The quick fix kitchen : easy recipes & time-saving tips for a healthier, stress-free life /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The beloved actress and star of the digital series Quick Fix saves you time and energy with her favorite mealtime hacks, tips to bring joy and balance to your kitchen, and 65 easy, delicious, and healthy recipes the entire family will love.

As a busy mom, author, actor, and entrepreneur, Tia Mowry needed to find quick and easy solutions to a busy life, especially when it came to cooking for her family. She figured out a way to create nutritious, hearty dishes that work for everyone, allowing her to savor moments spent around the table. The Quick Fix Kitchen empowers you to do the same, helping you embrace home cooking without sacrificing time and energy with Tia's "Quick Fixes" for mealtimes- healthy food swaps, pantry organizational hacks, food shopping tips, meal plans, sixty-five easy, delicious recipes, and more. With advice presented in her trademark joyful, down-to-earth fashion, you'll learn how to use your kitchen to your advantage-understanding flavor affinities, balancing wholesome and indulgent meals, incorporating the kids, managing your time-so that you can unwind and have fun creating family traditions.

The recipes themselves are designed to deliver big flavors with minimum prep and cook time. They include sheet pan meals like Stuffed Pesto Chicken Breast, one-pot meals like Spinach Artichoke Pasta Bake, classics with a healthy twist like Creamy "Alfredo" Pasta, and creative, kid-friendly snacks like Banana "Sushi" Rolls and Mini Quesadilla Pizzas. With The Quick Fix Kitchen , feeding yourself and your family won't feel like a chore.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

FIXED KITCHEN What Is Quick Fix? quick adjective \ 'kwik \ acting or capable of acting with speed: such as fast in development or occurrence done or taking place with rapidity fast in understanding, thinking, or learning fix verb \ 'fiks \ to repair or put in order The fact that you're reading this book means you want to cook, and I am PROUD. OF. YOU! If cooking isn't your thing, start small and get comfortable with your kitchen, knife skills, tools, and equipment. Familiarize yourself with the flavors that keep you going back to your favorite restaurant. Talk to the things in your kitchen like people talk to plants, why not? If anything, you'll get a hearty laugh out of it. A spatula will never talk back, so it's the perfect audience for a vent session! Most people who shy away from cooking are scared that people will scoff at their food. I assure you right here and now, there's no need to impress anyone or be perfect. That fear is a stumbling block holding you back. Kick that block to the curb, and spread those carefree wings of yours. I am not going to teach you how to use tweezers to garnish a dish gently. No way. That is not my jam! I like making things look pretty, but you don't need to be an artist or executive chef with Michelin stars to serve a meal your family enjoys. Heck, you don't even need to be a chef! All you need is the willingness to seek out quality ingredients and put them together for whatever masterpiece works in your household. This may sound corny, but it is more important to serve love than a French dish that took you three days to make. Cooking doesn't have to mean concocting elaborate meals like that. It can also mean blending a smoothie or tossing greens together for a salad. That, believe it or not, is cooking! Cooking is also an act of unwinding, loosening up, and singing as loud as you can while using your therapy spatula as a microphone! If you've seen Tia Mowry's Quick Fix , you know my style is a little bit of skill stirred with what's available, back to basics cooking, so it's easy (and enjoyable) to put dinner on the table even with a crazy life. I want to make that task accessible and enjoyable for everyone. I am a busy mommy and value my career, but the kitchen connects me daily to the people close to my heart. Since we need to eat, dinner is the natural means to integrate togetherness into our daily hustle. I couldn't do it with overcomplicated, laborious recipes! Therefore, I achieve that togetherness by sticking to the easy stuff and adding a bit of my personality. As you can probably tell, I am very inspired by my mom. This book is, too. She rarely meal planned or jotted down extensive grocery lists. She made do with whatever was in the kitchen because she's an on-the-fly superwoman. She floated around with little means and never complained about it. Remember that show Door Knock Dinners where chef Gordon Elliott went into people's homes and assembled a marvelous banquet with whatever tidbits they had in their pantry and fridge? It's that type of improvisational cooking my mom did for our family: learning which herbs and spices go together, knowing standard roasting times, laughing at blunders, and appreciating whatever ended up on the plate. Our kitchen was that basket from Chopped : What can we make right now with canned green beans, frozen chicken breasts, and gummy bears? Voilà! A feast! As I've grown into my own cooking style, I've mingled my mom's ingenuity with my own. I lean on whole ingredients and try my best to eliminate additives, preservatives, and all the icky stuff in processed foods. Because of this, I do find meal planning a vital piece to the puzzle. Doing so keeps me organized with only one trip to the grocery store a week. By having my passion and process in place, I can fulfill weekly meals more efficiently. Again, food is our means of survival. Back when our ancestors had to hunt and gather, the tribe sat together to partake in the bounty brought to them. Eating sustained their bodies. While we don't go to such extremes to eat nowadays, it has become difficult to assemble the tribe and give our bodies wholesome foods. To accomplish both, I focus on whole foods and recipes with easy‑to-follow steps. Take lasagna: Instead of boiling the noodles, laying out the noodles, and trying to keep them from sticking together while I'm wrangling my daughter, Cairo, I use ravioli (cheese inside a noodle pillow) and put everything in a baking dish without all those steps, but with the same delicious result. Quick Fix is playful. It aims to transform what might be a chore into something you adore. And if you already find pleasure in cooking, it's a way to amplify that love. Cooking is therapeutic to me. I'm either fully present when measuring ingredients or letting go of stress by concentrating on vigorously chopping herbs. Look, I'm no Mary Poppins. My purse isn't filled with a playground of necessities to make life effortless, but I do have some tricks up my sleeve and that inner Mary Poppins song and dance. Quick Fix finds balance for your family and the food you eat, and (you know me) sparks fun while doing it. Rather than watching the water come to a boil as the clock ticks down, I put the music on blast and cook like no one is watching! If your kid is by your side, play "Let It Go" for the thousandth time and yell that song for the neighbors to hear. Getting a noise complaint is just a minor setback. Find your groove! Some days it feels like there aren't enough hours to accomplish everything. But when I'm with my family in the kitchen and around the table, time seems to disappear. Splash sauce on these pages. When you pass it down to your kids, they'll see memories in those spills, and whether or not they remember it as a mistake or remnants of a special meal, I'm sure they'll smile. Let's open up the cabinets, spruce them up a little, stock them with the necessities, and reveal the gems of your kitchen! The Importance of Food My food choices supply me with the energy I need to get from morning to night, tackling all the duties in between. When eating, the body breaks down food molecules so they can be easily absorbed and converted into energy. Those vital nutrients and minerals then travel throughout this complex machine of ours to build muscle tissue, sustain organs, and power the body's survival mechanisms that are necessary to thrive. To be the best mom I can be, the wife I want to be, the friend I hope to be, the daughter, the sister, the colleague, and the writer of this book, I need to eat, and eat well, for my body and mind to function. My children also need to eat to grow and develop into people who give to the world. The great thing is, food is enjoyable! Food is GOOD! It's a delight to the palate, heart, and soul, and it's a significant component of human existence. Modern-day life is fast-paced and requires a quick response. Time is often limited, but that doesn't erase the fact that food is yummy fuel. With short attention spans and rapid-moving schedules, a quick fix is a great way to supply us with life-affirming needs. So, when I say "quick," I mean quick. The clock is always ticking, and while people say we all have the same number of hours in a day . . . do we really? Some days, it certainly doesn't feel that way. That's when I put on my speedy cape and do all I can to finish the job fast and easy! Since time is of the essence, these pages honor those precious minutes by helping you better understand the basic foundations of cooking--holding a knife properly and learning flavors--and cutting back on prep and cleanup to give you more time around the table. Each recipe is to the point because if I ever see an ingredient list longer than movie credits, I keep walkin'! And while I enjoy making exotic dishes every once in a while, scouring the city to find a rare root powder isn't something I can do all the time. Nor are those specialty ingredients accessible to everyone. I use "fix" to help you get your kitchen in tip-top shape so you, too, can float through it like me and my mom. Yes, these recipes are designed for quick preparations, but the book itself is a fix that makes cooking approachable. If you and the kitchen aren't buddy-buddy quite yet or you don't have time to cook but desperately want to use it as a tool of engagement with your friends and family, this is a fix. And if you just need a boost because you're scraping the bottom of the barrel for new, healthful recipes suitable for your schedule, then here's the fix for that, too! If you feel like the quality of your meals has gone down as your responsibilities have grown, this is a fix. Throughout this book, you'll discover quick fixes and little pearls of wisdom I use daily. This is my recipe box of home cooking with the little notes from my journey: advice from my mother, mentors, other cookbooks, friends, and the ever-present trial and error! Excerpted from The Quick Fix Kitchen: Easy Recipes and Time-Saving Tips for a Healthier, Stress-Free Life: a Cookbook by Tia Mowry All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Since starring with her twin, Tamera, on the TV show Sister, Sister, Tia Mowry has grown her award-winning media career into a lifestyle brand. After the end of her Cooking Channel show Tia Mowry at Home, Mowry launched her web series Quick Fix. Previous books (Whole New You; Oh, Baby!) shared her experiences with dietary changes and pregnancy. This latest collection offers her take on family-friendly cooking. The first half of the book provides an overview of kitchen basics and staples, while the second half contains flexible recipes, such as a loaded potato bar, where everyone adds their favorite toppings. Other recipes, like banana "sushi" rolls, are fun and easy for kids to make; a number of the recipes are great starting points for parents who want to cook with their children and build adventurous eating habits. Being conscious of dietary restrictions, Mowry offers alternatives for vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free meals. VERDICT Mowry describes this latest as a "cooking companion"; cooks who are establishing their own households will find it particularly helpful. Mowry adds an encouraging, relatable voice to the subject area and has an established audience of readers and viewers.--Meagan Storey, Virginia Beach

Publishers Weekly Review

Actor Mowry (Whole New You) gathers the best recipes from her "Quick Fix" YouTube series with the goal of making it "easy (and enjoyable) to put dinner on the table even with a crazy life." Her guidance is upbeat and thorough, beginning with a tutorial on culinary basics, organizing tips, and coping skills for cooking with children that's so extensive it takes up about half the book. A rundown of global spices is especially helpful, as is a list of kids' kitchen tasks grouped by age (and attention spans). Snacks are kept simple, as with her homemade Cheese(It) Crackers--baked sharp cheddar slices with garlic salt--dipped in a puree of applesauce and white beans. She also includes a sample meal plan with three weeks' worth of options, some of which incorporate shortcuts, such as cooking an entire package of bacon in advance so that strips can be pulled from the fridge as needed. Dinner recipes have playful, comfort-food appeal, evident in meatloaf cupcakes topped with mashed potatoes, and a four-ingredient Lazy Mom Lasagna that alternates layers of frozen ravioli and broccoli florets, jarred tomato sauce, and shredded mozzarella. Entry-level cooks with young families can rely on Mowry's help to sharpen their skills in the kitchen. (Sept.)

Booklist Review

Many fans already have a soft spot for cookbook author Mowry (Whole New You, 2017), star of the nineties sitcom Sister, Sister and her ongoing Tia Mowry's Quick Fix series on YouTube. Mowry delights in cooking, and readers will feel that joy leap from the pages as she offers encouragement to those who aren't yet comfortable in the kitchen and inspiration to those who are. She urges families to have a good relationship with cooking by building traditions, discussing what's in their food, and spending time together. Recipes like chicken fajita tacos; beef, broccoli, and rice, and dairy-free creamy chocolate pudding emphasize wholesome, kid-friendly dishes that focus on fresh ingredients all ages can enjoy. Recipes offer variations for readers to change it up, and some tasks that kids can pitch in with. With tips on how to organize a kitchen and pantry, shop in season, and feed picky eaters, Mowry offers the ultimate guide for busy families, passionate chefs, and beginner cooks.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Tia Mowry-Hardrict is an actress, producer, author, lifestyle influencer, and business owner. Tia has been in the public eye for twenty-five years; she first came on the scene with her hit comedy series Sister, Sister and currently stars in the Netflix series Family Reunion .

Tia, in partnership with KIN Community, created the YouTube channel "Tia Mowry's Quick Fix." The go-to online resource provides weekly uploads to help viewers solve life's little dilemmas fast. It also stands as the company's fastest growing channel to date, garnering over two million followers.

Tia invited fans into her kitchen with the release of her first cookbook, the bestselling Whole New You , by Random House Publishing Group. She also wrote the book Oh Baby! Pregnancy Tales and Advice from One Hot Mama to Another , which quickly became a national bestseller delivering the lowdown in a frank, hilarious guide to modern pregnancy.

In 2020, Tia launched Anser supplements in partnership with BioSchwartz, debuting a line of simple, high-quality, and affordable products that inspire people of all backgrounds to take charge of their own health.