The Homemade Kitchen by Alana Chernila
When it comes to writing cookbook reviews, I always love to give my first impressions of a cookbook. When The Homemade Kitchen
Naturally, as wild as I am about a great looking cookbook (and in this case visually stunning is closer to the truth), what really matters is what’s inside the cookbook. The content. The heart of the matter.
The meat!
Alana Cherinila (who also authored The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making
{Review continued beneath the perfect cookbook…}
First of all, the recipes. The recipes in The Homemade Kitchen somehow manage to be easy enough for beginners yet challenging enough for those of us who have been cooking for…. nevermind how long. The recipes are both creative and comforting. They will appeal to everyone in the family – young and old alike.
One of the reasons for this is the author has ridiculously adorable young children. When you have children, it’s pretty essential to know what young people will eat.
Some of the recipes and instructions included in The Homemade Kitchen:
- How to Make Pie Crust
- How to Roast a Chicken
- Polenta Fries with Spicy Mayonnaise
- Miso Soup
- Sesame Noodles
- Ice Pops
- Pork Tacos
- How to Make a Pickle
- How to Make Pie
- How to Use Fresh Herbs
- Chicken Salad with Grapes
- Ice Cream
- Easy Caramel Sauce
- Baked Apples
- Roasted Red Pepper Corn Chowder
- Preserved Lemons
- Preserved Lemon Hummus
- Kimchi
- How to Make Kefir
- Kefir Banana Cake
- Basic Pizza Dough
- And many, many, many more!
From the Inside Cover:
Start where you are. Feed yourself. Do your best, and then let go. Be helpful. Slow down. Don’t be afraid of food.
Alana Chernila has these phrases taped to her fridge, and they are guiding principles helping her to stay present in her kitchen. They also provide the framework for her second book. In The Homemade Kitchen she exalts the beautiful imperfections of food made at home and extends the lessons of cooking through both the quotidian and extraordinary moments of the day. Alana sees cooking as an opportunity to live consciously, not just as a means to an end.
Written as much for the reader as the cook, The Homemade Kitchen covers a globe’s worth of flavors and includes new staples (what Alana is known for) such as chèvre, tofu, kefir, kimchi, preserved lemons, along with recipes and ideas for using them. Here, too, are dishes you’ll be inspired to try and that you will make again and again until they become your own family recipes, such as Broccoli Raab with Cheddar Polenta, a flavor-forward lunch for one; Roasted Red Pepper Corn Chowder, “late summer in a bowl”; Stuffed Winter Squash, rich with leeks, chorizo, apples, and grains; Braised Lamb Shanks that are tucked into the oven in the late afternoon and not touched again until dinner; Corn and Nectarine Salad showered with torn basil; perfect share-fare Sesame Noodles; Asparagus Carbonara, the easiest weeknight dinner ever; and sweet and savory treats such as Popovers, Cinnamon Swirl Bread, Summer Trifle made with homemade pound cake and whatever berries are ripest, and Rhubarb Snacking Cake.
In this follow-up to Alana’s wildly successful debut, The Homemade Pantry, she once again proves herself to be the truest and least judgmental friend a home cook could want.
{Review concluded below…}
I write tons of cookbook reviews on Get Cooking and, as you may know, I’ve collected cookbooks for over 20 years. I know that there are a lot of great cookbooks out there. Truth be told, I’ve had the “this is a perfect cookbook” reaction to a few. But, I simply have to say this: The Homemade Kitchen is totally unique and unmistakably special in several ways.
- There’s a personal feel that I love to distraction. In The Homemade Kitchen, the reader is brought into the author’s home and introduced to her family (which includes a happy, beautiful dog you’ll love). A person’s home and family are their most valued, priceless, ans sacred things in their life. When they “let you in,” so to speak, to their world, it’s a privilege and an honor. The pictures, the stories, and all that they entail give the book a very warm, welcoming feeling – a personality that will cause a lot of cookbooks to suddenly seem cold and uninviting.
- There are more than just recipes. Yes, the recipes are out of this world and you will use them often – as in again and again. But there’s so much more to The Homemade Kitchen. As I listed above, there are a ton of “How to..” sections. The “How to Cook a Vegetable” section and the one that follows it, “How to Turn Fruit Into Jam” would be worth the price of the cookbook alone!
Perfect recipes. Perfect approach. Perfect information. Perfect cookbook.
Find The Homemade Kitchen
About the Author
Note: I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review. The opinions are entirely my own.
