Enjoy this cookbook review of Lick Your Plate, a lip smackin’ book for every home cook by Julie Albert and Lisa Gnat, tried and tested by our own cookbook editor, Lisa George of Latigo Ranch.

The sister team of Julie Albert and Lisa Gnat have created a cookbook, Lick Your Plate, designed for home cooks of any skill level who wish to have fun creating healthy meals for their families and friends. They write in the introduction, “Lick Your Plate is your new best friend in the kitchen, your go-to for 160 easy-to-follow, foolproof and delicious recipes. With a focus on hearty-yet-healthy food and readily available ingredients, you won’t be asked to make a three-day meat sauce, haul out the deep fryer, or go on a wild-goose chase for juniper berries. What Lick Your Plate will do is save you time with invaluable tips and set you up for success with an arsenal of inspiring, guaranteed-great recipes that will take you through breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

Laughing out loud

Interspersed with the delicious recipes are mouthwatering photographs of the dishes as well as quotations from cultural familiars:

“Always remember:  if you’re alone in the kitchen, and you drop the lamb, you can just pick it up. Who’s going to know?”  Julia Child

“Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking the tartar sauce with you.”  Zig Ziglar

“Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often.”  Johnny Carson

“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”  Erma Bombeck

“I don’t need a thinner phone. You know what I need? I need a tortilla chip that can support the weight of guacamole.”  Ellen DeGeneres

The contents of Lick Your Plate are organized into color coded sections:

No Fork Required:  appetizers

Steamed-up:  soups

Crunch time:  salads

Pick of the Crop:  vegetables

Fueled-up:  pasta, rice, and grains

Rule the Roost:  chicken and turkey

No Bones About it:  fish

Grade-A:  meat

Rise and Shine:  brunch

Be-All and End-All:  desserts

Chocolate Chip Cookies from “Lick Your Plate” Cookbook

Trying the Recipes

The “Fudgy Chocolate Layer Cake with Coffee Frosting” on page 258 was quickly reduced to a plate of crumbs when I served it to our staff one evening. Some chocolate cakes aren’t terribly tender, but this one has a sumptuous mouth feel and taste. The coffee frosting is a decadent addition. “Coffee and chocolate – the inventor of mocha should be sainted.” Cherise Sinclair, Hour of the Lion.

I made Lisa’s “Levain Chocolate Chips Walnut Cookies” on page 288. This recipe differs from many chocolate chip cookies I’ve baked in the past by adding 2 T cornstarch to the batter. It’s intended to keep the cookies soft and tender when cooled. For some reason, my batch didn’t want to brown in the oven, so I continued to bake them until they did, and as a result, even the cornstarch couldn’t keep them soft. They were delicious right out of the oven but got too tough when they cooled. I’m sure it was my fault.

“Sautéed Chicken with Dijon and White Wine Sauce” on page 147 is true to its claim to be ready in less than 30 minutes. They also write that it’s ‘moist, healthy, simple, and quick to prepare’, and my family would agree with all of those statements as well as Steve Martin when he says, “Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.”

Recommending the book

Lick Your Plate by Julie Albert and Lisa Gnat belongs in the kitchen of anyone who desires fresh ideas for satisfying the hunger pains of their family and friends. Home cooks will take pleasure in serving the dishes as well as reading the pages of the book. Explaining their teamwork in creating the book, they write, “We’re sisters (and not the how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-Maria variety, but the give-me-back-my-sweater kind) who love working and cooking up fun together. From Lisa’s Easy Bake Oven days, she has been experimenting in the kitchen, developing her bionic palate and our original recipes, while Julie hasn’t stopped writing since she banged out her first chain letter on her IBM Selectric I typewriter. Together, with Lisa firmly planted at the stove and Julie at her laptop, we’re a sister act whose goal is to bring easy eats and laughs to your table.”

— Review written by Lisa George, Latigo Ranch, Kremmling, Colorado. Photos by Hannah George.

Hungry for more? Read other cookbook reviews by Lisa George, on RealFoodTraveler.com.

Please note:  RealFoodTraveler.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.