5 Last Minute Cookbooks For Mother's Day

Lisa Schweitzer•

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  1. Super Natural Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes From My Natural Foods Kitchen, Heidi Swanson, $23

Swanson has culled her everyday favorites to come up with this collection of approachable recipes that will inspire anyone to get out and shop the farmers market. And don't let the words "natural foods" put you off—quinoa is delicious, wholesome, and easy to cook.


  • Saveur: The New Comfort Food—Home Cooking From Around The World, $35

    • If your mom reads food magazines or watches Top Chef Masters, she's surely a fan of Saveur (or at least its quirky Editor-in-Chief, James Oseland). This volume offers 100 recipes and even more drool-worthy photos of classic global comfort foods everyone loves, from Korean fried chicken to mac n' cheese.


  • Plenty: Vibrant Recipes From London's Ottolenghi, Yotam Ottolenghi, $35

    • This is a book about vegetables, not necessarily a book for vegetarians. Your wife/mom may not have heard of Ottolenghi, but she will. He's a super talented chef out of London who creates amazingly delicious, but not overly fussy vegetable dishes.


  • The Fearless Baker: Scrumptious Cakes, Pies, Cobblers, Cookies, And Quick Breads That You Can Make To Impress Your Friends And Yourself, Emily Luchetti and Lisa Weiss, $29.99

    • As the title suggests, baking need not paralyze anyone, let alone a newbie with shrink-wrapped cookie sheets. Luchetti and Weiss will guide even clumsy cooks through their first attempt at sugar cookies and truffle brownies, and even has chapter called No Oven Required.

  • The absolute laziest cookbook to give for Mother's Day:

    • The No Recipe Cookbook, Graham Rawlinson, $9.99 (Kindle only)

    This ebook is only available by download, so you can't even leave the house to buy it. Purchase it via Amazon for your Kindle-loving mom or wife (who has a great sense of humor) and see what she thinks of Rawlinson's deadpan approach to the cookbook. He's all about simplicity and the fundamentals of home cooking, with a healthy dose of reality regarding the drudgery we can feel about getting dinner on the table every night.

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