Cooks need these recipes

My collection of good, reliable recipes includes several favourites from Norene Gilletz, formerly a Montreal cooking teacher who now lives in Toronto.

Her new cookbook, The Silver Platter (ArtScroll/ Mesorah Publications, $34.99), is a winner. With interesting recipes, beautiful photographs for the more than 160 recipes and generous quantities of cooking tips and variations, it’s a kosher cookbook like no other I can recall.

A first for Gilletz’s coauthor Daniella Silver, a talented family cook, the book is considered to be intergenerational with its fresh creativity from Silver and culinary expertise from Gilletz.

Comfort food is plentiful in the book. An example is this one-dish meal-in-one made with your choice of ground meat and lots of vegetables. You can make it with rice or quinoa. It’s gluten-free and freezes well.

Family cooks need more of this kind of recipe. Gilletz suggests using the food processor to chop the vegetables.

You can add a can (19 ounces/540 mL) of kidney beans or chickpeas, rinsed and drained. If using brown rice, increase cooking time to 40 to 45 minutes.