Cat Cora's Classics With a Twist - 9780547126036

On the Food Network, Iron Chef Cat Cora fires up the imagination of millions of cooks by improvising exciting dishes while the clock is ticking. Now in Cat Cora's Classics with a Twist, she shares the recipes she makes where cooking really counts: at home.

If you're searching for casual fare that looks as if you spent hours on it (but takes a fraction of the time), you'll want to try tomato-moz-zarella skewers with Bloody Mary vinaigrette (with crispy onion rings on the side), fettuc-cine with scallops and lime, and blueberry-lemon poppyseed upside-down cake.

And if you need fast, healthful meals, you'll find delicious inspiration in this book. These are the meals that Cat puts together after work for her own family, including her four boys under the age of seven: enchilada pie, easy chicken curry, bucatini pasta with bacon, and crispy baked fish sticks with honey mustard dipping sauce.

Wish your favorite dishes were a little faster, fresher, and brighter-flavored? Then you'll welcome Cat's takes on the classics: baked "fried" calamari, soft tacos with grilled flank steak and pineapple salsa, and cherry-filled chocolate cupcakes. Many, like Greek-style nachos, "pulled pork" sloppy joes, and red velvet coconut cake, are Cat's spins on foods she enjoyed as a child growing up in a Greek family in the South.

Cat helps you sneak out a few calories (when it improves the taste) and freshen things up, slipping chipotle chile croutons into Caesar salad or lemongrass into coq au vin. She reveals the secrets she learned over decades of cooking in restaurants. Best of all, Cat shows you how to "twist" these recipes, changing each one in subtle or dramatic ways the next time to make it your very own.