October 2015 Cookbooks

The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How by Andrea Chesman

This is not as much a cookbook as a collection of helpful information relating to homesteading/growing and processing your own food. She divides the book into 3 sections - Getting the Most from Fresh Food, Food Preservation, and Homestead Cooking. There were a lot of really helpful information and tips and tricks for growing, processing, and storing food. There are recipes interspersed throughout, but 3rd section is all recipes. Overall, this seems like a really helpful book and there are a few recipes I'd like to try.

Food 52 Baking by Food 52 Editors

Food 52 is an online community for cooks of all levels. This is the second cookbook I've seen that has come from their website and this one is all about baking. What I really liked was that in the introduction the authors note that whether you consider yourself an "experienced" baker or not, you CAN bake yummy desserts and treats. This book provides 60 baking recipes - mostly desserts, but there is a chapter on savory baking - that pretty much anyone can make. There are lots of great pictures and definitely a few recipes I want to try. I'm especially excited about the Overnight Orange Refrigerator Rolls because my husband loves the Pillsbury orange rolls, but I'd rather make something from scratch and not buy stuff like Pillsbury. Definitely a good source for simple, but yummy recipes.

Beans & Field Peas by Sandra Gutierrez

I love the Savor the South cookbooks and this one does not disappoint. There is nothing more Southern than beans and peas - lima beans, green beans, field peas, black-eyed peas, etc. This book explains the differences between the various types of peas and beans and also gives tons of recipes - some traditional and some modern and internationally inspired. Overall, this is another good solid Savor the South cookbook!

Grow. Cook. Preserve. by Helen Lynne Culpepper

My good friend gave me this book for my birthday and it's right up my alley! This book goes through growing, cooking, and preserving your own food. There are whole sections on composting and an entire chapter on building and using a root cellar! There are tons of great gardening tips, recipes, and all types of preserving. I'm glad I own this one because it's definitely one that will be a good reference resource. While there might be better books on each topic - this is a great overall book about how to be more self sustaining and make more homemade food.

The Homemade Kitchen by Alana Chernila

Start where you are. Feed yourself. Do your best, then let go. Be helpful. Do the work. Slow down. Eat outside. Invite people over. Don't be afraid of food. The author has these quotes on her refrigerator to remind herself of what food really means. She organizes this cookbook in the same way with recipes for each category/quote. There are a lot of really great cooking tips and some really yummy sounding recipes complete with beautiful pictures. I especially like that she encourages home cooks to try new things and not be afraid of failing or having a not-so-great result. I also like that this book promotes making most things from scratch and that it's usually MUCH easier than you think. Overall, I liked it and there are definitely some recipes I want to try.

My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl

When Gourmet magazine closed in 2010 Ruth Reichl was completely surprised and then unsure what to do with herself. This book documents the year after the magazine closed and how she reconnected with cooking in order to get direction in her life. I wish that it had almost been 2 books - a memoir and a cookbook because it was hard to read with a few pages of her story then a few recipes. You couldn't flip through it like a regular cookbook, but it also wasn't completely readable as a memoir either. That's my main complaint, but there are lots of great recipes and a few I definitely want to try.

The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

If you love Alton Brown and the science behind food then this is the cook book for you. There are plenty of recipes, but most of the book - and it's HUGE - deals with the science behind cooking. Why adding or taking out one ingredient makes such a huge difference, the timing and temperature of ingredients, etc. While there is a lot of helpful information this book is SO HUGE that it's overwhelming to try to read. It probably weighs 10 pounds! While I love cooking and helpful tips, the science behind everything is just not my thing. But, there is a lot of helpful information and variations of recipes, so it's worth looking through.

The Hands-On Home by Erica Strauss

This is a really unique book. The author goes through various ways to make your home more sustainable and how to do more yourself. She goes over a few basic techniques in the beginning then the book is divided into year-round, spring, summer, fall, and winter. In each section she discusses cooking, preserving, home care, and personal care. Each category has recipes for meals, how to preserve seasonally, and recipes for cleaning and beauty products to make yourself. I really like how the book is organized and I like how she looks at the whole household - not just canning and preserving, but other aspects. She also gives lots of tips on how to clean - from everyday things to annual deep cleaning. This is a book that I might buy because it's just so full of great information and tips. 

Some quotes I really liked:

"We trade our time and our skills for money, and then trade that money for the promise of things that will save us time. It's a vicious circle as we outsource the essentials of life: food, fuel, clothing, entertainment, and comfort, and then work to afford all we've outsourced." (p. xvii)

"Sure, I can get blackberry jam at the store on sale. Unless I go for the very high-end artisan jam, it'll be mostly high fructose corn syrup and added pectin and not much fruit, but it'll be cheap. Or, I can grow or glean or buy fruit in season at rock-bottom prices from farmers I know and spend an afternoon making all the jam I'll need for the whole year. My ingredient cost will probably be less than the crappy jam at the store, and the quality will be better than the best stuff available for sale." (p. 20)