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.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking


Jeff Hertzberg - 2007
    With more than half a million copies of their books in print, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois have proven that people want to bake their own bread, so long as they can do it easily and quickly.Crusty baguettes, mouth-watering pizzas, hearty sandwich loaves, and even buttery pastries can easily become part of your own personal menu, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day will teach you everything you need to know, opening the eyes of any potential baker."

The Silver Palate Cookbook


Julee Rosso - 1982
    Originally published in 1982, the book's elegant, innovative recipes and emphasis on pure, fresh, ingredients ushered a new passion for food and hospitality into the American consciousness. The lively collection of clear, step-by-step recipes ranges from sublimely refined traditions-Pesto, Manhattan Clam Chowder, and Stuffed Artichokes-to original creations certain to become the topic of conversation at any dinner party. There's PatS de Campagne with Walnuts and Juniper Berries. Fruit-Stuffed Cornish Hens. Caviar Eclairs. Blueberry Bisque. Plus over 300 more recipes for hors d'oeuvres, dips and sauces, picnic fare, entrSes, salads, soups, breads, desserts. Throughout the book are valuable menu and serving suggestions, literary quotes, food guides, food lore, and whimsical illustrations. Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, Quality Paperback Book Club, Book-of-the-Month Club's HomeStyle Books, Better Homes & Gardens Family Book Service, and the ABA Basic Booklist. A James Beard Book Awards inductee into the cookbook Hall of Fame.

Antoni in the Kitchen


Antoni Porowski - 2019
    With appealing vulnerability, he shows cooks of all levels how to become more confident and casual in the kitchen. The verve and naturalness of his approach earned raves from Food & Wine and Bon Appétit to GQ and the New York Times, which noted his dishes prove that “sometimes simple is anything but simplistic.” Some of the recipes in this book are weeknight healthyish meals, while others are perfect for off-the-cuff entertaining. Visual stunners, they’re often composed of fewer than five ingredients. Whether Bastardized Easy Ramen; Malaysian Chili Shrimp; Roasted Carrots with Carrot-Top Pesto; or Salty Lemon Squares, all are visual stunners and can be carried off with panache, even by beginners.

Molly on the Range: Recipes and Stories from An Unlikely Life on a Farm


Molly Yeh - 2016
    Like her award-winning blog My Name is Yeh, Molly on the Range chronicles her life through photos, more than 100 new recipes, and hilarious stories from life in the city and on the farm.Molly’s story begins in the suburbs of Chicago in the 90s, when things like Lunchables and Dunkaroos were the objects of her affection; continues into her New York years, when Sunday mornings meant hangovers and bagels; and ends in her beloved new home, where she’s currently trying to master the art of the hotdish. Celebrating Molly's Jewish/Chinese background with recipes for Asian Scotch Eggs and Scallion Pancake Challah Bread and her new hometown Scandinavian recipes for Cardamom Vanilla Cake and Marzipan Mandel Bread, Molly on the Range will delight everyone, from longtime readers to those discovering her glorious writing and recipes for the first time.

The Man Who Ate Everything


Jeffrey Steingarten - 1997
    He succeeded at all but the last: Steingarten is "fairly sure that God meant the color blue mainly for food that has gone bad." In this impassioned, mouth-watering, and outrageously funny book, Steingarten devotes the same Zen-like discipline and gluttonous curiosity to practically everything that anyone anywhere has ever called "dinner." Follow Steingarten as he jets off to sample choucroute in Alsace, hand-massaged beef in Japan, and the mother of all ice creams in Sicily. Sweat with him as he tries to re-create the perfect sourdough, bottle his own mineral water, and drop excess poundage at a luxury spa. Join him as he mounts a heroic--and hilarious--defense of salt, sugar, and fat (though he has some nice things to say about Olestra). Stuffed with offbeat erudition and recipes so good they ought to be illegal, The Man Who Ate Everything is a gift for anyone who loves food.

Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering


Joanna Gaines - 2018
    Magnolia Table includes 125 classic recipes—from breakfast, lunch, and dinner to small plates, snacks, and desserts—presenting a modern selection of American classics and personal family favorites. Complemented by her love for her garden, these dishes also incorporate homegrown, seasonal produce at the peak of its flavor.Full of personal stories and beautiful photos, Magnolia Table is an invitation to share a seat at the table with Joanna Gaines and her family.

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.

Dinner: A Love Story: It All Begins at the Family Table


Jenny Rosenstrach - 2012
    Even when they work long days. Even when their kids' schedules pull them in eighteen different directions. They are not superhuman. They are not from another planet.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.Using the same straight-up, inspiring voice that readers of her award-winning blog, Dinner: A Love Story, have come to count on, Jenny never judges and never preaches. Every meal she dishes up 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.

Where Cooking Begins: Uncomplicated Recipes to Make You a Great Cook


Carla Lalli Music - 2019
    The food director at Bon Appetit, her intuitive recipes are inspired by the meals she makes at home for her family and friends and the joy she takes in feeding them. Here, too, is her guide to the six essential cooking methods that will show you how to make everything without over-complicating anything--and every recipe includes suggestions for swaps and substitutions, so you'll never feel stuck or stymied.Where Cooking Begins is also the first recent cookbook to connect the way we shop to the way we cook. Music's modern approach--pick up your fresh ingredients a few times a week, and fill your pantry with staples bought online--will make you want to click on a burner and slide out a cutting board the minute you get home.The no-fail techniques, textured recipes, and strategies in Where Cooking Begins will make you a great cook.

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks


Kathleen Flinn - 2011
    Flinn's "chefternal" instinct kicked in: she persuaded the stranger to reload with fresh foods, offering her simple recipes for healthy, easy meals. The Kitchen Counter Cooking School includes practical, healthy tips that boost readers' culinary self-confidence, and strategies to get the most from their grocery dollar, and simple recipes that get readers cooking.From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Cake Bible


Rose Levy Beranbaum - 1988
    As a writer for food magazines, women's magazines, and newspapers, including The New York Times, Rose Levy Beranbaum's trademark is her ability to reduce the most complex techniques to easy-to-follow recipes. Rose makes baking a joy. This is the definitive work on cakes by the country's top cake baker.The Cake Bible shows how to:Mix a buttery, tender layer cake in under five minutes with perfect results every timeMake the most fabulous chocolate cake you ever imagined with just three ingredientsFind recipes for every major type of cake, from pancakes to four-tiered wedding cakesMake cakes with less sugar but maximum flavor and textureMake many low- to no- cholesterol, low-saturated-fat recipes

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation


Michael Pollan - 2013
    Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements - fire, water, air, and earth - to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world, standing squarely between nature and culture. Both realms are transformed by cooking, and so, in the process, is the cook.Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan's effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit master tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse-trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how air transforms grain and water into a fragrant loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius "fermentos" (a tribe that includes brewers, cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The listener learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships: with plants and animals, the soil, farmers, our history and culture, and, of course, the people our cooking nourishes and delights. Cooking, above all, connects us.The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume huge quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.

Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting with Your Slow Cooker


Dawn J. Ranck - 2000
    Ranck and Phyllis Pellman Good"Slow cookers are having a comeback. With good reason. They are friends on a day of running errands. They allow easy entertaining with no last-minute preparation. They are miracles for potluck meals, whether in

Around My French Table: More than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours


Dorie Greenspan - 2010
    Julia’s praise was echoed by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, which referred to Dorie’s “wonderfully encouraging voice” and “the sense of a real person who is there to help should you stumble.” Now in a big, personal, and personable book, Dorie captures all the excitement of French home cooking, sharing disarmingly simple dishes she has gathered over years of living in France. Around My French Table includes many superb renditions of the great classics: a glorious cheese-domed onion soup, a spoon-tender beef daube, and the “top-secret” chocolate mousse recipe that every good Parisian cook knows—but won’t reveal. Hundreds of other recipes are remarkably easy: a cheese and olive quick bread, a three-star chef’s Basque potato tortilla made with a surprise ingredient (potato chips), and an utterly satisfying roast chicken for “lazy people.” Packed with lively stories, memories, and insider tips on French culinary customs, Around My French Table will make cooks fall in love with France all over again, or for the first time.