke hearts! Yum! Yum!

My husband and I bought this book in the French Quarter on our honeymoon in 1976, and in spite of the care I've taken to protect it, it is now in tatters from all the use. Every recipe I've tried is wonderful, and many are standard fare now. For example, the Dutch Baby is a Sunday morning favorite, and Lemon Loves always get gobbled up first when taken to a summer party.

The amazing ladies and gentlemen who submitted the recipes use real ingredients for authentic results, and I'm thankful for the chance to get a new copy of this Southern classic.

Over the years my husband and I have tried several ways of getting healthy and dropping pounds--usually quitting them with little results and a bad taste in our mouths. But this cookbook works and keeps a good variety of foods in our rotation! We have eaten almost exclusively recipes from this book over the last 7 months and found great success! Everything is so tasty (I have only found one recipe that we didn't like) and usually doesn't require weird ingredients. Dieting doesn't have to taste bad!

I love that this cookbook comes in a three-ringed binder and has a picture for every recipe.

Every recipe I've tried so far has been delicious. I love that each recipe has a photo because that's usually how I choose "what's for dinner." I'm trying to loose the last 10 pounds and it's such a relief not to have to figure out the caloric value for every meal -- nutritional info is provided with each recipe. Portions are generous (not restaurant-size "generous" but generous for anything you'd consider to be diet food!) My husband, who is not dieting, has been impressed with the recipes I've tried too.

I've bought some diet cookbooks in the past and the recipies in them taste like diet food, however, the recipies in this cookbook are great! They taste like normal food and its helpful because it will tell you portion size and calories for those who want to Diet. I love this cookbook. My husband also likes it because there is a picture of every recipe. He'll pick out whatever looks good. Buy this book, and you wont be dissappointed!

My husband had to loss a couple pounds for a new job he was trying to get hired for and I decided that I would join him, cause hey what girl doesn't want to shed a little extra weight. We have two young boys, 6 and 2 years, and were worried that if we statred dieting they would be effected. Long story short, rather then trying fad diets or premade meals, we decided it would be best to just change the way we eat to something healthier, which is what lead us to the Dieters Cookbook.

Its wounderful, so far between the two of us, we have lost 20 pounds in three weeks. Now its not all the cook book, we do have a cross trainer at home, a weight bench and two young ones that keep us moving. But the cookbook gives me a great place to find easy to make, healthy meals, that even taste good. (For the boys, we just give them an adult portionand let them eat as much as they like, this allows us not to worry about harming their growth.)The two week jump off menu is also a great tool, even if you don't follow it, it allows you an example of how to plan your meals. And planning has been our best friend, nolonger does it turn 7 o'clock at night and we end up running to pick something up cause, A) we didn't have anything ready to eat or b) there was nothing in the house to make something. I work often into the late afternoon, early night and have found several recipes that I can make ahead and leave just mini notes for my husband to finish up. For example, tonight we'll be having turkey burgers w/ cranberry dressing and oven baked french fries, everyhting is made up in the fridge, all hubbie has to do is put the fries in the oven and place the burgers on the grill, walla healthy easy and no McDonalds, Burgerking or Wendy's needed.

This cookbook, is not a mericale diet, it wont garentee you have the same success as my spouse and I, but it is a great tool, even if you just want a cookbook around with healthy low fat meals in it for when you feel the urge to cook something outside a box. But don't take my word for it, try it and see what you think.

I ordered the cookbook TALK ABOUT GOOD; as usual with Amazon, it arrived very quickly. The books were damaged in shipping, I read the instructions for returning damaged items, contacted Amazon with e-mail, printed a mailer and gave the package to my postman. A new book was mailed out as soon as Amazon found out about the problem, I had a couple of weeks to get the damaged book returned. I originally did not notice that both books were damaged on the corners so only one was replaced, I'm sure that if the other was reported damaged, I would have another new one. TALK ABOUT GOOD service!!

Oh, by the way, this is an excellent cookbook. I made a carrot cake for my boss, she tasted it and knew where the recipe was from! Amazing!! A friend had given her this cookbook in the mid 70's and my husband brought it back to me from Louisiana in the mid 70's. The recipes are favorites of the Lafayette Junior League. The book has not changed in 30 years except it now has a hard cover! The second book is a Christmas present for my boss - both of us have lost the paper covers from the original 30+ year old book!

This is by far the best cook book ever written!! These are truly "Cajun" based recipes and are tried and true! I highly recommend it to anyone that is interested in Cajun Cuisine. It is THE BEST!!!

This is most likely the BEST cookbook in existence, defiantly if you like Cajun food. The fact that it has a binding that allows pages to lay flat, remain open shows how the publisher intended this book to be used, in the kitchen.
Wife wore out the 1st copy I bought her, literally to torn shreds, this is a replacement, and we got it at a great price.

During my childhood, this was my mother's favorite cookbook - long before it was feasible to access such a wide range of recipes from the internet. She lost the cookbook (and everything else) in Hurricane Katrina, and it has been difficult to replace it. We were so happy to be able to find it on Amazon.com and give it to her for Christmas. Although she has relocated from New Orleans, the cookbook and the recipes that she used from it over the holidays, made us feel at home. The cookbook itself demonstrates authentic home cooking. Each recipe reflects the contributors' individual tastes and family traditions, and the types of cooking and ingredients provide a glimpse into a distinct culture. I find it as much fun to read the recipes and their variations as to cook them.

I've had this cookbook for many years, and it is my favorite.
I'm from New Orleans, and these are authentic Cajun recipes. There are many ways to cook a specific dish, and I find the various recipes reflect these personal touches. You cannot go wrong with "Talk About Good".

Very satisfied with the speed with which the vendor processed my request.
The book is in excellent condition.

I don't read westerns & I really don't know what caused me to pick up this book several years ago, but I am glad that I did. After reading it I had to share it with my friend & we agree that it is one of our favorite books that we have ever read. I recently started re-reading it & am very happy that it still holds the same appeal. Harry Combs really makes the story come to life! His story-telling ability is up there with any that I have read.

Brules was by far the best book I have read in years. This was truly one that I could not wait to tear into. Real hard to put down. Action, Action,action- the superman of cowboys. I loved it.

a bit too much killing indians, but just when you start to get tired of this, the story line shifts. Combs is a GREAT storyteller

This novel absorbed and transported me as few others of the genre have. Cat Brules is a simple, utterly uneducated, natively ingenious man who suffers extreme hardship and personal loss but continues to wage his wars, trying to overcome both the Comanches and his own devastation, and succeeding in ways he never expected. A professional critic I am certainly not, but an avid reader of many genres - this is in my top five favorite novels of any kind - ever. Read it (but read the unabridged version) and love it.

Right now, this book is out of print and selling used for over $300 dollars based on the current prices listed in Amazon. That's bloody outrageous.

If you want these recipes, don't bother buying this. Kathleen King lost the rights to the "Kathleen's Bake Shop" trademark, but she has a new cookbook available from her new business venture: Tate's Bake Shop. Buy the Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook instead of the older overpriced book listed here.

You don't believe me? Use your favorite search engine and search with: Kathleen King bake shop.

The recipes contained in Kathleen's Bake Shop Cookbook are good, but standard for what they are, meaning generally to be found in larger cookbooks such as Betty Crocker's or Better Homes & Gardens. And the main complaint I have beyond lack of uniqueness and variety is that the book itself is too small. There are only 132 pages total in this little volume and that includes the index and lots of non-recipe pages. The cover price seems a bit high for only a few dozen recipes. It might be a good starter baking volume for beginning cooks, however.

I have been going to Kathleen's bakeshop in Southampton for years and remember buying her cookies and pies at farm stands throughout the Hamptons.

I have often used my mother's copy until she bought me a copy for Christmas one year in fear that I would steal it.

The muffins are to die for especially the pineapple-orange and the Chocolate Mousse Cake is heaven. I have a quick trick for the whipped cream topping too. Use organic heavy cream because it makes a stiffer whipped cream and last longer too. I have to admit that I am traditionalist and make the chocolate chip cookies. I love them because they are crisp and buttery.

This cookbook is not for dieters because you will eat more than one. My roomate can vouch for that too.

KATHLEEN'S RECIPES ARE FANTASTIC-EVERYTHING I MAKE FROM HER COOKBOOK IS WONDERFUL. ESPECIALLY GOOD IS THE DARK CHOCOLATE DEVIL'S FOOD CAKE RECIPE WITH THE CHOCOLATE FROSTING. A CO-WORKER INTRODUCED ME TO KATHLEEN'S BAKE SHOP COOKBOOK - WHICH I PHOTOCOPIED PAGE BY PAGE. AFTER TRYING MANY OF KATHLEEN'S RECIPES, I DECIDED THAT I NEEDED A PROPER, BOUND BOOK (THE PHOTOCOPIED PAGES WERE STARTING TO TEAR AND FADE). I BOUGHT THREE BOOKS, ONE FOR ME, MY DAUGHTER AND MY FRIEND. YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED WITH ANY OF KATHLEEN'S RECIPES. SHE HAS SIMPLIFIED MANY RECIPES AND IMPROVED ON OTHERS. ALSO ESPECIALLY GOOD, AND EASY TO MAKE, IS HER IRISH SODA BREAD. THIS BOOK WILL EASILY BECOME ONE OF YOUR FAVORITES; IT DEFINITELY IS ONE OF MINE.

I was really surprised by this book. It is simply wonderful. She has a nice variety of recipes in here, cakes, pies, tarts, cookies, and brownies that are to die for. The book isn't well known, and it should be. The recipes are written in an easy to follow manner, and will have you baking up delicious treats for the special people in your life in no time. I also liked her anecdotes, on what worked, and how she came across some of her recipes. Looking for a book to spruce up your baking, go no further!

ABSOLUTELY AWESOME! (Please note: I am only ¾ of the way through the book so I can't give it full accounting.)

This book should be called, `The Bible of Cured Meat!' It contains or reaffirms or explains in-depth everything I have ever read or heard about dry curing meat. (Not to mention every other curing method known to man.) It not only tells you what you need to do, it lets you know what your results will be if you stray either way on a temperature or ingredient; very helpful for trouble shooting, or keeping you out of trouble if you are trying a new cure.

I like the brief history behind each of the curing methods and their places of origin. I also appreciated the FDA discussion and where cured meats are at in the U.S. and abroad.

As always, I find that the cover jackets of these books look like you are going to find a national geographic photo essay inside and then when you open them you only find a few pages of glossies. This book is no exception; it's lacking in actually production photos which I find almost as helpful as the written text.

I think it would be safe to say that Rytek Kutas' book is the authority on meat curing. I think every other book I have is just suplimentary.

As a beginner I was very worried about making venison sausage. This book took all the fears away. Everything is explained in great detail while maintaining an easy to read style. This book mixes the right amount of technical knowledge, personal stories, and personal experience to make the book very interesting to people of all skill levels. This is a must buy for the beginner to the professional. The huge bonus is that I bought this book for the sausage making but it really encompasses the full breadth meat curing to include drying, smoking, pickling, etc. If you only want to buy 1 book, buy this one. It will be a long while before I make it though all the recipes in this book.

I am just getting started in sausage making and was looking for a guide for making sausage at home. After reading all the reviews here, I purchased this book. It is a fairly large volume and includes a lot of detail on equipment, meat selection, meat handling, spices, recipes and techniques. There are many recipes for most of the types of sausages that readers would be interested in. The batch sizes are pretty large for the home sausage maker but can be scaled. There is a lot of detail on smoking and smoking equipment. The reason that I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 is that in my opinion, it is a bit too detailed for the average home sausage maker. Much of the book deals with details that a meat processor may need to know but not needed for the average home sausage maker that is only going to process a couple of pounds of meat at a time. That being said, the recipes are straightforward and should be easy enough for anyone to follow.

Very informative and great explanations! No pictures, but very good book for the beginner.

Being a meat technologist and having spent twenty years in the meat seasoning business I bought this book for curiosity and to enlarge my library of professional cookbooks. I couldn't have made a better choice. The Kutases (originally Latvian?) have a very practical approach in their book. Anyone who plans to set up a butchershop can benefit from their handy hints. On the other hand even the seasoning suggestions for a variety of sausages seem useful.

I grew up in a Mennonite home and many of these foods, I've given this to cookbook to many of my friends and extended family members. Some really great dishes, try the graham cracker fluff it's a favorite at our house.

The recipes in this book are for farmers, who are cold all winter and hot all summer, so they are hearty and filling. However, if you are trying to cook light, they are easily modifiable. Use ground turkey instead of ground beef or sausage. Use turkey sausage instead of pork sausage, etc. You can often substitute canola oil for butter. You really only need to use shortening or lard when it effects the consistency, like in pie crust. Even made as they are written, these recipes are much healthier than the average fast food or restaraunt meal. They are also healthier than the average prepared meal out of the grocery store freezer. They are meant to be served up with heaping helpings of fresh vegetables. Some are great simple fare to serve up when you don't have time to cook. I find that the farmer's summer supper (a mixture of torn bread, fresh fruit and fresh milk) is great on hot summer nights when its too hot to turn on the oven and heat up the kitchen. I have used the sour milk griddle cake recipe for decades (substitute buttermilk if the idea of using sour milk bothers you, or sour fresh milk with a tablespoon of vinegar). Recently, I have gotten totally hooked on the buckwheat pancake recipe. I love the cornbread recipe, and I often make it by substituting a can of creamed corn for the milk. Its much healthier than eating store bought bread, with whole grain and vegetables both in the same bread.

OK, it's a little old-fashioned, but it's a relic of a bygone age, and many of the recipes deserve to be given new life.

The weaknesses are mostly in some of the main-course recipes that, by all appearances, can be extremely fatty and greasy. Speaking as someone who just lost 30 pounds, I don't need that! But they're probably good for an occasional indulgence.

The cookie, cake and pie recipes are the book's strongest point. Saucepan Fudge Cake is easy and unbelievably good, and Rochester Cake (also labelled as Grandmother's Favorite Cake) is outstanding, a layered spice cake with a raisin filling and topping. It's a great favorite of mine for parties.

The recipes for pickles, jams and jellies will probably interest a lot of people in reviving the dying art of home canning.

There are recipes that probably don't work at all in today's world, or are probably not up to modern tastes. A Russian "birthday cake" is pumpernickel bread, sliced and spread with cottage cheese, and the recipe is probably presented more as a historical curiosity than anything else. Another recipe, for a "Pork Cake", is something like a cross between a fruitcake and a meatloaf and will probably make modern cooks gag.

Still, there are many good good good recipes in this book. Hearty old-fashioned fare, not something to base one's diet from, but a great addition to a cook's library.

The Mennonite Community Cookbook is a major compilation of eleven hundred recipes drawn from Mennonite cookbooks and updated with standard measurements and directions but otherwise unaltered. These simple yet flavorful dishes were contributed by Mennonite families all over the United States and Canada, and include such offerings as Old-Fashioned Bean Soup, Salmon Roll with Egg Sauce, Toasted Spice Cake, and Baked Stuffed Turnips. Each recipe is quite short, yet the instructions are crystal clear and easy for cooks of all skill and experience levels to follow. The Mennonite Community Cookbook is a simply superb repository of old country flavor and culinary creations that have weathered the test of time.

I acknowledge the Madman's points: most of the recipes in this book do not conform to today's dietary standards. But bear in mind that this book was first written over 70 years ago. That's when my mother got her copy. She still has it with the cover's half-torn off and pages stuck in loose and scribbled on. This was a Pennsylvania Dutch housewife's book of recipes for Pennsylvania Dutch housewives. They weren't worried about waistlines or BMI numbers. They needed to feed their families who worked in the fields or guests over for a holiday feast.

I also agree that the strength is the desert section, but that is the specialty of the PA Dutch. My brother, sister, and I would spend winter days with mother making cookies from the recipes and I even took a turn at making the cream puff recipe once for a church social. They turned out great!

Not only is this a wonderful recipe book, but to me, it is a family treasure.

Recipes are a little too much work and contain exotic ingredients compared to what's in my fridge.

I bought this book for my husband who was one of those rare men who can't grill! He has used several of the recipes in the book and hasn't failed yet! The book contains all the info that a novice needs to know about grilling, whether it be a charcoal grill, a gas grill, a smoker, or an indoor grill (like a George Foreman). The grilling recipes give instructions for both gas and charcoal- something you usually don't find. I would recommend this book to anyone who grills!

The friend I bought this for told me that the recipes she tried turned out to be succulently delicious.

Plastic spiral binding with spine lettering lends to both lay-flat handy use and easy location in a cookbook collection, enhancing the appeal of a new 2nd, updated edition packing in over 800 recipes and well over a hundred color photos to support them. This combination makes NEW GRILLING BOOK exceptional - as does the attention to different types of grills and methods, from charcoal and gas to smokers and indoor grills. From Lamb with Spinach Pesto or Gingered Tuna Kebabs to Raspberry-Sesame TriTip Roast, NEW GRILLING BOOK is a top pick any home griller must have - especially audiences seeking new recipes and innovative ideas.

I bought this book for my Dad for Father's Day and he LOVES it! Of course, I wouldn't expect anything less from Better Homes and Gardens! I love my red plaid book!