Kitchen Confidence: Essential Recipes and Tips That Will Help You Cook Anything


Kelsey Nixon - 2014
    Her recipes, which are broken down into simple steps, teach readers how to cook, highlighting key tools and basic techniques everyone should know. And yet her flavors are anything but basic; Kelsey gives everyone the confidence to start with the 2.0 version of a recipe instead of the boring standards. For example, she makes her house pilaf with quinoa instead of rice, and her addictive fruit salad is a savory first course instead of a lackluster dessert.      With 100 recipes and 60 color photographs, Kitchen Confidence brings home all of the energy and spirit of the Cooking Channel show of the same name, making it an excellent handbook for newlyweds, recent college graduates, and those discovering their kitchens for the first time.

Nothing Fancy: Unfussy Food for Having People Over


Alison Roman - 2019
    It’s having people over. The social media star, New York Times columnist, and author of Dining In helps you nail dinner with unfussy food, unstuffy vibes, and the permission to be imperfect.   NAMED ONE OF FALL’S BEST COOKBOOKS BY The New York Times • Vogue • Food & Wine • Eater • Food52 • Bon Appétit • Epicurious • Chowhound • Forbes • Grub Street • A PEOPLE 2019 FOOD FAVORITE“Nothing Fancy delivers what those of hoping to up our dinner party game are looking for: It’s utterly current and distinctly doable.”—Eater   An unexpected weeknight meal with a neighbor or a weekend dinner party with fifteen of your closest friends—either way and everywhere in between, having people over is supposed to be fun, not stressful. This abundant collection of all-new recipes—heavy on the easy-to-execute vegetables and versatile grains, paying lots of close attention to crunchy, salty snacks, and with love for all the meats—is for gatherings big and small, any day of the week.   Alison Roman will give you the food your people want (think DIY martini bar, platters of tomatoes, pots of coconut-braised chicken and chickpeas, pans of lemony turmeric tea cake) plus the tips, sass, and confidence to pull it all off. With Nothing Fancy, any night of the week is worth celebrating.Praise for Nothing Fancy “[Nothing Fancy] is full of the sort of recipes that sound so good, one contemplates switching off any and all phones, calling in sick, and cooking through the bulk of them.”—Food52   “[Nothing Fancy] exemplifies that classic Roman approach to cooking: well-known ingredients rearranged in interesting and compelling ways for young home cooks who want food that looks (and photographs) as good as it tastes.”—Grub Street   “The recipes will provide well for friendly dinner parties, while still being straightforward enough to cook quickly on a midweek evening after work.”—Vogue   “Roman's recipes are elegant but straightforward, impressive but actionable, with an emphasis on easy vegetables (like peppers with yuzu), homespun desserts (like blackberry and cornmeal cake), and show-stopping entrees (like lamb chops for the table).”—Esquire

Chinese Soul Food: A Friendly Guide for Homemade Dumplings, Stir-Fries, Soups, and More


Hsiao-Ching Chou - 2018
    Chinese Soul Food draws cooks into the kitchen with recipes that include sizzling potstickers, stir-fries that areunbelievably easy to make, saucy braises, and soups that bring comfort with a sip. These are dishes that feed the belly and speak the universal language of "mmm!" You'll find approachable recipes and plenty of tips for favorite homestyle Chinese dishes, such as red-braised pork belly, dry-fried green beans, braised-beef noodle soup, green onion pancakes, garlic eggplant, and the author's famous potstickers, which consistently sell out her cooking classes in Seattle. You will also find helpful tips and techniques, such as caring for and using a wok and how to cook rice properly, as well as a basic Chinese pantry list that also includes acceptable substitutions, making it even simpler for the busiest among us to cook their favorite Chinese dishes at home. Recipes are streamlined to minimize the fear factor of unfamiliar ingredients and techniques, and home cooks are gently guided toward becoming comfortable cooking satisfying Chinese meals. Any kitchen can be a Chinese kitchen!

Rise and Shine: Better Breakfasts for Busy Mornings--with 75 recipes everyone will love


Katie Sullivan Morford - 2016
    Katie Morford has the key to a quick and easy for weekdays, slow and luxurious for relaxed weekends—you can turn your morning into an exercise in good nutrition and great taste. You'll find breakfasts that can be eaten at the table (Egg-in-a-Nest Pesto Pizzas), at the bus stop (Strawberries and Cream Spoon Smoothies), or on the run (Milk and Cereal Bars), all healthy alternatives to cold cereal and prepackaged bars that even picky eaters will love. Rise & Shine is tailor made for busy families who want to do mornings just a little bit better. It's a toolkit of ideas and inspiration to make a nourishing breakfast not only doable, but delicious.

Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters: More Than 100 Years of Recipes Discovered from Family Cookbooks, Original Journals, Scraps of Paper, and Grandmother's Kitchen


Marilynn Brass - 2006
    It's these dishes that give us comfort in times of stress, help us celebrate special occasions, and remind us of the person who used to bake for us those many years ago. In Heirloom Baking, Marilynn Brass and Sheila Brass preserve and update 150 of these beloved desserts. The recipes are taken from their vast collection of antique manuscript cookbooks, handwritten recipes passed down through the generations that they?ve amassed over twenty years. The recipes range from the late 1800s to today, and come from a variety of ethnicities and regions. The book features such down-home and delicious recipes as Brandied Raisin Teacakes, Cuban Flan, Cranberry-Orange Cream Scones, Chattanooga Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars, and many more. Accompanying the recipes are stories from the lives of the families from which they came. The Brass Sisters have taken care to update every recipe for today's modern kitchens. More than 150 photographs showcase the scrumptious food in full-color detail. Finally, the Brass sisters encourage each reader to begin collecting his or her own family recipes in the lined pages and envelope at the back of the book.

Prison Ramen: Recipes and Stories from Behind Bars


Clifton Collins - 2015
    All born from a bond of pure hunger?”—Samuel L. Jackson, from the Foreword   When you’re in prison, a little money in the commissary can mean the difference between a life of flavorless misery and the pleasure of re-creating a taste of childhood. And it starts with Ramen. Filled with contributions from anonymous inmates as well as names you’ll recognize, such as guitarist Slash and actors Danny Trejo, Taryn Manning, and Shia LaBeouf, Prison Ramen is an original collection of inspired Ramen hacks: Hit Man Burritos. Sloppy Ramen Joe. Onion Tortilla Ramen Soup. Shawshank Spread. And Orange Porkies: Chile ramen + white rice + 1 bag pork skins + orange-flavored punch.   Firsthand stories of life in prison, told by each of the contributors, go a long way to explaining the joy of doctoring a bag of Ramen. A joy you can now re-create in the freedom of your own kitchen.

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking


Samin Nosrat - 2017
    Chef and writer Samin Nosrat has taught everyone from professional chefs to middle school kids to author Michael Pollan to cook using her revolutionary, yet simple, philosophy. Master the use of just four elements—Salt, which enhances flavor; Fat, which delivers flavor and generates texture; Acid, which balances flavor; and Heat, which ultimately determines the texture of food—and anything you cook will be delicious. By explaining the hows and whys of good cooking, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will teach and inspire a new generation of cooks how to confidently make better decisions in the kitchen and cook delicious meals with any ingredients, anywhere, at any time. Echoing Samin’s own journey from culinary novice to award-winning chef, Salt, Fat Acid, Heat immediately bridges the gap between home and professional kitchens. With charming narrative, illustrated walkthroughs, and a lighthearted approach to kitchen science, Samin demystifies the four elements of good cooking for everyone. Refer to the canon of 100 essential recipes—and dozens of variations—to put the lessons into practice and make bright, balanced vinaigrettes, perfectly caramelized roast vegetables, tender braised meats, and light, flaky pastry doughs. Featuring 150 illustrations and infographics that reveal an atlas to the world of flavor by renowned illustrator Wendy MacNaughton, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will be your compass in the kitchen. Destined to be a classic, it just might be the last cookbook you’ll ever need. With a foreword by Michael Pollan.

Soup Night: Recipes for Creating Community Around a Pot of Soup


Maggie Stuckey - 2013
    The host provides two or three pots of soup, and the guests bring their own dishes and silverware, and perhaps a salad or some bread. Neighbors get to know each other by name, people of all ages connect and socialize, and the neighborhood becomes friendlier and safer. In Soup Night, Maggie Stuckey offers a practical guide to starting your own soup night group, along with 99 delicious soup recipes and 40 recipes for accompaniments.

The Food of a Younger Land: The WPA's Portrait of Food in Pre-World War II America


Mark Kurlansky - 2009
    Award-winning New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America: Before the national highway system brought the country closer together; before chain restaurants imposed uniformity and low quality; and before the Frigidaire meant frozen food in mass quantities, the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional. It helped form the distinct character, attitudes, and customs of those who ate it. In the 1930s, with the country gripped by the Great Depression and millions of Americans struggling to get by, FDR created the Federal Writers' Project under the New Deal as a make-work program for artists and authors. A number of writers, including Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, and Nelson Algren, were dispatched all across America to chronicle the eating habits, traditions, and struggles of local people. The project, called "America Eats," was abandoned in the early 1940s because of the World War and never completed. The Food of a Younger Land unearths this forgotten literary and historical treasure and brings it to exuberant life. Mark Kurlansky's brilliant book captures these remarkable stories, and combined with authentic recipes, anecdotes, photos, and his own musings and analysis, evokes a bygone era when Americans had never heard of fast food and the grocery superstore was a thing of the future. Kurlansky serves as a guide to this hearty and poignant look at the country's roots. From New York automats to Georgia Coca-Cola parties, from Arkansas possum-eating clubs to Puget Sound salmon feasts, from Choctaw funerals to South Carolina barbecues, the WPA writers found Americans in their regional niches and eating an enormous diversity of meals. From Mississippi chittlins to Indiana persimmon puddings, Maine lobsters, and Montana beavertails, they recorded the curiosities, commonalities, and communities of American food.

The Happy Cook: 125 Recipes for Eating Every Day Like It's the Weekend


Daphne Oz - 2016
    In The Happy Cook, Daphne Oz makes cooking fun and relaxing, and shows anyone—newbie or seasoned expert—how to celebrate every day with delicious meals that are as easy to create as they are to enjoy.Like cooking with a good friend and a glass of wine, The Happy Cook is filled with friendly advice, expert tips, inspiring ideas, and best of all, 125 simple yet fabulous recipes, all using just a handful of ingredients, that will transform the most nervous or reluctant novice into a happy, confident home cook.Here are recipes for the whole day and the whole week, from Saturday dinner parties to quick-and-easy weeknight leftovers. With The Happy Cook, eating well is a breeze with delights such as:Breakfast—Crispy-Crunchy Honey-Thyme Granola, Chocolate Almond Breakfast Bars, and Coconut-Mango PancakesLunch—Kale and Plum Salad with Miso Vinaigrette, Warm Spring Pea Soup, Seared Garlic-Lime Shrimp Banh Mi and Philly Cheesesteak QuesadillasDinner—Truffle Salt Roast Chicken with Lentils and Squash, Cashew Soba Noodles with Fried Shallots, Sea Bass Roasted Over Citrus, and Apricot-Rosemary Glazed Lamb ChopsDessert—"Outlaw" Carrot Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream, Better Brownies, Sour Apple Juice Pops, and Nutty Banana "Ice Cream"The Happy Cook is all about real-life application—and real-life success. Celebrate every occasion and every meal with mouthwatering, vibrant, easy food. It's not about perfection, as Daphne makes clear. It’s about the confidence to get into the kitchen, have fun, and become a happy cook!

The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie: Recipes, Techniques, and Wisdom from the Hoosier Mama Pie Company


Allison Scott - 2013
    When she opened her storefront that morning and saw a line around the block, she realized she had a more immediate problem: had she made enough pie? The shop closed early that day, but it has been churning out plenty of the Chicago's most delectable pies ever since.Since starting her career as a pastry chef at Trio, one of Chicago's top fine-dining restaurants, Haney dreamed of opening her own pie shop. Exhilarating and exhausting days spent creating fabulous new desserts to keep up with the restaurant's head chef--a then-unknown Grant Achatz, who would go on to culinary superstardom--left Haney in search of classic comfort food on her days off. Her disappointment in being unable to find a good slice of pie in all of Chicago led her to one conclusion: she needed to open her own store.Specializing in hand-made, artisanal pies that only use locally sourced and in-season ingredients, Hoosier Mama Pie Company has become a local favorite and a national destination gaining praise from Bon Appetit, the Food Network, and Food & Wine as one of the top pie shops in the country. Now, The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie delivers all the sumptuous secrets of buttery crusts, fruity fillings, creams and custards, chess pies, over-the-top pies, and even the stout and hearty savory pie. The practically oriented, easy-going, and accessible style of this book will help bakers both new and old make the perfect pie for every occasion.On top of all of this, The Hooser Mama Book of Pie also includes tips on technique, fascinating historical anecdotes, and an emphasis on special seasonal recipes, as well as quiches, hand pies, and scones. This beautifully photographed and designed book has the classic retro feel of the mid-20th century golden age of pie, and all the warmth and personality of the Hoosier Mama Pie Co.'s cozy Chicago storefront. The focus on using local produce and employing the farm-to-table philosophy gives the book a contemporary twist, helping home bakers make the freshest, most delicious pies imaginable. Now readers can take a little piece of the Hoosier Mama Pie Company anywhere they go.

It Starts with Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways


Dallas Hartwig - 2012
    Your success story begins with "The Whole30," Dallas and Melissa Hartwig's powerful 30-day nutritional reset.Over the last three years, their underground Whole30 program has quietly led tens of thousands of people to weight loss, improved quality of life and a healthier relationship with food—accompanied by stunning improvements in sleep, energy levels, mood and self-esteem. More significantly, devotees of their program have reported the "magical" elimination of hundreds of lifestyle-related diseases and conditions.Now, Dallas and Melissa detail the theories behind the Whole30, summarizing the science in a simple, accessible manner. It Starts With Food will show you how certain foods may be having negative effects on how you look, feel and live—in ways that you'd never associate with your diet. More importantly, they outline their life-long strategy for Eating Good Food in one clear and detailed action plan designed to help you create a healthy metabolism, heal your digestive tract, calm systemic inflammation and put an end to unhealthy cravings, habits, and relationships with food.Infused with their signature wit, tough love and common sense approach, It Starts With Food is based on the latest scientific research and real-life experience, and includes success stories, a shopping guide, a meal planning template, a 30-day meal plan with creative, delicious recipes, and much more.

Curtis Stone's What's For Dinner? Simple Recipes for Every Night of the Week


Curtis Stone - 2013
    Curtis Stone, host of Top Chef Masters and Around the World in 80 Plates, provides a culinary road map of time-saving kitchen solutions and delicious dishes for every day of the week.

The Wholesome Yum Easy Keto Cookbook: 100 Simple Low Carb Recipes. 10 Ingredients or Less


Maya Krampf - 2019
    Studies have shown that the keto diet stabilizes mood, raises energy levels, controls blood sugar, lowers blood pressure, improves cholesterol, and more. Unfortunately, many people are intimidated by keto--they don't have a lot of time to cook, they have a whole family to feed, or they worry that they'll miss their favorite meals. That is why Maya Krampf created her now hugely popular website, Wholesome Yum, to share easy keto recipes all with ten ingredients or less. And now, in her first cookbook, Maya is determined to show people that a keto lifestyle does not have to be complicated, time-consuming, unsustainable, or boring. The Wholesome Yum Easy Keto Cookbook features 100 super-simple, I-can't-believe-that's-keto recipes including flourless chocolate chip peanut butter waffles, sheet pan sausage breakfast sandwiches, crispy keto chicken fingers, spaghetti squash ramen soup, keto garlic bread sticks, cinnamon roll pizza, and much more. You don't have to give up your favorite foods--virtually anything you like to eat can be made keto, and delectably so. The book also features a primer on the keto diet, essential pantry-stocking tips, and a section dedicated to creating Maya's signature "fathead" keto dough that is used to prepare delicious keto breads, pastries, tortillas, and more.

Old-School Comfort Food: The Way I Learned to Cook


Alex Guarnaschelli - 2013
    The daughter of a respected cookbook editor and a Chinese cooking enthusiast, Alex developed a passion for food at a young age, sealing her professional fate. Old-School Comfort Food shares her journey from waist-high taste-tester to trained chef who now adores spending time in the kitchen with her daughter, along with the 100 recipes for how she learned to cook—and the way she still loves to eat.Here are Alex’s secrets to great home cooking, where humble ingredients and familiar preparations combine with excellent technique and care to create memorable meals. Alex brings her recipes to life with reminiscences of everything from stealing tomatoes from her aunt’s garden and her first bite of her mother’s pâté to being one of the few women in the kitchen of a renowned Parisian restaurant and serving celebrity clientele in her own successful New York City establishments. With 75 color photographs and ephemera, Old-School Comfort Food is Alex’s love letter to deliciousness.