Books Blog : nonfiction, recipes

Christmas is Coming

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 17:48:00 GMT

I don't want to alarm anyone, but Christmas is coming; in fact it's less than two months away. Now, it's still entirely too early to be putting up tinsel and whatnot, but it is absolutely time to get on the waiting lists for these new Christmas cookbooks!

I'm personally very much looking forward to trying out the recipe for toffee thins on page 86 of Sweet Christmas: Homemade Peppermints, Sugar Cake, Chocolate-Almond Toffee, Eggnog Fudge, and Other Sweet Treats and Decorations by Sharon Bowers, with photographs by David Bowers.

Other new Christmas cookbooks to be excited about:

Christmas Baking: Fun & Delicious Holiday Treats by Mia Ohrn

A Home-Baked Christmas: 56 Delicious Cookies, Cakes, & Gifts from Your Kitchen

American Christmas

If you really can't wait for these titles, I recommend checking out a copy of an older title, A Baker's Field Guide to Christmas Cookies by Dede Wilson, which has a nice variety of cookies to try.

Thanksgiving

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 16:50:00 GMT

Thanksgiving is maybe one of our simpler holidays. We give thanks for what we have and we eat good food. The giving thanks part usually doesn't require a lot of preparation; maybe just a few minutes quiet consideration. The good food, on the other hand, can sometimes be a challenge. Last November, it seemed like a lot of people came to the library looking for Thanksgiving cookbooks, so I thought I'd highlight a few here this year.

Thanksgiving: How to Cook it Well by Sam Sifton

Thanksgiving by Lou Seibert Pappas, with photographs by Lara Hata

How to Cook a Turkey and All the Other Trimmings by the editors of Fine Cooking

Betty Crocker Complete Thanksgiving Cookbook

Thanksgiving 101 by Rick Rodgers

Vegetarian Times Complete Thanksgiving Cookbook by the editors of Vegetarian Times

If you're looking for something beyond the food, try these titles:

The Thanksgiving Book: A Companion to the Holiday Covering Its History, Lore, Traditions, Foods and Symbols, Including Primary Sources, Poems, Prayers, Songs, Hymns, and Recipes, Supplemented by Chronology, Bibliography with Web Sites and Index by Laurie C. Hillstrom

Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday by James W. Baker

My Cooking Class Book Series

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:47:00 GMT

A new series of cookbooks has recently caught my attention. The My Cooking Class series includes Vegetable Basics, Sauce Basics, Chocolate Basics, Steaming Basics and Middle Eastern Basics. All the books have large color photographs to illustrate every recipe. I'm looking forward to spending some time with Vegetable Basics and Chocolate Basics, then maybe I'll try some more titles from the series.

Halloween is Almost Here

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:16:00 GMT

Halloween is almost here and new books for Halloween have been arriving at the library over the past month. Here are the two that have me most excited:

Ghoulish Goodies by Sharon Bowers is a whole 150-page cookbook just for Halloween! Extreme Halloween by Tom Nardone covers a broader range of Halloween excitement while doing exactly what the subtitle says: making Halloween scary again!

You might also look at Tom Nardone's older books, Extreme Pumpkins and Extreme Pumkins II, as well as his Extreme Pumpkins website.

Cooking Knowledge for College: Vegetarian Edition

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:27:00 GMT

When I decided to become a vegetarian in the fall of my third year at University of Southern Indiana, Carole Raymond's Student's Vegetarian Cookbook quickly became a favorite of mine. It isn't intimidating like a lot of the vegetarian cookbooks I'd looked at before it. Its recipes generally don't make big heaps of food that one person might have trouble eating on their own, which I find nice as well. If I'd had the brand new College Vegetarian Cooking: Feed Yourself and Your Friends by Jill & Megan Carle, back then, it would have had me pretty excited as well. In fact, it looks good enough I am excited! I'm looking forward to trying the enchilada recipe on page 88. Like its non-vegetarian counterpart I wrote about before, the recipes are organized into chapters such as "Just Like Mom Makes" and "Impressing Your Date". Another book you might look at is The Starving Students' Vegetarian Cookbook by Dede Hall, although I wasn't very impressed with it. If you've given up egg & dairy along with meat, check out Carole Raymond's other book, Student's Go Vegan Cookbook.

Cooking Knowledge for College

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:15:00 GMT

If you're ready to try cooking something more than Hamburger Helper, check out these books: College Cooking: Feed Yourself and Your Friends by Megan & Jill Carle, The Healthy College Cookbook by Alexandra Nimetz, Jason Stanley & Emeline Starr and The Everything College Cookbook: 300 Hassle-Free Recipes for Students on the Go by Rhonda Lauret Parkinson. All three cookbooks offer tips for those just getting started with cooking and lots of recipes to try. The one that looks most promising, though, is College Cooking. It has chapters like "Impressing Your Date", "Just Like Mom Makes" and "Avoiding the Freshman Fifteen". In addition to those chapters, College Cooking has sections with ideas for food for theme parties-- Toga Party, Cinco de Mayo, Tapas Party, Oktoberfest, & 80's Party.

Do You Love Tomatoes? I Love Tomatoes!

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:30:00 GMT

So far, I have recieved tomatoes from three different gardens this year, which is great because I love tomatoes! They're beautiful and taste good with almost anything; one of my favorite, simple things to do is put them on a grilled cheese sandwich. Yum!

Last week, a new cookbook, The Too Many Tomatoes Cookbook by Brian Yarvin arrived at the library. I was amused to see a whole book devoted to one of my favorite garden fruits. As so often happens, curiosity got to me and soon I was looking to see if we had other tomato books. It turns out there are more than a dozen just waiting for tomato-loving cooks!

So, how do you like your tomatoes?

The Heirloom Tomato : From Garden to Table : Recipes, Portraits, and History of the World's Most Beautiful Fruit by Amy Goldman; photographs by Victor Schrager

Tomatoes and Mozzarella : 100 Ways to Enjoy This Tantalizing Twosome All Year Long by Hallie Harron and Shelley Sikora

The Great Tomato Book by Gary Ibsen with Joan Nielsen

Tomato Imperative! : From Fried Green Tomatoes to Summer's Ripe Bounty by Sharon Nimtz and Ruth Cousineau

Lee Bailey's Tomatoes by Lee Bailey

Cooking With Sundried Tomatoes by Lois Dribin and Denise Marina ; illustrated by Susan Ivankovich

My Favorite Baking Book

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:36:00 GMT

In January, I made a New Year's Resolution (even though I don't like New Year's Resolutions) to cook and bake more. I've used recipes from many sources but some of the best have been from Baking Illustrated by the editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine. I've made the banana bread on page 23 and also the variation with coconut and macadamia nuts on page 25 and both are quite tasty. The yellow cupcakes on page 343 will turn anyone who doubts the deliciousness of plain yellow cake into a believer. Oh, and the simple chocolate frosting for the cupcakes? It is quite possibly the easiest frosting to make and better yet, one of the most delicious I've ever had! On March 14th, Pi Day, I turned to page 178, the Pies & Tarts chapter, for guidance to make my very first pie, a yummy peach pie.

Baking Illustrated is part of the A Best Recipe Classic series of cookbooks. One of the really fun things about this series of cookbooks is that each recipe is preceded by a page or two describing how the authors came up with the final recipe. They discuss ingredients they tried in previous versions and why they felt the final product didn't benefit from them or what it is that an ingredient they kept in the final printed recipe brings to the mix.

Tell everyone about your favorite cookbook(s) below in the comments!

Additional Links:

Cook's Illustrated magazine

America's Test Kitchen