Come on in, but be prepared—it might not be quite what you expect. There is flour on the counter, oats that overflowed onto the floor, chocolate-encrusted spoons in the sink. There is Joey, the husband, exhausted by the thirty-five preschoolers who were hanging on him all day, and he is stuffing granola into his mouth to ease his five o’clock starvation. There are two little girls trying to show me cartwheels in that miniscule space between the refrigerator and the counter where I really need to be.” In her debut cookbook, Alana Chernila inspires you to step inside your kitchen, take a look around, and change the way you relate to food. The Homemade Pantry was born of a tight budget, Alana’s love for sharing recipes with her farmers’ market customers, and a desire to enjoy a happy cooking and eating life with her young family. On a mission to kick their packaged-food habit, she learned that with a little determination, anything she could buy at the store could be made in her kitchen, and her homemade versions were more satisfying, easier to make than she expected, and tastier.              Here are her very approachable recipes for 101 everyday staples, organized by supermarket aisle—from crackers to cheese, pesto to sauerkraut, and mayonnaise to toaster pastries. The Homemade Pantry is a celebration of food made by hand—warm mozzarella that is stretched, thick lasagna noodles rolled from flour and egg, fresh tomato sauce that bubbles on the stove. Whether you are trying a recipe for butter, potato chips, spice mixes, or ketchup, you will discover the magic and thrill that comes with the homemade pantry.            Alana captures the humor and messiness of everyday family life, too. A true friend to the home cook, she shares her “tense moments” to help you get through your own. With stories offering patient, humble advice, tips for storing the homemade foods, and rich four-color photography throughout, The Homemade Pantry will quickly become the go-to source for how to make delicious staples in your home kitchen.

    Make anise hyssop into a refreshing iced tea and turn apricots into a facial mask. Crabapple branches can be used to create stunning floral arrangements, oregano flowers to infuse vinegar, and edible chrysanthemum to liven up a salad. With the remarkable, multi-purpose plants in Harvest, there is always something for gardeners to harvest from one growing season to the next.

    Mark Bittman, the bestselling, award-winning author of How to Cook Everything , shows you how to make a good burger or delicious pasta for everyday meals as well as chicken soup on a cold day, lasagne because you love it, and prime rib for company. Not only will you make some of the best food you ve ever eaten, you ll save money and eat more healthfully, too.Anyone can cookSimple, satisfying recipes with easy-to-follow directionsTips to help you shop for, prepare, and cook the recipesRecipe variations and lists of ideas to adapt dishes to your tasteStep-by-step illustrations for tricky techniques like mincing garlicSimple. Straightforward.Just what you need to cook well."

    A fresh take on modern homemaking, this is a practical (and sometimes sassy) guide to maximizing your time, effort, and energy in the kitchen and beyond. With a focus on less consumerism, it will teach you how to organize your kitchen and home to make the best use of your time. For those yearning to live a more ecologically minded, grounded lifestyle, this book is full of practical, no-nonsense advice, fabulous recipes, and time- and money-saving techniques.

    Their life had hit rock bottom, and it was only after a touching act of charity that they were able to get on their feet again.Inspired by this gesture of kindness as well as the beloved Little House on the Prairie books, Merissa found that a life of self-sufficiency and simplicity could be charming and blissful. She set out to live an entirely made-from-scratch life, the “Little House” way, and as a result, she slashed her household budget by nearly half—saving thousands of dollars a year. She started to write about homesteading, homemaking, and cooking from scratch, and over the next few years developed the recipes and DIY projects that would one day become part of her now beloved website, LittleHouseLiving.com.As whole foods became staples of the family diet, Merissa realized the dangers of putting overly processed ingredients not only into our bodies, but on or near them as well. In addition to countless delicious, home-cooked meals, she developed natural, easy-to-make recipes for everything from sunscreen to taco seasoning mix, lemon poppy hand scrub to furniture polish. With their simple ingredients, these recipes are allergen friendly and many are gluten-free.With over 130 practical, simple DIY recipes, gorgeous full-color photographs, and Merissa's trademark charm in personal stories and tips, Little House Living is the epitome of heartland warmth and prairie inspiration.

    F. K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf— written in 1942 during wartime shortages—An Everlasting Meal shows that cooking is the path to better eating. Through the insightful essays in An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler issues a rallying cry to home cooks. In chapters about boiling water, cooking eggs and beans, and summoning respectable meals from empty cupboards, Tamar weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on instinctive cooking. Tamar shows how to make the most of everything you buy, demonstrating what the world’s great chefs know: that great meals rely on the bones and peels and ends of meals before them. She explains how to smarten up simple food and gives advice for fixing dishes gone awry. She recommends turning to neglected onions, celery, and potatoes for inexpensive meals that taste full of fresh vegetables, and cooking meat and fish resourcefully. By wresting cooking from doctrine and doldrums, Tamar encourages readers to begin from wherever they are, with whatever they have. An Everlasting Meal is elegant testimony to the value of cooking and an empowering, indispensable tool for eaters today.

    Stretch the resources of your small backyard garden further than ever before, without devoting hundreds of hours to canning! This informative and inspiring guide shows you not only how to construct your own root cellar, but how to best use the earth’s naturally cool, stable temperature as an energy-saving way to store nearly 100 varieties of perishable fruits and vegetables.

    In this extensive collection, fermentation pioneer Holly Davis shares more than 120 recipes for familiar—and lesser-known—cultured foods, including yogurt, pickles, kimchi, umeboshi, scrumpy, and more. This inspiring resource contains more than 100 photographs, plus plenty of helpful how-tos and informational charts offering guidance on incorporating fermented ingredients into the diet. With a luxe textured cover and brimming with engaging projects for cooks of all skill levels, this cookbook will be the cornerstone of every preserving kitchen.

    Readers will learn the fundamentals of gardening--from what, when and how to plant--presented with options for container gardening, raised-bed gardening, traditional gardening and even covert gardening where they blend edible plants into their flowerbeds. The authors will draw from their real-life experiences as they teach readers how to keep bees, chickens and even goats in their backyards while still keeping the peace with their neighbors and their municipalities. Seventy-five recipes will show readers how to turn the eggs, honey, beeswax, goat milk and plants they harvest in to natural skin care products and non-toxic cleaning products. Readers will also find plenty of ideas for cute handmade gifts for family and friends. Finally, in true homesteading fashion, readers will find advice on how to build community in their neighborhood with babysitting co-ops, meal co-ops and barter systems.

    Yet here is a book that goes back to the future--celebrating traditional but little-known French techniques for storing and preserving edibles in ways that maximize flavor and nutrition.Translated into English, and with a new foreword by Deborah Madison, this book deliberately ignores freezing and high-temperature canning in favor of methods that are superior because they are less costly and more energy-efficient.As Eliot Coleman says in his foreword to the first edition, "Food preservation techniques can be divided into two categories: the modern scientific methods that remove the life from food, and the natural 'poetic' methods that maintain or enhance the life in food. The poetic techniques produce... foods that have been celebrated for centuries and are considered gourmet delights today.""Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning" offers more than 250 easy and enjoyable recipes featuring locally grown and minimally refined ingredients. It is an essential guide for those who seek healthy food for a healthy world.

    Learn a few basic country skills, she reasoned, and she would be able to produce at least some of the food and resources she used every day.Goodbye, fast food and Wonder Bread; hello, homesteading. With enthusiasm and joy for the tasks at hand, Woginrich embarked on a journey that has been sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking and always soul satisfying.From the fulfilling work of planting a garden and installing honeybees, to the bliss of gathering fresh eggs for an omelet or playing an old-time ballad on the fiddle, Made from Scratch shares the honest satisfaction of doing for oneself, and brings the reader to a deep appreciation for the value of simple skills performed well.

    Her blog, Skinnytaste is the number one go-to site for slimmed down recipes that you’d swear are anything but. It only takes one look to see why people go crazy for Gina’s food: cheesy, creamy Fettuccini Alfredo with Chicken and Broccoli with only 420 calories per serving, breakfast dishes like Make-Ahead Western Omelet "Muffins" that truly fill you up until lunchtime, and sweets such as Double Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies that are low in sugar and butter-free but still totally indulgent. The Skinnytaste Cookbook features 150 amazing recipes: 125 all-new dishes and 25 must-have favorites. As a busy mother of two, Gina started Skinnytaste when she wanted to lose a few pounds herself. She turned to Weight Watchers for help and liked the program but struggled to find enough tempting recipes to help her stay on track. Instead, she started “skinny-fying” her favorite meals so that she could eat happily while losing weight. With 100 stunning photographs and detailed nutritional information for every recipe, The Skinnytaste Cookbook is an incredible resource of fulfilling, joy-inducing meals that every home cook will love.

    With more than 200 recipes for tasty pre-dinner bites, substantial small plates, special-occasion finger foods, and quick snacks to enjoy with drinks, Martha Stewart’s Appetizers is the new go-to guide for any type of get-together.

    Whether we’re cooking for ourselves, for a date night in, for a Sunday supper with friends, or for family on a busy weeknight, we all want recipes that are unfussy to make with triumphant results. Deb thinks that cooking should be an escape from drudgery. Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant and Unfussy New Favorites presents more than one hundred impossible-to-resist recipes—almost all of them brand-new, plus a few favorites from her website—that will make you want to stop what you’re doing right now and cook. These are real recipes for real people—people with busy lives who don’t want to sacrifice flavor or quality to eat meals they’re really excited about.You’ll want to put these recipes in your Forever Files: Sticky Toffee Waffles (sticky toffee pudding you can eat for breakfast), Everything Drop Biscuits with Cream Cheese, and Magical Two-Ingredient Oat Brittle (a happy accident). There’s a (hopelessly, unapologetically inauthentic) Kale Caesar with Broken Eggs and Crushed Croutons, a Mango Apple Ceviche with Sunflower Seeds, and a Grandma-Style Chicken Noodle Soup that fixes everything. You can make Leek, Feta, and Greens Spiral Pie, crunchy Brussels and Three Cheese Pasta Bake that tastes better with brussels sprouts than without, Beefsteak Skirt Steak Salad, and Bacony Baked Pintos with the Works (as in, giant bowls of beans that you can dip into like nachos). And, of course, no meal is complete without cake (and cookies and pies and puddings): Chocolate Peanut Butter Icebox Cake (the icebox cake to end all icebox cakes), Pretzel Linzers with Salted Caramel, Strawberry Cloud Cookies, Bake Sale Winning-est Gooey Oat Bars, as well as the ultimate Party Cake Builder—four one-bowl cakes for all occasions with mix-and-match frostings (bonus: less time spent doing dishes means everybody wins).Written with Deb’s trademark humor and gorgeously illustrated with her own photographs, Smitten Kitchen Every Day is filled with what are sure to be your new favorite things to cook.

    Center stage are carefully spelled-out recipes flanked by Julia's and Jacques's comments--the accumulated wisdom of two lifetimes of honing their cooking skills. Nothing is written in stone, they imply. And that is one of the most important lessons for every good cook.So sharpen your knives and join in the fun as you learn to make:- Appetizers: from traditional and instant gravlax to your own sausage in brioche and a country p�t�- Soups: from New England chicken chowder and onion soup gratin�e to Mediterranean seafood stew and that creamy essence of mussels, billi-bi- Eggs: omelets and "tortillas"; scrambled, poached, and coddled eggs; eggs as a liaison for sauces and as the puffing power for souffl�s - Salads and Sandwiches: basic green and near-Ni�oise salads; a crusty round seafood-stuffed bread, a lobster roll, and a pan bagnat - Potatoes: baked, mashed, hash-browned, scalloped, souffl�d, and French-fried - Vegetables: the favorites from artichokes to tomatoes, blanched, steamed, saut�ed, braised, glazed, and gratin�ed - Fish: familiar varieties whole and filleted (with step-by-step instructions for preparing your own), steamed en papillote, grilled, seared, roasted, and poached, plus a classic sole meuni�re and the essentials of lobster cookery - Poultry: the perfect roast chicken (Julia's way and Jacques's way); holiday turkey, Julia's deconstructed and Jacques's galantine; their two novel approaches to duck - Meat: the right technique for each cut of meat (along with lessons in cutting up), from steaks and hamburger to boeuf bourguignon and roast leg of lamb - Desserts: cr�me caramel, profiteroles, chocolate roulade, free-form apple tart--as you make them you'll learn all the important building blocks for handling dough, cooking custards, preparing fillings and frostings - And much, much more . . .Throughout this richly illustrated book you'll see Julia's and Jacques's hands at work, and you'll sense the pleasure the two are having cooking together, tasting, exchanging ideas, and raising a glass to savor the fruits of their labor. Again and again they demonstrate that cooking is endlessly fascinating and challenging and, while ultimately personal, it is a joy to be shared.