Good recipes, dehydration can be cumbersome
929280
This is a good cookbook.  It was my first trail cookbook.  I've had it for a number of years, and it's served me well.  The recipes are varied and tasty, and I constantly go back for new ideas or old favorites.  I give the cookbook only four stars, because I've found better techniques in other cookbooks that I try to blend with Yaffe's recipes.

The second cookbook I bought was The Complete Trail Food Cookbook.  It introduced me to the idea of dehydrating ingredients first, and then bagging them up into complete recipes for rehydration and cooking on the trail.  Yaffe's recipes call for making the entire meal, and then dehydrating it, which tends to be a lot more cumbersome than the method mentioned in the other cookbook.

That being said, I definitely recommend this cookbook for its recipes to anyone who is looking for something new and might want to do some of their own tweaking.
3323612
I purchased this at B&N (hence the lack of 'Verified'). The recipes are great, don't get me wrong (and I like the spice blend instructions), but they're not easy and they're not fast.

The ingredients required are often inaccessible, even from Whole Foods (Saffron powder? English cucumbers anyone?), and require very specific kitchen gadgets (I hope you have a spice grinder!). What I found most disappointing was that many of the beef and chicken dishes called for their roast beef or roast chicken recipe beforehand (either of which requires 2-3 hours of prep). And I mean, hey, sure, this shredded chicken taco recipe looks super fast and convenient once you don't factor in the 2 hours it will take to roast and shred the chicken (see page XX).
2220275
Many of these recipes are not as easy as I would have liked and require more prep work or other side dishes.
1492927
This is a good book, but some of the recipes require a large number of ingredients that may be hard to source. It may take a while to gather them all, so it's not really a plug-and-play resource unless you have access to everything you need close by.
32319
First off, let me say this cookbook has some great ideas and hints for cutting salt out of your diet.  The section on sauces is great, with low sodium soy sauce, BBQ, white sauce, etc.  There are lots of entree and side dish recipes, and a whole section on salads and salad dressings.
I have two issues with the book however.  As good as the sauce recipes are, there are no serving sizes included.  The receipe will tell you how many serving is makes, and the nutritional info for each serving, but not the amount of sauce is in one serving (example, 2 tbs is one serving, or 1/4 cup etc...) It would be nice to have that.
The other issue is that the nutritional info is way off on many recipes.  The sodium amounts are usually correct, and with it being a low sodium cookbook that is the important thing.  But i have found several recipes where info is incorrect.  Usually it's the fat grams that is off, sometimes the carbs. One recipe was off by over 10 grams of fat per serving.
Overall, its a decent source for recipe ideas and tips to cut sodium down, but if you are also watching calories, fat, carbs etc, then you may want to run these through a nutritional counter to determing the real calorie and fat count before you cook them.
1066618
I have made many recipes from this book and and all but one have turned out fantastic, the outlier was still fairly good.  I would recommend reading the recipe a couple of times before trying is because some of the steps might be a little strange or unorthodox.  Even when I have screwed up a step or two the recipe turns out really good.  My biggest complaint is the way the book is laid out, there are a number of smaller recipes that you don't see in the main table of contents that are really good but not easy to find unless you look in the index in the back of the book.
2200483
Decent recipes, but relies a lot on ingredients from a can or jar.  I.e.  Mix a can of cream of mushroom soup with 1 cup of ketchup...  I was hoping the recipes might be more "from scratch" using fresh ingredients.  With that said, everything I've made from this recipe book has tasted excellent.
2422284
Coco Morantes The Essential Instant Pot Cookbook contains 75 recipes for electric pressure cookers.

Morante offers breakfast foods, beans and grains, soups and chilis, poultry, beef and pork, vegetables and sides, desserts, and a chapter of pantry basics such as caramelized onions and mayonnaise (not all of which use the Instant Pot).

I tried a few recipes and, frankly, found some of them a bit humdrum.  The peppers in my Unstuffed Peppers turned out mushy, but the rice, beef, tomato portions were quite good.  Her Bone Broth wasn't as well seasoned as that I found in Melissa Clarks Dinner in an Instant.  And I find it far easier to make oatmeal, breakfast cake, and omelets the conventional way.

There are things that I find pressure cookers do quite well.  Its great for beans, braising meats, soups and broths, and recipes for skinless chicken.
Morantes recipes for these are a good starting place.  And strangely enough, although I don't find that cakes are easier done in the IP, cheesecake certainly is!  And do give her Meyer Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake a try.

The major problem that I have with most IP cookbooks is the timing.  It takes time to build up pressure and time for it to vent.  I would have found it helpful if she had given the total time that a recipe takes.  The cooking time alone is misleading.
1454587
I like this book and author a lot.  She has good recipes that I think my family would like, which is my goal.  I'm glad I bought it as it is a good reference for those trying to follow a paleo diet, although it was just merely suggested by my doctor and I do not have a gluten allergy or specific disorder.  The items haven't been difficult to find and don't appear too complicated.  The reason I only gave it 3 stars is because the recipes I have tried did not turn out that well, and didn't go over well with the family.  I think that it is going to take some practice for me to get them to come out like she does.  The crepes for example, stick very badly and didn't come out well at all, and this is one of the main things I wanted to use because they seem so versatile and kid friendly.  I've tried them two different ways.  I'm not the best cook, but I have been married for 15 years and have 3 children who I have been cooking for all these years.  It's going to take practice, but I'm going to keep trying.
1254528
I'm trying one of the recipes this week.  The dishes are extremely tempting but the prep and ingredients required are a little mor challenging than your typical slow cooker recipes.
1545526
I have been reading and using this cookbook for around six months.  I like that many recipes are updated versions of traditional Japanese dishes.  I also like the fact that Ms. Shimbo offers Western ingredient substitutions in some recipes.  The recipes are mostly easy, but sometimes suffer from overly lengthy cooking instructions.  I am also irritated by the fact that ingredient names are inconsistent and sometimes needlessly Westernized.  For example, konnyaku is an ingredient that is generally available only in Japanese/Asian grocery stores.  So why call it taro gelatin, which will cause store clerks to look at me with a blank stare if I ask for it by that name?  On the other hand, there are a couple of recipes for "asari" clams.  I haven't found a definition of asari clams in the cookbook, so I don't know what makes them different from the littleneck clams available in supermarkets.

For some reason, many of the recipes call for odd measurements, frequently for 7 ounces of protein or vegetables.  I assume that this is a conversion from metric, but it's just plain irritating, because it's not a measure used by American food packagers.  There are a number of recipes that call for smoked salmon (which, by the way, does not come in 7 ounce packages).  What variety of smoked salmon is never stated.  I'm guessing that the author means cold-smoked lox, but it would be nice if that were stated.  A recipe made with lox is going to be substantially different from a recipe made with much drier wood-smoked salmon.

Also problematical are the organization and indexing of this book.  I find the "appetizers" section particularly irksome, since many of the recipes state things like "serves 4 as an appetizer and 2 as a main course."  Traditional Japanese home-style meals don't feature appetizers as such, so why select a somewhat random group of recipes and shoehorn them into a chapter? Further, few of the recipes for "cold appetizers" indicate whether or not the dish should be chilled or served at room temperature.  Also irritating is the fact that "basic" recipes are hidden throughout the first third of the book, which supposedly covers Japanese cooking techniques and ingredients.  And the index is a disaster and largely useless.  I've had to put a paperclip on the page for the recipe in the basic chapter that I use the most, because it does not appear anywhere in the index - salt pickled daikon and carrots in sweet vinegar dressing.

Despite the drawbacks, there are good recipes in the book.  Many are fun and reflect the worldliness of modern Japanese cooking, calling for ketchup and other Western seasonings. Certainly not comprehensive, but a decent effort nonetheless.  Perhaps future editions could work on organization and indexing.

Update - the spine of the book has cracked in two places and pages are falling out after only two years of use.

Another update. I'm ordering a used hardcover copy of the book.  My paperback has split in two and even more pages are falling out, so it's held together with a big rubberband.  I still find the organization and indexing of the book irritating, but I find that I use the book frequently, so I upgraded my rating to four stars.
2489449
I liked the book overall, however, some of the recipes were a bit intense, I was thinking that 100 years of recipes would have some from my grandmother's day and age and I really did not find many with the least number of ingredients.  Some were overwhleming to read.  This is a good book for someone who is baking/cooking all the time, but the occasional baker/cooker would probably not use the recipes.
2489477
All of the recipes that I have tried from this book taste great and my children love them.  The book is worth buying for the recipes alone.
The author does introduce foods earlier than my doctor recommends so I always just work one section back.  For instance, when my daughter turned 9 months old, I started making the recipes from the 6-to-9-month section.
But I do have 2 complaints.  First, the recipes are delicious and simple, but they can be time-consuming.  The author must have a magic way to dice a bunch of vegetables quickly and must be great at cooking many different things at once, because it always takes me longer than the book says it should -- and creates a LOT of dishes!  Secondly, it seems the author expects your child to have a lot better dexterity than mine!  Some of the recipes would be great if my baby was able to use a spoon, but she is nowhere near that yet.  So some things are impossible for her to pick up and she makes a HUGE mess while getting to eat very little.
4146016
This is a cookbook for people that REALLY know how to cook -- I can handle pretty much anything in the kitchen and get dinner on the table on time but these are challenging recipes for me, and many of them are just too fancy to attempt. I've got two little kids to feed, not a few gourmet food type friends I'm making dinner for.

On the positive side, the book is very well-written. I may try some of the easier recipes, but not when I'm on a deadline. More than a couple of the ingredients are not exactly things I ordinarily stock in the kitchen. I do admire Lora Brody's approach to cooking and I will keep and reread this cookbook, though it's not the everyday Joe Lunchbucket type of book I really needed -- try "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook," which so far is the best of the four slow cooker cook books I've ordered through amazon.com
4174941
nice recipes although I never fully follow directions.
102509
The recipes call for a lot of ingredients and take a lot of time to prepare.  The few that I tried did taste good.
1192722
There's a lot to like about this cookbook and I use it a lot.  Wonderful tips for buying kitchen tools, which brands of these (and some ingredients) are best, great main meal recipes, etc.  But I was disappointed with the baking section.  I am an experienced baker and rarely have failures.  I bought a selection of the super-cute small baking pans required for these recipes and looked forward to making some of the small-batch cakes, cookies and quick breads.  With the exception of the cheesy bread  -  which was delicious  -  the baked goods were disappointing.  In all cases, the flavours were good, but the finished product was too dry, even though I baked for the minimum recommended time.  I've come to the conclusion that this must be because of the tiny amount of batter involved.  By the time it has cooked through, it has dried out.  And the tiny bundt cakes were fiddly to make, even though they looked delightful and released from the little pans easily.  There was a lot of washing-up created for a very small product.  Many baked goods freeze perfectly, so I shall probably go back to making full-size recipes in future.