by: Jeff Mauro

“I definitely can help with the tried-and-true recipes that have satisfied my family for generations, as well as modern and whimsical twists on some of my favorites that I’ve developed over my career,” Jeff Mauro.

When I started reading through Come On Over, I felt like I was hanging out with a friend who had a great sense of humor and even better recipes. It made me want to cook and invite people over immediately.

Come On Over offers delicious, easy to follow recipes for any day of the week, whether you are hosting a large group or just your family. I believe this cookbook will be a go-to for me for a long time to come and am excited to try every recipe.

Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese

Do you love Jalapeno Poppers’s? I do and over the last few weeks I have been thinking of how much I wanted some, I even googled where the closest Sonic was since they have really good ones (no where close). Can you imagine how happy I was when I flipped through the cookbook to find the Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese – let’s say if there had been jalapenos in my house I would have made it that instant!

The recipe is very simple to follow and it doesn’t take a long time to make. I don’t really love super spicy sandwiches so I took all of the ribs and seeds out of my jalapenos. One suggestion I would make is to pull your cream cheese out of the fridge about a half hour before you want to make the sandwich so it has so time to soften, mine was a little hard to mix.

The sandwiches came out perfect and captured everything I love about jalapeno poppers. We are headed to my parents house this week and I plan to make these again there. My Dad loves spice and jalapenos so he will probably want some of the seeds and ribs left in his.

Reverse-Seared Rib Eyes

One cooking rule that I have a hard time following is allowing my meat to rest after cooking. I don’t want it to get cold, so I wait as long as I can, but never make it the full amount of time. When I stumbled across this recipe I thought – now he must have had people like me in mind – no rest time needed!

You must remember when making this recipe that you have to prep the rib eyes the night before. It is simple and only takes a few minutes to prep but it needs to happen the night before. To cook the rib eyes it is just done in the oven and then seared on the stove top in a cast iron pan. Word of warning though when I added the butter to my cast iron skillet while searing it smoked a lot (I have a super sensitive smoke alarm in my apartment, but luckily it didn’t go off).

The rib eyes came out with a nice crust and was delicious. This recipe is a great way to cook the rib eyes and not have to let them rest.

Just don’t do what I did and when you are cutting it drop half on the kitchen floor. Thank goodness I had made a big batch of mushroom rice as a side to make up for the missing meat, it was really sad.

I love a good cookbook with a variety of recipes that show you how to make dishes in new ways, Come On Over is definitely one of those cookbooks. The recipes in the cookbook range from brunch to healthy recipes to Mexican recipes to pizzas and even sandwiches.

Next on my list of things to make from Come On Over is the True Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza. Even though I grew up on the East coast I love deep dish pizza. What recipe are you looking forward to making?