Sometimes I think I was born into the wrong food era. While I love all the artisanal products and amazing variety in fruits and vegetables, I am also a huge fan of the casserole. Sadly, it's a style of cooking not particularly popular in my generation. However, there's nothing I enjoy more than combining a protein, a starch, a sauce and one or two veggies in a large dish, topping it off with cheese or breadcrumbs and baking it until the top is golden brown. Casseroles are great for potlucks, for parties or for ensuring that you only have to cook every other night (I am also a big believer in leftovers).
However, over the last few months, I've spotted signs that the noble casserole is experiencing something of a resurgence in popularity. One such indication is the recently published cookbook, Bake Until Bubbly: The Ultimate Casserole Cookbook by Clifford A. Wright. I think this might become my new favorite cookbook as we head into the fall as the shorter, cooler days are perfect for casseroles.
This book opens with a well-researched and written introduction that offers up the history of the casserole (both ancient and modern history). Wright has grouped the recipes in a straightforward manner, starting with Breakfast and Brunch Casseroles (wonderful if you have houseguests) and then moving through Meat Casseroles, Poultry, Dairy and Game, Pasta and Noodle, Rice and Grain, Vegetables with Meat, Vegetables without Meat and finally ending things with Dessert Casseroles. The book clocks in at more than 450 pages, so there's something in here for everyone.
I'm particularly looking forward to preparing Turkey Mole and Hominy Casserole (page 154), Baked Angel Hair Pasta with Sausages and Smooth Tomato and Artichoke Sauce (page 252) and the Potato, Tomato and Onion Casserole (336).
The day I first discovered the blog Vegan Lunch Box, I sat at my desk and read every single word of the archives. This was back in early spring of 2006, so there weren't too many months to sort through (Jennifer started the blog in September 2005), but I imagine I spent at least three hours reading while I should have been doing work. Even though I'm not a vegan (nor have I ever eschewed the animal products) I loved seeing all the creative ways Jennifer McCann packed innovative and delicious meals for her son to eat while at school.
I remember when she self-published the first version of this book (those copies are now in collectible demand by Vegan Lunch Box fans) and later I was thrilled to hear that she had gotten a deal with a publisher to make the book more widely available. Happily, a copy of the new, De Capo Press version of Vegan Lunch Box landed in my mailbox earlier this week and I delighted to say that all the charm and appeal of the Jennifer's blog translates well into print.
Parents, especially ones with vegan and vegetarian kids, will adore this book. It's also great for anyone who packs a lunch and is trying to cut animal products out of their diet. It is full of creative recipes and inspiring lunch time serving suggestions. If you're trying to shake off the lunch box doldrums this is just the book to help you do that. It's divided into two sections. The first offers up lunch time menus and the second contains all the recipes. The menus always reference the page number where the suggested recipe can be found, making for easy prep.
I do believe that Krystina Castella's book, Pops! Icy Treats for Everyone has been the hottest cookbook this summer. I've seen it everywhere from Oh Joy! to Baking Bites to Elastic Waist. I've had it sitting on the arm of the rocking chair in my living room (where all my homeless cookbooks end up) for the last month. I bought some popsicle molds so that I could try out a few of the recipes, but life (and the state of my freezer) has continually gotten between me and homemade popsicles. However, last weekend, my boyfriend and I bought a new refrigerator. It will be here on Saturday and so I pulled Pops! out of the stack so that I could prepare to take advantage of the new, larger freezer that's coming my way.
Having spent a little time flipping through this book, I can see why everyone has been going so crazy for it. Castella divided the book into six sections, Healthy Energy Pops, Fruit Juice Pops, Soda Fountain Pops, Cream and Pudding Pops, Coffee and Tea Pops and Cocktail Pops. These are definitely not the old popsicles I made with nothing more than reconstituted orange juice as a kid.
I think that the first recipe I'm going to test out when I have the new freezer this weekend will be Apricot Pops on page 47. For those of you who already have this book, which recipes have you tried? Any that are must-makes?
About once a year, I get the bug to make homemade pizza. I always find it to be a messy process, resulting in broken dough and leaky toppings. It's always tasty enough, but by the time I finish with it, I determine that pizza should remain a take-out only item. However, over time I forget this resolve and decide to make it again, only to be smacked with the same realization that it's too much trouble for home cooking.
I made pizza last Sunday, and went through the same process as in the past. Except this time, instead of resolving to abandon the practice, I started to think that maybe I needed to make pizza more often, in order to work out the kinks and have successful pies come out of my oven. Some unknown force must have had a hand in this decision, as on Monday, a pizza cookbook landed in my mailbox. The California Pizza Kitchen Family Cookbook was written by Larry Flax and Rick Rosenfield, the co-founders of the chain of the same name.
Written to be accessible to kids (while not pandering to parents), I've found that this book is the exact right speed for me. It starts with three variations on pizza dough and a recipe for a classic tomato sauce. Then they take a break from pizza for the moment, to offer up an assortment of salad and panini recipes (admittedly, those recipes seemed out of place there - I would have put them towards the back since this book bills itself as a pizza cookbook). Finally though we get into the pizzas and the recipes sound delicious and give me such inspiration that in my mind I'm already heading towards the kitchen. The book closes with suggestions for pizza parties for kids, special holiday pizzas (potato pancake pizza, anyone) and finally wraps up with dessert pizzas. It is beautifully photographed and would make a wonderful present for an older kid who was interesting in cooking.
In addition to her roles as a singer, performer and talk show host, Dinah Shore was also know among her friends and acquaintances as something of a cook. In 1971, she took all that food knowledge and put it into this book, Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah (lucky for her, she just happened to have the best name ever for a cookbook). She included over 200 recipes, most of which being things she did like to cook at home, as well as a few from close friends.
She opens the book up with a chatty introduction and then moves into some party planning tips. One interesting piece of advice is to give two or three parties in a row, so that you can return a number of invitations on the same flowers and boxes of crackers, while keeping the numbers manageable. It makes some sense, although I don't think that there are quite so many rules about the reciprocation of invitations as there once was.
Surprisingly, her recipes are nearly universally good. They all bear the marks of a true home cook, someone who likes to make big, tasty pots of soups and stews or a batch of meatloaf quickly and without fancy ingredients or fanfare. The only suspect thing I spotted was a hamburger recipe that called for a teaspoon of MSG. I guess this was before the days when it was determined that it isn't so good for you. There are a number of recipes I've marked in the book that I'd like to try, including the Fried Chicken Cuffy, the Tennessee Lasagna and the Beef Stroganoff and Kasha (her Jewish upbringing really shows here, which delights me!)
Earthbound Farm, the company that started out on a small farm selling organic raspberries, has become one of the nation's largest producers of organic fruits and vegetables. They created the bagged salads that have become staples for so many of us (although sadly, their spinach was thought to have been the source of the E. coli outbreak in 2006) and made organic foods widely available.
In 2006, Myra Goldman, one of the founders of Earthbound Farm wrote (along with Linda Holland and Pamela McKinstry) a cookbook called Food to Live By, The Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook. It is a volume that embraces the organic ethos and offers up nearly 400 pages of recipes, many of which are from the Organic Kitchen at the Earthbound Farmstand or Goldman's own kitchen.
As is typically true for me when it comes to cookbooks, one of my favorite parts of this book was the introduction. Goldman takes ten pages to share the store of how she and her husband got started farming, where they came from (they were both originally New Yorkers) and how she fell in love with fresh, organic foods. Beyond the introduction, the section of the book that felt the most personal and had the most appealing recipes was the breakfast and brunch section, in which Goldman shares stories of cooking for her kids and includes recipes for savory treats like Spinach, Feta and Mushroom Quiche (the picture looks amazing) and sweet ones like Persimmon and Date Breakfast Bread.
Julie Biuso is a well-known New Zealand chef, cooking teacher and food writer who is just starting to make a splash on the American food scene. However, if her new book, Sizzle, Sensational Barbecue Food, is any indication of what she has to offer, I imagine we'll be hearing more and more from her going forward.
When I first opened the book, I had my defensive hat on. I mean, come on, how many barbecue cookbooks can I look at before they all start to look the same? However, this book grabbed me from the start, as it has a well-written introduction that got me nice and excited for the book ahead. And the recipes? Well, they look lovely.
I haven't had an opportunity to try any of the recipes in the book yet (and I'm going to have to adapt most of them to my no-grill lifestyle), but here are some of the ones on my list: Eggplant Toasties (essentially a toasted cheese sandwich made out of grilled eggplant, mozzarella cheese and whole grain bread), Spicy Lamb on Sticks with Yogurt Sauce (flattened lamb meatballs on skewers) and Dried Fruits Cooked in Paper (apricots and prunes, marinated and seasoned, wrapped in parchment paper and slow cooked).
If want to expand your understanding of food cooked on a grill, this would be an excellent book to look at. It takes your backyard Weber and moves it out of the realm of special occasions and places it smackdab in the center of everyday meal prep. Which, judging from the recipes Biuso has written, isn't a bad thing at all.
First published in 1968, The Cookbook of the Seven Seas was written by Dagmar Freuchen after she and her husband Peter Freuchen (who was an Arctic explorer) spent years traveling the world. The book is something of a tribute to her husband, as he died in 1957, after 12 years of marriage. The introduction offers a collection of stories about his life and the foods he enjoyed eating.
Because of this narrow focus on her husband's life in the introduction, I was at first concerned that this book wouldn't be worth much in culinary terms. However, my worries were set to rest once I started flipping through the subsequent chapters, each named after one of the seven sea regions of the world. The recipes are good and the stories that go along with them are even more delightful.
She tells of the first time she tasted an avocado, in Spokane, WA in 1939. It was listed on the menu as an Alligator Pear and with a name like that, she was compelled to order it. She fell in love with the avocado during that meal, and called it the best new food she tasted on that trip through the western states. Dagmar also includes two recipes for ceviche (calling it marinated raw fish) at a time when eating raw fish was not something that people commonly did.
Many of the exotic recipes in the book are ones that have become far more popular over the years (like ratatouille - which I happened to make for dinner just last night) while others still seem intriguing and unusual, like Fried Chicken with Cashew Nut Sauce (it's really the cashew sauce that makes it seem different). If this is a book you happen to stumble across sometime, I would definitely recommend taking a look.
Many cookbooks shine with crisp newness. The pages have a smooth sheen; the pictures are perfect. But that's not the case with Biba Caggiano's Biba's Italy, and it's all the better for it.
Printed on yellowed pages with ragged edges, Biba's Italy is a collection of recipes gathered from some of the country's big cities -- Rome, Florence, Bologna, Milan, and Venice. The book discusses the typical Italian menu, an espresso glossary, and then digs into the culinary treats -- each city broken down into its own menu of Appetizers, Pasta/First Courses, Entrees, Vegetables/Salads, and Desserts, plus further information about wines, restaurants, and other food fare for the city. You can dip into the Bologna's Stuffed Pork Chops that feature parmigiano and prosciutto, taste some Milanese Saffron Risotto, or even some Venitian Whipped Creamy Salt Cod with Soft Polenta.
It's like a book that's been handed down over the years -- ready to use and full of history. It has the feel of age, presented in a way that you want to throw it on your counter and dig into the varied and delectable recipes. Most of the ingredients are easy to find and procure, and the meals are free from any gourmet fastidiousness. If you love Italian food, or want to expand your knowledge of Italian flavor, this book is definitely worth a look.
Have you ever wondered about why it's important to salt your food at various stages of the cooking process? Or wished for someone to talk you through a good technique for poaching an egg with humor and understanding? If so, Michael Ruhlman's 2007 book, The Elements of Cooking should be given a place in your kitchen as this book has the answers and guidance you seek.
This is a book that walks you through basics, gives you insights into the ways in which chefs think and offers lots of little things you can do to make your home cooking more successful and delicious. It is the best-written and most instructive book I've clapped eyes on in a long time. If my educational texts in college had been this engrossing, I probably would have stayed a student for ever.
In addition to offering lots of immensely helpful tips, there are also a handful of recipes scattered throughout the book, mostly tucked in the A to Z section. They might not look like recipes as you're used to seeing, as they come in narrative form, but they are there, in the form of instructions on how to macerate berries or make lemon confit. I can't say enough good things about this book, I just recommend that if you have any interest in learning more about cooking and the food you eat, you should check it out.
In this new anthology, American Food Writing, editor Molly O'Neill gets the readers primed for the volume ahead by stating that our culture's current food obsession is nothing new. At the beginning of the present food revolution, she and others of her culinary cohort thought that they were the first ones to "recognize food as something more than fuel" but she has come to realize that they were sadly mistaken. The topic of food and eating has been of vital importance to people throughout the generations and this collection of essays and recipes is ready to demonstrate that very fact.
With essays from literary and political heavyweights such as Frederick Douglass to Harriet Beecher Stowe to John Berry, this book covers topics from Apple Butter and Cranberry Sauce to Chop Suey and Chowder. Interspersed between the essays are recipes, some relating directly to an essay and some just tucked in here and there, interesting as cultural markers just on their own. Mrs. E. E. Kellogg's recipe for Bran Jelly is just one of those recipes. She recommended that you serve it with cream or fruit juice.
This is the type of book that you can pick up on occasion. Because the essays are fairly short, you can dip into the book for a mental snack without devoting too much time to it. However, I've been reading it straight through and I can't fathom another way to approach it. I read one essay and I just want to keep going. If your mind, like your belly, enjoys being fed tasty treats, this is a book to check out.
According to A Good Day for Salads, (in a section entitled A Short Course on the First Course) the advent of the salad as the first component of a meal came in this country when the first European settlers arrived. They were amazed by the abundance of fresh, edible vegetation. While they waited for their meat to cook over open fires, the couldn't help but nibble at the young greens growing all around them. Thus a tradition was born.
This book, written by Louise Fiszer and Jeannette Ferrary, attempts to take the simple salad to a far more sophisticated and tasty place than those plain greens that the founding fathers plucked from nearby clearings. They start with dressings and other tasty toppings and move forward through chapters devoted to bite-sized salads, salads as starters, folk-y salads (mostly the traditional salads associated with particular ethnic cuisines), salads for parties and potlucks, picnic salads, salads that can serve a full meal, fruit salads, salads for dieters, wrapped salads and lastly, salads you can make from the pantry.
If you are looking for a fresh approach to salads, this is a lovely book to look at. Their combinations and pairings are interesting and occasionally surprising (with happily tasty results). They don't just focus on the lettuce-based salads, also offering up pasta, grain, meat and alternative veggie mixes. If your garden is producing overtime or your CSA box is delivering more each week than you know what to do with, this could be helpful.
These days, more and more people are discovering that they are either gluten-intolerant or have Celiac Disease, which means that their bodies cannot handle even a tiny bit of gluten. There were tons of products at the Fancy Food Show that were designed to be totally gluten-free in an attempt to respond to the newly realized need. However, if you're more of a do-it-yourself kind of person and want to make your own gluten-free foods at home, then you should check out the growing category of gluten-free cookbooks.
One such cookbook is You Won't Believe it's Gluten-Free was written by Roben Ryberg (who also penned The Gluten-Free Kitchen) and is a hefty volume that spans every meal, as well as holiday and special event food (there's an entire section devoted to wedding cakes). The introduction dedicates space to tips and techniques as to how to keep your food gluten-free and avoid cross-contamination (if you're working in a kitchen that is shared with gluten eaters) as well as a primer on the different types of gluten-free flours available on the market.
I think that this is the type of book that could become a bible for those who are newly diagnosed with gluten issues. Ryberg includes five different recipes for pizza crust, a multitude of cake recipes and even a couple of variations on chicken nuggets, so that you can experiment until you find ones that tastes good to you. The feeling this book gives me, a casual user who has no gluten limitations, is that avoiding gluten is not a hardship and there are many ways to make all the foods you love so that you can eat happily.
We mentioned this book briefly in 2006, but really, it deserves its own space to shine. Unlike cookbooks that just give you recipes and leave it up to you to learn all of the finer points of instruction, Linda Carucci's Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks lays it all out. Sure, part of the joy of cooking is to come up with your own tips, but there's nothing quite as handy as a book that not only lays out a recipe, but gives you a ton of specific and general cooking tips and techniques.
The book is broken into three parts. The first, "Part One: Cooking Basics" runs down all the things you should know before you go gung-ho into recipe land. It's not just knife skills and mise en place -- but also discussions about senses, the changing textures of food, how to properly season your meal, and all the good-to-know finer points of great meals. Then comes "Part Two: Recipes." The recipes are broken up into themes, with a quick menu list that outlines what can be made ahead, what is vegetarian, and what can be whipped up quickly. But that's not all. There's tons of information on the finer points of each meal, from risotto secrets to the finer points of marinating. And finally, there's a wrap-up ending called "Part Three: Seasonal Recipes, Menus, and Sources," which lists which meals are best for which seasons, and gives some suggestions for recipes that work well together.
I began by reading this book page by page, but it's also great for digging into one particular type of food, and learning the tips bit by bit. Where another cookbook might make you an expert on a particular favorite dish, this cookbook helps you become a knowledgable and all-round better cook.
The Martha Washington Cook Book is the only cookbook I've ever owned that came with a outer, protective sleeve to guard against warping and page-bending. Published in 1940, it has that smell that old books get, not musty exactly, but of ink and dust and aging paper. The inside cover and front page are illustrated with a drawing of the canoe-shaped kitchen garden at Mount Vernon.
The book starts out with short-story length biography of Martha Washington, before moving into a section simply entitled, The Cook Book. The author, Marie Kimball, explains that all the recipes contains in this book are based up ones that were contained in "a small, brown, leather-bound book." It is the volume that Martha brought with her to when she married George Washington. It was given to her by the mother of her first husband and it contained rules of housekeeping and recipes. At the end of her life, she passed it along to her granddaughter Nelly, when she got married.
This isn't exactly a cookbook that will turn into a daily resource for you, unless you happen to like Pigeon with Pudding and have six birds laying around. I'm intrigued by the recipe for Fresh Almond Cheese, which sounds a lot like marzipan. It is, however, a fun way to get a historical glance into the ways in which food was prepared and stored during colonial times. And, as luck would have it, it was reissued in 2004, so copies are available.
Sometimes I think I was born into the wrong food era. While I love all the artisanal products and amazing variety in fruits and vegetables, I am also a huge fan of the casserole. Sadly, it's a style of cooking not particularly popular in my generation. However, there's nothing I enjoy more than combining a protein, a starch, a sauce and one or two veggies in a large dish, topping it off with cheese or breadcrumbs and baking it until the top is golden brown. Casseroles are great for potlucks, for parties or for ensuring that you only have to cook every other night (I am also a big believer in leftovers). 
The day I first discovered the blog 
About once a year, I get the bug to make homemade pizza. I always find it to be a messy process, resulting in broken dough and leaky toppings. It's always tasty enough, but by the time I finish with it, I determine that pizza should remain a take-out only item. However, over time I forget this resolve and decide to make it again, only to be smacked with the same realization that it's too much trouble for home cooking. 
Earthbound Farm, the company that started out on a small farm selling organic raspberries, has become one of the nation's largest producers of organic fruits and vegetables. They created the bagged salads that have become staples for so many of us (although sadly, their spinach was thought to have been the source of the E. coli outbreak in 2006) and made organic foods widely available. 
Julie Biuso
Many cookbooks shine with crisp newness. The pages have a smooth sheen; the pictures are perfect. But that's not the case with Biba Caggiano's Biba's Italy, and it's all the better for it.
Have you ever wondered about why it's important to salt your food at various stages of the cooking process? Or wished for someone to talk you through a good technique for poaching an egg with humor and understanding? If so, Michael Ruhlman's 2007 book, 
We mentioned this book briefly 
Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
