Tag: recipes

The Best Cookbooks

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These cookbooks are so excellent, you may want to make a permanent place on your bookshelf for them – I know I’ve checked each one out from DPL several times. The library can be a real lifesaver for thrifty cooks like me!

How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman: Drop everything and try the recipe for “Jim Lahey’s No-Work Bread” on page 833. It will blow. your. mind.

The Good Housekeeping Cookbook: Nothing but the best, most versatile, most standard, most essential recipes. I have checked this book out at least 5 times, and I’m always finding something new to try. I’ve gotten tons of compliments on their recipe for roasted red potatoes!

Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook: Although I’ve never joined Weight Watchers, I’ve always loved their cookbooks. All the recipes are flavorful despite being light, and the included nutrition facts are helpful for any weight loss goals. Recipes in this newest WW book run the gamut from the easy (Turkey Chowder: ten ingredients and 5 hours in your crock pot) to the hard (Tandoori Lamb with Almond-Apricot Couscous: unfamiliar ingredients with a big flavor payoff). Bonus: includes a large and very yummy vegetarian section.

The Sneaky Chef: how to cheat on your man (in the kitchen): Cooking healthy food for picky eaters is tough, whether they’re your kids or your spouse! This book is full of ingenious ways to hide healthy ingredients in hearty, familiar foods that anyone would love. Want to learn how to sneak cauliflower, zucchini, white beans, or yogurt into your mashed potatoes to cut down on fat and boost nutrients? How about adding spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, and zucchini to chili for a hearty and decadent meal with a serious nutritive punch? Awesome.

Herbivoracious by Micheal Natkin

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In Herbivoracious: A Vegetarian Cookbook for People Who Love to Eat, Michael Natkin offers up 150 exciting recipes notable both for their big, bold, bright flavors and for their beautiful looks on the plate, the latter apparent in more than 80 photos that grace the book. This is sophisticated, grown-up meatless cooking, the kind you can serve to company–even when your guests are dedicated meat-eaters.

An indefatigable explorer of global cuisines, with particular interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East and in East and Southeast Asia, Natkin has crafted, through years of experimenting in his kitchen, dishes that truly are revelations in taste, texture, aroma, and presentation. A third of the book is taken up with hearty main courses, ranging from a robust Caribbean Lentil-Stuffed Flatbread across the Atlantic to a comforting Sicilian Spaghetti with Pan-Roasted Cauliflower and around the Cape of Good Hope to a delectable Sichuan Dry-Fried Green Beans and Tofu. An abundance of soups, salads, sauces and condiments, sides, appetizers and small plates, desserts, and breakfasts round out the recipes.

Natkin, a vegetarian himself, provides lots of advice on how to craft vegetarian meals that amply deliver protein and other nutrients, and the imaginative menus he presents deliver balanced and complementary flavors, in surprising and utterly pleasing ways. The many dozens of vegan and gluten-free recipes are clearly noted, too, and an introductory chapter lays out the simple steps readers can take to outfit a globally inspired pantry of seasonings and sauces that make meatless food come alive. (description from publisher)

Mom 100 Cookbook by Katie Workman

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Katie Workman, founding editor in chief of Cookstr.com and mother of two school-age kids, offers recipes, tips, techniques, attitude, and wisdom for staying happy in the kitchen while proudly keeping it homemade—because homemade not only tastes best, but is also better (and most economical) for you.

The Mom 100 Cookbook is 20 dilemmas every mom faces, with 5 solutions for each: including terrific recipes for the vegetable-averse, the salad-rejector, for the fish-o-phobe, or the overnight vegetarian convert. “Fork-in-the-Road” variations make it easy to adjust a recipe to appeal to different eaters (i.e., the kids who want bland and the adults who don’t). “What the Kids Can Do” sidebars suggest ways for kids to help make each dish. The Mom 100 Cookbook is sure to help you keep your family fed and happy every night of the week. (description by publisher)

Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson

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Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson is a charming collection of updated recipes for both classic and forgotten cakes, from a timeless yellow birthday cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, to the new holiday standard, Gingerbread Icebox Cake with Mascarpone Mousse. Make every occasion–the annual bake sale, a birthday party, or even a simple Sunday supper–a celebration with this charming collection of more than 50 remastered classics.

Each recipe in Vintage Cakes is a confectionary stroll down memory lane. After sifting through her treasure trove of cookbooks and recipe cards, master baker and author Julie Richardson selected the most inventive, surprising, and just plain delicious cakes she could find. The result is a delightful and delectable time capsule of American baking, with recipes spanning a century. Richardson guides home bakers–whether total beginners or seasoned cooks–toward picture-perfect meringues, extra-creamy frostings, and lighter-than-air chiffons.

With recipes to make Betty Crocker proud, these nostalgic and foolproof sweets rekindle our love affair with cakes. (description from publisher)

Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach

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Inspired by her beloved blog, dinneralovestory.com, Jenny Rosenstrach’s story is many wonderful things: a memoir, a love story, a practical how-to guide for strengthening family bonds by making the most of dinnertime, and a compendium of palate-pleasing recipes.

Claiming that a committed family dinner every night helps strengthen the bonds of a family, Dinner: A Love Story provides recipes for easy-to-prepare family dinners including roast vegetables with polenta, spicy shrimp with yogurt, and homemade pizza. With simple strategies and common sense, Jenny figured out how to break down dinner—the food, the timing, the anxiety, from prep to cleanup—so that her family could enjoy good food, time to unwind, and simply be together.

Every meal is a real meal, one that has been cooked and eaten and enjoyed at least a half dozen times by someone in Jenny’s house. With inspiration and game plans for any home cook at any level, Dinner: A Love Story is as much for the novice who doesn’t know where to start as it is for the gourmand who doesn’t know how to start over when she finds herself feeding an intractable toddler or for the person who never thought about home-cooked meals until he or she became a parent. This book is, in fact, for anyone interested in learning how to make a meal to be shared with someone they love, and about how so many good, happy things happen when we do. (description from publisher)

Off the Menu by Marissa Guggiana

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For every dinner service, there is a staff meal, family-style celebrations prepared by chefs for their crew. The meals are never on the menu, but are designed to show appreciation, provide energy for the evening, and more importantly, please even the pickiest palate. Off the Menu brings you behind-the-scenes profiles of the country’s top restaurants, and explore the tradition of the staff meal.

Each night, sous chefs, line cooks, waiters, busboys, dishwashers, and managers all gather to eat, socialize, and plan before opening for business. Ranging from small plates to multi-course extravaganzas, from an inspired use of leftovers or entirely new offerings, the concept is simple: a well-fed staff is a happy one. Guggiana has taken the most remarkable, soulful, and mouthwatering of these dishes and translated them for the home cook. You will find more than 80 recipes from 50 of the nation’s top restaurants. Each entry includes profiles of the restaurants, behind-the-scenes trips to the kitchens, and dining out tips, restaurant tricks, and cooking techniques from the cream of the culinary crop.

Pull back the curtain on the staff meal, and find new, exciting ways to feed your family from the best in the business.

Martha’s Entertaining by Martha Stewart

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In this exquisite and very personal book, Martha Stewart welcomes you into her world, where she entertains in the beautiful style that she has made so famous. Whether a simple blueberry breakfast on a Sunday morning in Maine or a more lavish holiday dinner at Bedford, each of the gatherings is equally memorable, for what Martha cherishes above all is spending time and sharing delicious food with her family and friends.

Featuring elegant and casual affairs held throughout the year and a diverse collection of enticing recipes, Martha’s Entertaining shows us—in the broadest and most lovely fashion—what it really means to entertain and host today. From an afternoon Easter egg hunt for children to a festive Halloween dinner held inside her horse stable to a spring garden fête amid the most glorious beds of peonies, Martha’s parties offer a glimpse inside her beautiful homes.

All of the events feature menus and delicious yet approachable recipes: Tomato and Gruyère Toasts, Mini Crab Cakes with Tarragon Tartar Sauce, Tiny Tuna Burgers, Braised Short Ribs, Roast Turkey Breast with Sage Butter, Rhubarb Crumbles, Blueberry Jam Tartlets, and Chocolate Honey Ice Cream with Butterscotch Sauce, plus some of Martha’s favorite drinks, including Pomegranate Cosmopolitans and Honeydew Mojitos.

Set among Martha’s dining rooms, kitchens, gardens, and patios, this is her most intimate book yet, a new classic for hosts and home cooks of every generation. (description from publisher)

The Viennese Kitchen by Monica Meehan

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This beautiful book, The Viennese Kitchen by Monica Meehan, based on an original notebook and recipe journal of a 1900s baroness, takes readers on a journey through fin de siecle Viennese high society.

With over 100 original recipes, all of which have been tested and brought up to date for the modern cook, it is not only a wonderful collection of recipes but also a fascinating look at the life of a Viennese family. Filled with anecdotes and personal stories to bring the recipes to life, this book is a charming insight into a bygone era. The classic recipes cover a variety of dishes both savory and sweet, with a strong emphasis on the desserts and pastries for which Vienna is famed. Enchanting photographs of Vienna grace the book, capturing the architecture, cafe culture, and beauty of this elegant city.

Food Trucks by Heather Shouse

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A unique combination of old-fashioned chutzpah (becoming your own boss) and cutting edge technology (using twitter to tell your customers where you are), food trucks are all the rage. Significantly cheaper to open than a traditional brick-and-mortar restuarant, food trucks open the door to a better life for newly arrived immigrants (bringing authentic recipes from home) to a creative outlet and financial independence for wannbe-chefs and foodies. Plus, yum!

Food Trucks by Heather Shouse tours the country exploring the funky world of street food, from Hawaii to Los Angeles (ground zero for taco trucks) to Miami to New York City. You’d think (at least I did) that food trucks would be most prevelant on the coasts and in the southern, warmer states, but there are plenty of trucks worth seeking out in the Midwest (Madison, WI especially), the North and the Northwest. Interestingly, Chicago is considered a food truck backwater – city regulations prohibiting cooking in the truck means the food has to be prepared offsite, although it looks like that will be changed soon.  

Not quite a cookbook (although there are more than 40 recipes) and not quite a travel guide (although you’re going to want to hunt down some of these gems), Food Trucks is a fun look at a piece of Americana that is alive and kicking. Plus, again, yum!

Summer Cooking (and Eating!)

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Summer is here at last and that means the Farmers’ Markets and your backyard garden are filled with the bounty of the season. Take advantage of the harvest with some help from the following books:

Cooking in the Moment by Andrea Reusing – Interspersed with short essays and gorgeous photographs of Reusing’s farm and kitchen, this friendly cookbook celebrates simple food cooked with love through the seasons.

Cooking from the Farmers’ Market from William-Sonoma – As you would expect from Williams-Sonoma, this cookbook is beautiful and stylish and offers multiple recipes for each fruit and vegetable featured. Recipes are sophisticated but not out-of-reach.

Harvest to Heat: Cooking with America’s Best Chefs, Farmers and Artisans by Darry Estrine – Here’s a slightly different approach – following the growers and creators using the best ingredients. The emphasis is on family favorites and local delicacies across America.

Seasonal Recipes from the Garden by P Allen Smith – Low-key and approachable, this cookbook makes you feel like you’re exchanging recipes with a good friend. The recipes are favorites of P Allen Smith and his family and celebrate the backyard bounty of the garden.

The Art of Preserving from Williams-Sonoma – Keep some of that summer goodness for the cold days of winter. Not only does this book show you how to make delectable jams and jellys and salsas and relishes, it gives you multiple ways to use them in tasty dishes.