Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch -- Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foods


Jennifer Reese - 2011
    She had never before considered making her own peanut butter and pita bread, let alone curing her own prosciutto or raising turkeys. And though it sounded logical that "doing it yourself" would cost less, she had her doubts. So Reese began a series of kitchen-related experiments, taking into account the competing demands of everyday contemporary American family life as she answers some timely questions: When is homemade better? Cheaper? Are backyard eggs a more ethical choice than store-bought? Will grinding and stuffing your own sausage ruin your week? Is it possible to make an edible maraschino cherry? Some of Reese's discoveries will surprise you: Although you should make your hot dog buns, guacamole, and yogurt, you should probably buy your hamburger buns, potato chips, and rice pudding. Tired? Buy your mayonnaise. Inspired? Make it. With its fresh voice and delightful humor, Make the Bread, Buy the Butter gives 120 recipes with eminently practical yet deliciously fun "Make or buy" recommendations. Reese is relentlessly entertaining as she relates her food and animal husbandry adventures, which amuse and perplex as well as nourish and sustain her family. Her tales include living with a backyard full of cheerful chickens, muttering ducks, and adorable baby goats; countertops laden with lacto-fermenting pickles; and closets full of mellowing cheeses. Here's the full picture of what is involved in a truly homemade life -- with the good news that you shouldn't try to make everything yourself -- and how to get the most out of your time in the kitchen.

Momofuku Milk Bar


Christina Tosi - 2011
    It all started one day when Momofuku founder David Chang asked Christina to make a dessert for dinner that night. Just like that, the pastry program at Momofuku began, and Christina’s playful desserts helped the restaurants earn praise from the New York Times and the Michelin Guide and led to the opening of Milk Bar, which now draws fans from around the country and the world.With all the recipes for the bakery’s most beloved desserts—along with ones for savory baked goods that take a page from Chang’s Asian-flavored cuisine, such as Kimchi Croissants with Blue Cheese—and 100 color photographs, Momofuku Milk Bar makes baking irresistible off-beat treats at home both foolproof and fun.

Jacques Pépin More Fast Food My Way


Jacques Pépin - 2008
    Only Jacques could have come up with dishes so innovative and uncomplicated.“Minute recipes”: Nearly no-cook recipes fit for company: Cured Salmon Morsels, Glazed Sausage BitsSmashing appetizers: Scallop Pancakes, zipped together in a blender (10 minutes)Almost instant soups: Creamy Leek and Mushroom Soup (7 minutes)Fast, festive dinners: Stuffed Pork Fillet on Grape Tomatoes (18 minutes)Stunning desserts: Mini Almond Cakes in Raspberry Sauce (15 minutes)

Simply Delicious Amish Cooking: Recipes and stories from the Amish of Sarasota, Florida


Sherry Gore - 2013
    Unlike any other Plain community in the world, this village is a virtual melting pot of Amish and Mennonites from around the world, intermingled with people, like author Sherry Gore's family, who live there year-round. Gore has put together a cookbook that represents the people who make Pinecraft unique. With hundreds of easy-to-prepare recipes, 16 full-color photographs and black-and-white photographs throughout, this cookbook includes traditional favorites such as Sweet Potato Sweet Mash and Mrs. Byler's Glazed Donuts, as well as Florida favorites including Fried Alligator Nuggets, Grilled Lime Fish Fillets, and Strawberry Mango Smoothies. Interspersed with the recipes are true-life stories about births, engagements, weddings, deaths, funerals, celebrations, wildlife encounters, and accidents told through years of Sherry's Letters from Home column published in The Budget, the Amish newspaper. This delightful cookbook offers readers a faith-based, family-focused perspective of the simple way of life of the Plain People. It is truly a breath of fresh air from Sarasota, Florida!

The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread


Peter Reinhart - 2001
    Never one to be content with yesterday’s baking triumph, however, Peter continues to refine his recipes and techniques in his never-ending quest for extraordinary bread.In The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, Peter shares his latest bread breakthroughs, arising from his study in several of France’s famed boulangeries and the always-enlightening time spent in the culinary academy kitchen with his students. Peer over Peter’s shoulder as he learns from Paris’s most esteemed bakers, like Lionel Poilâne and Phillippe Gosselin, whose pain à l’ancienne has revolutionized the art of baguette making. Then stand alongside his students in the kitchen as Peter teaches the classic twelve stages of building bread, his clear instructions accompanied by over 100 step-by-step photographs.You’ll put newfound knowledge into practice with 50 new master formulas for such classic breads as rustic ciabatta, hearty pain de campagne, old-school New York bagels, and the book’s Holy Grail–Peter’s version of the famed pain à l’ancienne. En route, Peter distills hard science, advanced techniques, and food history into a remarkably accessible and engaging resource that is as rich and multitextured as the loaves you’ll turn out. This is original food writing at its most captivating, teaching at its most inspired and inspiring–and the rewards are some of the best breads under the sun.

An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace


Tamar Adler - 2011
    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.

Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round


Marisa McClellan - 2011
     Popular food blogger and doyenne of canning, Marisa McClellan, is using small batches and inventive flavors to make preserving easy enough for any novice to tackle. If you grew up eating home-preserved jams and pickles, or even if you're new to putting up, you'll find recipes to savor. Sample any of the 100 seasonal recipes:In the spring: Apricot Jam and Rhubarb SyrupIn the summer: Blueberry Butter and Peach SalsaIn the fall: Dilly Beans and Spicy Pickled CauliflowerIn the winter: Three-Citrus Marmalade and Cranberry KetchupMarisa's confident, practical voice answers questions and quells any fears of accidental canning mistakes, and the book is written for cooks of any skill level. Stories of wild blackberry jam and California Meyer lemon marmalade from McClellan's childhood make for a read as pleasurable as it is delicious; her home-canned food-learned from generations of the original "foodies"-feeds the soul as well as the body.

BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts


Stella Parks - 2017
    Whether down-home delights like Blueberry Muffins and Glossy Fudge Brownies or supermarket mainstays such as Vanilla Wafers and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream, your favorites are all here. These meticulously tested recipes bring an award-winning pastry chef’s expertise into your kitchen, along with advice on how to “mix it up” with over 200 customizable variations—in short, exactly what you’d expect from a cookbook penned by a senior editor at Serious Eats. Yet BraveTart is much more than a cookbook, as Stella Parks delves into the surprising stories of how our favorite desserts came to be, from chocolate chip cookies that predate the Tollhouse Inn to the prohibition-era origins of ice cream sodas and floats. With a foreword by The Food Lab’s J. Kenji López-Alt, vintage advertisements for these historical desserts, and breathtaking photography from Penny De Los Santos, BraveTart is sure to become an American classic.

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking


Marcella Hazan - 1992
    Designed as a basic manual for cooks of all levels of expertise—from beginners to accomplished professionals—it offers both an accessible and comprehensive guide to techniques and ingredients and a collection of the most delicious recipes from the Italian repertoire. As home cooks who have used Marcella’s classic books for years (and whose copies are now splattered and worn) know, there is no one more gifted at teaching us just what we need to know about the taste and texture of a dish and how to achieve it, and there is no one more passionate and inspiring about authentic Italian food.

Just Add Sauce: A Revolutionary Guide to Boosting the Flavor of Everything You Cook


America's Test Kitchen - 2018
    From dolloping on vegetables to drizzling on steak, simmering up curries, and stir-frying noodles, instantly make everything you cook taste better with hundreds of flavorful, modern sauces paired with easy recipes that use them in creative, inspired ways. Just Add Sauce is structured to help you find and make exactly what you're in the mood for. Start with sauce and then plan your meal, or start with your protein and find the perfect sauce with our pairing suggestions. Sauce recipes include Foolproof Hollandaise, Lemon-Basil Salsa Verde, Vodka Cream Marinara Sauce, Onion-Balsamic Relish, Ginger-Scallion Stir-Fry Sauce, Mole Poblano, Rosemary-Red Wine Sauce, and Honey-Mustard Glaze. More than 100 recipe pairings include Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto-Rubbed Chicken Breasts with Ratatouille, Garlic-Roasted Top Sirloin with Tarragon-Sherry Gravy, and Green Bean Salad with Asiago-Bacon Caesar Dressing.

The Professional Chef


Culinary Institute of America - 1974
    Now in a revolutionary revision, The Professional Chef, Seventh Edition not only teaches the reader how, but is designed to reflect why the CIA methods are the gold standard for chefs. With lavish, four-color photography and clear, instructive text, The Professional Chef, Seventh Edition guides culinary students--professional aspirants and serious home cooks, alike--to mastery of the kitchen. Over 660 classic and contemporary recipes, with almost 200 variations, were chosen especially for their use of fundamental techniques. These techniques and recipes form a foundation from which a professional chef or home cook can build a personal repertoire.From mise en place (preparation) to finished dishes, the book covers Stocks, Sauces, and Soups; Meats, Poultry, Fish, and Shellfish; Vegetables, Potatoes, Grains, and Legumes, Pasta and Dumplings; Breakfast and Garde Manger; Baking and Pastry. In addition to a comprehensive treatment of techniques and recipes, The Professional Chef, Seventh Edition teaches readers other critical elements of the professional chef's domain--much of it universally applicable to any kitchen. From "An Introduction to the Professional," to the identification of tools and ingredients, to nutrition, food science and food and kitchen safety, the book is a wealth of beautifully presented information useful for any cook.The Culinary Institute of America has been hailed as "The nation's most influential training school for professional cooks" by Time magazine. The Professional Chef, Seventh Edition, the cornerstone of its program in book form, belongs on the shelf of every serious cook.

Food52 Genius Recipes: 100 Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook


Kristen Miglore - 2015
      Genius recipes surprise us and make us rethink the way we cook. They might involve an unexpectedly simple technique, debunk a kitchen myth, or apply a familiar ingredient in a new way. They’re handed down by luminaries of the food world and become their legacies. And, once we’ve folded them into our repertoires, they make us feel pretty genius too. In this collection are 100 of the smartest and most remarkable ones.   There isn’t yet a single cookbook where you can find Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter, Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread, and Nigella Lawson’s Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake—plus dozens more of the most talked about, just-crazy-enough-to-work recipes of our time. Until now.   These are what Food52 Executive Editor Kristen Miglore calls genius recipes. Passed down from the cookbook authors, chefs, and bloggers who made them legendary, these foolproof recipes rethink cooking tropes, solve problems, get us talking, and make cooking more fun. Every week, Kristen features one such recipe and explains just what’s so brilliant about it in the James Beard Award-nominated Genius Recipes column on Food52. Here, in this book, she compiles 100 of the most essential ones—nearly half of which have never been featured in the column—with tips, riffs, mini-recipes, and stunning photographs from James Ransom, to create a cooking canon that will stand the test of time.   Once you try Michael Ruhlman’s fried chicken or Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi’s hummus, you’ll never want to go back to other versions. But there’s also a surprising ginger juice you didn’t realize you were missing and will want to put on everything—and a way to cook white chocolate that (finally) exposes its hidden glory. Some of these recipes you’ll follow to a T, but others will be jumping-off points for you to experiment with and make your own. Either way, with Kristen at the helm, revealing and explaining the genius of each recipe, Genius Recipes is destined to become every home cook’s go-to resource for smart, memorable cooking—because no one cook could have taught us so much.

The Art of Fermentation: An in-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World


Sandor Ellix Katz - 2012
    Sandor Katz presents the concepts and processes behind fermentation in ways that are simple enough to guide a reader through their first experience making sauerkraut or yogurt, and in-depth enough to provide greater understanding and insight for experienced practitioners.While Katz expertly contextualizes fermentation in terms of biological and cultural evolution, health and nutrition, and even economics, this is primarily a compendium of practical information--how the processes work; parameters for safety; techniques for effective preservation; troubleshooting; and more.With two-color illustrations and extended resources, this book provides essential wisdom for cooks, homesteaders, farmers, gleaners, foragers, and food lovers of any kind who want to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for arguably the oldest form of food preservation, and part of the roots of culture itself.Readers will find detailed information on fermenting vegetables; sugars into alcohol (meads, wines, and ciders); sour tonic beverages; milk; grains and starchy tubers; beers (and other grain-based alcoholic beverages); beans; seeds; nuts; fish; meat; and eggs, as well as growing mold cultures, using fermentation in agriculture, art, and energy production, and considerations for commercial enterprises. Sandor Katz has introduced what will undoubtedly remain a classic in food literature, and is the first--and only--of its kind.

Super Natural Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen


Heidi Swanson - 2011
    From her Northern California kitchen, she introduced us to a less-processed world of cooking and eating through her award-winning blog, 101 Cookbooks, and in her James Beard Award–nominated cookbook, Super Natural Cooking, she taught us how to expand our pantries and integrate nutrient-rich superfoods into our diets. In Super Natural Every Day, Heidi helps us make nutritionally packed meals part of our daily repertoire by sharing a sumptuous collection of nearly 100 of her go-to recipes. These are the dishes that Heidi returns to again and again because they’re approachable, good for the body, and just plain delicious. This stylish cookbook is equal parts inspiration and instruction, showing us how to create a welcoming table filled with nourishing food for friends and family.  The seductively flavorful vegetarian recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, treats, and drinks are quick to the table but tasty enough to linger over. Grab a Millet Muffin or some flaky Yogurt Biscuits for breakfast on the go, or settle into a lazy Sunday morning with a stack of Multi-grain Pancakes and a steaming cup of Ginger Tea. A bowl of Summer Squash Soup or a couple of Chanterelle Tacos make for a light and healthy lunch, and for dinner, there’s Black Sesame Otsu, Pomegranate-Glazed Eggplant with Tempeh, or the aptly named Weeknight Curry. Heidi’s Rose Geranium Prosecco is the perfect start to a celebratory meal, and the Buttermilk Cake with fresh plums or Sweet Panzanella will satisfy even the most stubborn sweet tooth. Gorgeously illustrated with over 100 photos that showcase the engaging rhythms of Heidi’s culinary life and travels, Super Natural Every Day reveals the beauty of uncomplicated food prepared well and reflects a realistic yet gourmet approach to a healthy and sophisticated natural foods lifestyle.

What's a Cook to Do?: An Illustrated Guide to 484 Essential Tips, Techniques, and Tricks


James Peterson - 2007
    Culinary students everywhere rely on the comprehensive and authoritative cookbooks published by chef, instructor, and award-winning author Jim Peterson. And now, for the first time, this guru-to-the-professionals turns his prodigious knowledge into a practical, chockablock, quick-reference, A-to-Z answer book for the rest of us. Look elsewhere for how to bone skate or trim out a saddle of lamb, how to sauté sweetbreads or flambé dessert. Look here instead for how to zest a lemon, make the perfect hamburger, bread a chicken breast, make (truly hot) coffee in a French press, make magic with a Microplane. It’s all here: how to season a castiron pan, bake a perfect pie, keep shells from sticking to hardcooked eggs. How to carve a turkey, roast a chicken, and chop, slice, beat, broil, braise, or boil any ingredient you’re likely to encounter. Information on seasoning, saucing, and determining doneness (by internal temperatures, timings, touch, and sight) guarantee that you’ve eaten your last bland and overcooked meal. Here are 500 invaluable techniques with nearly as many color photographs, bundled into a handy, accessible format.