This book is filled to the brim with tasty recipes and beautiful photographs. I cant wait to try out some of the recipes.

This book was received as an ARC from Shadow Mountain Publishing - Shadow Mountain in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

This book was all about the presentation of food and all of it looked so delicious and I know our cooking demo will absolutely love this book. A lot of recipes are very easy to follow and look very mouth-watering such as the peaches and burata and the Italian Crostata Baked Tart. I can't wait to share these recipes with our patrons and the rest of our community.

We will consider adding this title to our TX collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

I was so excited to receive the cookbook Live Life Deliciously by Tara Teaspoon. It is beautifully designed and the perfect size, and the recipes look absolutely delicious!

On the front, it is advertised for “busy weekdays,” so I was hoping it would be easy recipes for a beginner such as me. Most of the recipes seemed too far above my skill level and had a longer prep time than I would have liked, but I found one I thought I could manage. I tried it out, and it was the most delectable garlic bread I have ever had in my life. It didn’t take long, was very easy to do, and I was so impressed with the results. I will absolutely be using that recipe again and again. I found many recipes that I would like to try because they look so good and I was so happy with my garlic bread experience.

The only thing I would change is I wish that the pictures of the food were in color so I could get the full effect of how delicious the food looks before I make it. Another thing is that each section starts with a list of the recipes, but there are no page numbers listed which makes finding the recipe you want a tad difficult. Overall, I am very impressed with the recipes I saw and I was ecstatic with my experience in the recipe that I made.

This was such a yummy cookbook! The beautiful pictures made each recipe so enticing. The recipes had many flavors and spices I don’t often cook with, so it was nice to try something new! Some of our favorites were the Yogurt Marinated Grilled Chicken and the Cheesy Herb Potatoes Au Gratin. So yummy!

Live Life Deliciously by Tara Teaspoon offers updated recipes using "New Pantry Staples" as the author calls it along with delightful updates to techniques. Some of the New Pantry Staples Teaspoon uses include artichoke hearts, fish sauce, red curry paste, sweet chili sauce or tahini.

I loved her chapter about choosing the right kitchen equipment. Teaspoon gives recommendations on purchasing kitchen appliances, pots and pans, knives, cutting boards and other assorted kitchen equipment.

Her recipes are delightful and varied. I loved her idea to serve a butter board with baguettes instead of the typical cheese board. Teaspoon recommends the type of butter to use and recipes using butter as part of the butter board. The Cheese and Herb potato Gratin looks yummy too as well as the Moroccan Kebabs with Chermoula Sauce.

You will find plenty of gorgeous color photos depicting the recipes.

Recommend.

Review written after downloading a galley from NetGalley.

Tara Teaspoon is an experienced chef with a passion for her craft. She has worked with Martha Stewart and was the food director of Ladies Home Journal Magazine.

She credits her mother with her creativity and enthusiasm in the kitchen. Tara worked alongside her mom in the kitchen since she was old enough to reach the counters.

Through her work Tara has access to the best equipment and ingredients, but she understands that home chefs often have to make-do with what they have.

Of course, she recommends that you have every variety of pot and pan and every small kitchen appliance. She does however, offer work arounds and often encourages readers to buy inexpensive options.

Her list of pantry staples is realistic. It includes items like garlic, chocolate and soy sauce, with nothing more exotic than red curry paste. You will have most of these items in your pantry already.
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What I Cooked

Lemon-Butter Salmon with Herbs

This recipe is as simple as the name suggests. It requires little more than pan frying the salmon in butter and olive oil with garlic. This is now my go-to salmon recipe, it is absolutely the best salmon recipe I have.

French Bistro Mushroom Burger

This is a clever twist on traditional mushroom burgers. Instead of topping the burger with mushrooms, you actually add sautéed mushrooms to the burger patties. This tastes fabulous with the herb seasonings. I will be making this again!
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This cookbook is a great option for home chefs. It includes lots of simple yet flavorful recipes. Plenty of interesting side dishes, easy main courses and tempting desserts. Live Life Deliciously is perfect for cooks looking to spice up their traditional American cuisine.

Okay, my bias is going to be all over this review. :) First off, this is a woman who used to work for Martha Stewart and also was an editor of Ladies Home Journal -- and boy does she remind you of that. She also has a lot of pictures of herself cooking in the book, which always puts me off a bit. She is very chatty in the book and I usually enjoy that in a cookbook, but she's clearly from another world than I am and I felt a bit as if one of the rich and popular girls in high school was talking to me, but only because she wanted something from me. Another reviewer tagged this "ritzy food" and said it's the sort of thing you make when you want to impress people. I agree, and that's just not my thing.

The recipes are beautiful and I have no doubt they'll taste great. They tend to take a fair amount of time and to use multiple recipes for each dish (make the sauce on this page, the rub on this page, then do this) so the section telling you the time needed for recipes seems a bit deceptive. They also tend towards higher end ingredients. These aren't really things your average mom is going to throw together after getting home from work. These are the sorts of things you cook when you want to impress someone. In some cases, this is really well done. For instance, her take on fried ice cream involves crushing corn flakes and something else that have been mixed with honey and cooked, and then rolling balls of ice cream in them, putting them in small dishes where either bananas or strawberries have been cut on an angle to make petal shapes going all around it, and then topping it with fresh whipped cream and sprinkles, with a cherry on top. It's beautiful and probably tastes great, but I'm not sure most home cooks would do the whole flower and every garnish thing and I'm not sure how great it will be just as crushed corn flakes and honey on a ball of ice cream.

The book is also designed for Standard American Diet folks (but high end ones). There are a few accidentally gluten free or vegetarian dishes, but for the most part it's all heavy on meat, dairy, wheat, animal ingredients, white sugar, etc. and most of the recipes will not be a great fit for people who are gluten free, dairy free, paleo, keto, diabetic, vegan, vegetarian, etc. or who have any family members who are. Recipes are not marked if they meet any of these needs and there's not even the occasional token recipe offered in a nod to the fact that most people these days at least know some vegetarian, gluten free, and/or paleo folks they might want to cook for once or twice.

There are color photos of at least half of the recipes, and they're beautifully done. There is no nutritional information provided.

This will be a great addition to many cooks' libraries, even if it's not a great fit for mine.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

This is a lovely and elegant cookbook that shows the author's creativity in the kitchen. I enjoyed looking at the numerous photographs of the dishes and reading Tara's suggested variations on how you could serve them. I think her suggestions are really useful! I also liked the fact that these are dishes that have a certain elegance so I'd probably be most inclined to use this cookbook when I am entertaining or even when I am a guest and want to bring something more interesting and sophisticated than the usual standard fare to the potluck or the holiday dinner. And what's nice is that the recipes don't require long lists of hard-to-obtain ingredients that you've never heard of... they seem doable and that's going to make it a cookbook that you want to use! Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to review an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This cookbook was awesome!! Totally worth it just for the beginning section on essential pantry items and cooking tools. This book had some great recipes, but I loved how the author made each recipe an opportunity for personalization and creativity.
Tara really did well in reaching out to all levels of "chefs." Beginners can easily follow her guidelines and recipes, while more advanced cooks can use this book as a reference for basic recipes or use it to plan weekly menus with limited waste.
Overall a great collection to annoy persons cookbook collection or starting book for new cooks!

Great new cookbook! I found the layout to flow well and the recipes were easy to understand and follow along to. I look forward to trying some of them out for my family.

This cookbook was wonderful. I tried several of the recipes and they were delicious. My only problem with this cookbook is that some of the recipes are a little bit hard to find, so they're not recipes I would probably make on a regular basis. But they were the kind of recipes that would be create for entertaining.

Delicious book! I want to make these recipes now! So great! This book is well organized, the photos are inspiring, and the recipes are pretty good! I would make them as everyday meal and when I have people over.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

Delicious recipes gorgeous photographs reading made my mouth drool.Will be cooking recipes from this wonderful book for many occasions,#netgalley#shadowmountaib

A good mix of recipes, ranging from weekday meals to dinners you would make for friends and plates of food to share.
The recipes are clear, but sometimes lack pictures (or at least labelled pictures), which at times is a shame because when there are pictures, they are mouthwatering and make you want to start cooking.
While I wouldn't cook everything and some things I know, I did pick out a number of recipes I liked and easily replicaed them. My favourite parts in this book are the snacks, the sauces and the desserts. It is surprising how intricate the desserts can look and actually aren't too hard to make (looking at you, triple layer chocolate cake!).

A great cookbook if you're someone who likes to entertain and don't mind the occasional ingredient that may take some effort to find. Gorgeous pictures and some great sounding recipes that can exercise your culinary skills. I wouldn't call this a quick and easy weeknight cookbook but sometimes you want to put in a little more effort and try something new.

I like the idea that some of the recipes she gives multiple ways to use them but I do wish they were grouped together more. Several of the ingredient lists sent you to another recipe on another page. Started to feel like a scavenger hunt at times.

I will definitely be giving some of these recipes a try!

Well illustrated with a good mix of classics and remixed classic recipes. I liked her separations of weekday routines and quick meals (as well as the gatherings section). Heavy on the meat options so not really a cookbook for me.

This book is a contemporary cookbook with a lot of ideas and recipes for the modern cook.

Tara's recipes are both beautiful to look at and look delicious to eat. She clearly knows what she is doing.

I especially loved the "modern pantry" lists, as well as the snippets of "Tara's tips" for each recipe.

I really liked the dressing ideas for salads.

Overall if you are looking for some new ideas for meals or for prepping your pantry and fridge, Tara has some great ones for you.

This would also make a lovely gift book!

I received an ARC as a reviewer for NetGalley.

I love cookbooks, which is kind of funny, because I’m really not a huge fan of cooking. I’m torn on how to rate this book, because I think it’s really well-written. The pictures of the food are beautiful, and the recipes are well-written. However, this style of cookbook is just not for me. I was only able to find a small handful of items that looked interesting enough for me to try to make. I tend to gravitate towards the “quick and easy” type of cookbook, and this one is definitely geared towards those who love spending time in the kitchen, crafting artistic sounding and looking food. So if you fit into that category, you’ll definitely want to check this book out.

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC to have a look and offer my opinion. These recipes all looked amazingly glamorous and very detailed but would you really make them? This is a cookbook for people who love to cook for higher end type people, or should I say rich and fabulous. I’m not sure I could make most of these recipes without constantly hearing what is that....or what is that. The only recipes that truly caught my eye were the desserts... you had me at chocolate chip cookies. The author says it herself that she worked as a food stylist for Martha Stewart which makes you want a glance but actually cooking some of this would just be a once in a blue moon type deal for my family

This is a fantastic resource! The photos are beautiful and the recipes are mouth-watering! I can't wait to try them out! I highly recommend this awesome cookbook!