Wish List Wednesday: Cookbooks

I really like cooking. I wish I did it a lot more than I do. I also really love having a few cookbooks floating around my kitchen. It's good eye-candy and on the few and far between chances I actually cook something, I've got some great resources right in my kitchen. These are few that have caught my eye as of late.

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Home Made blew away readers with its stunning package, delicious recipes, beautiful photos, step-by-step instruction, and Yvette van Boven’s own hand-drawn artwork throughout the book. Van Boven’s passion for great food and good humor could be felt on every page in the book. Now, in the follow-up Home Made Winter, van Boven’s heartfelt work is presented again, this time with recipes intended for the winter season. Inspired by her childhood in Ireland and her frequent sojourns in France, she has created a collection of recipes that will warm your heart. Chapters include Breakfast, Brunch & Lunch; Pies and Sweet Things for Tea Time; Beverages; To Start; and Dessert. She focuses on simple recipes for classic dishes such as apple cider, BBQ pulled pork, ricotta cheesecake, and more. Step-by-step, she explains how to make butter, beef sausage, and baileys. She also features her favorite winter holiday recipes. This book is sure to become the next must-have for home cooks.

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Sara Forte is a food-loving, wellness-craving veggie enthusiast who relishes sharing a wholesome meal with friends and family. The Sprouted Kitchen features 100 of her most mouthwatering recipes. Richly illustrated by her photographer husband, Hugh Forte, this bright, vivid book celebrates the simple beauty of seasonal foods with original recipes—plus a few favorites from her popular Sprouted Kitchen food blog tossed in for good measure. The collection features tasty snacks on the go like Granola Protein Bars, gluten-free brunch options like Cornmeal Cakes with Cherry Compote, dinner party dishes like Seared Scallops on Black Quinoa with Pomegranate Gastrique, “meaty” vegetarian meals like Beer Bean– and Cotija-Stuffed Poblanos, and sweet treats like Cocoa Hazelnut Cupcakes. From breakfast to dinner, snack time to happy hour, The Sprouted Kitchen will help you sneak a bit of delicious indulgence in among the vegetables.

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After spending more than a decade as an art director working for some of the top design studios in Ireland, the United States, and Australia, Katie Quinn Davies refocused her creativity towards food and lifestyle photography and created a blog called What Katie Ate. An Internet phenomenon, What Katie Ate has received international attention and was even dubbed one of the best food blogs in the world by GOOP. Showcasing her extraordinary eye, this debut cookbook is a unique combination of food diary and how-to, with tips and tricks, photographs, recipes, and stories.

Sharing more than one hundred simple culinary recipes drawn from Katie’s travels, dinner party cooking and foodie haunts, What Katie Ate emphasizes seasonal ingredients and irresistible flavors. Featured dishes range from Wild Mushrooms on Toast with Parmesan and Herbs to Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Apple, Prune & Pine Nut Stuffing and Cider Cream Gravy. What’s for dessert? Temptations include Coffee Hazelnut Frangelico Cake and Honey Baked Peaches with Vanilla Bean Créme Fraiche.Perfect for entertaining, this gorgeous cookbook minimizes the time spent in the kitchen and maximizes the time spent enjoying the meal with friends and family. Bringing together easy-to-cook recipes (using standard American measurements) with gorgeous world-class food photography, What Katie Ate will indulge all of your senses.

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I also love, love, love her blog. 

Joy the Baker Cookbook includes everything from “Man Bait” Apple Crisp to Single Lady Pancakes to Peanut Butter Birthday Cake. Joy's philosophy is that everyone loves dessert; most people are just looking for an excuse to eat cake for breakfast.

All of these cookbooks make me want to put an apron on and make a mess of my kitchen. 

I'm hungry. 

November Goals

It's been a few months since I've posted my goals for the month. With the holidays swiftly upon us and my favorite time of year right around the corner, I figured some goal making would be a good idea. I need something to keep me in line in the midst of busyness and chaos. 

Organize my song writing situation. 

I have songs recorded on my phone, verses scribbled in notebooks and on napkins. I keep losing songs because I fail to put them down on paper. I don't want those to slip through my fingers so easily. 

30 Day Shred 

We got out of our gym membership due to lack of finances and Mexico will be here before we know it. I need Jillian Michaels to whip me into shape. 

Finish my Christmas shopping

I'm about half way there. 

Do an outfit post on this here blog

 I was going to take photos today of my work outfit but then our lovely cat ripped a big hole in my tights. Whatever good intentions I might have had to grab my camera swiftly disappeared. 

Hello November. You are my favorite time of year. 

12 Novels, 12 Months

One of my goals this year, found on my 27 before 27 list, is to read 12 novels. I figure if I get through one a month, I should be able to make my goal. I might branch out to a memoir or two, but it's rare for me to sit down with a book that isn't about a diet or decorating part of my house. I love being able to get lost in a story that isn't my own and be totally alright with that. 

I read this book while traveling in September. In the past, I haven't read a ton of westerns. But, being stuck in an airplane for a good chunk of time, allowed me to become completely sucked in to this story. Spending the time playing some shows out in the desert didn't hurt either. 

"A darkly humorous Western satire about contract killers in the time of the gold rush may not be the first book you'd peg me to read, but I've been enjoying it ever since picking it up at the airport bookstore and feverishly ripping through its first half on one plane ride. Cinematic and easy to read, this Coen brother's True Grit-meets-Cormack McCarthy narrative is not just for the guys, trust me."

—Annie Georgia Greenberg, New York editor

I just finished this book the other evening. I actually bought this book a year ago before a trip to Mexico and it sat on my bookshelf for a year. It was a recommendation from some of the ladies at the bookstore/coffeehouse I used to work at. I should have read it sooner. I don't know why it took me so long to pick it up again. It's dark, but in a way that it pulls you in and you don't want to put it down. 

This well-written first novel attempts to be several things: a psychological suspense thriller, a satire of collegiate mores and popular culture, and a philosophical bildungsroman. Supposedly brilliant students at a posh Vermont school (Bennington in thin disguise) are involved in two murders, one supposedly accidental and one deliberate. The book's many allusions, both literary and classical (the students are all classics majors studying with a professor described as both a genius and a deity) fail to provide the deeper resonance of such works as Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose . Ultimately, it works best as a psychological thriller. Expect prepublication hype to generate interest in this book and buy accordingly. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/92.

- Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Now I must choose one for November....Any other suggestions? 

1. Wild: By Cheryl Strayed

2. Gone Girl: By Gillian Flynn

3. The Newlyweds: By Nell Freudenberger

4. Late Nights On Air: By Elizabeth Hay

5. The Dead of Winter: By Lee Collins 

(who actually is a friend of ours and just released his first novel!) 

6. Beautiful Ruins: By Jess Walter

Dinner With Denise & Company

I've said it many times before, but I love how food brings people together. No matter how horrible our day at work might have been, or the fact that we might have ten dollars left to our name in our checking account, or perhaps we are just in a funk: a dinner with friends can make everything seem not so important or overwhelming. A dinner with friends forces you to see what really is important in your life.

At the beginning of this year, we had dinner with this same couple. On Monday, we went to their house, joined by our roommate and Denise's mother, and had a wonderful meal that I'm still dreaming about. Denise is an amazing cook and being able to come to her home is a real treat, one that I don't take lightly.

We began the evening with a Sausage, Kale, and Potato Soup that warms your bones.

 

The main course was Winter squash with Quinoa, fruit, nuts and a pomegranate drizzle. Denise also blogs. It's full of many other amazing recipes as well.

The roomie made roasted broccoli, which was delicious.

Beers were had, cider was had.

My lovely honey even baked the cake for the evening festivities because the day before the dinner I realized that due to work, I would never have enough time to come home and bake a cake before dinner. He did an amazing job. He has a beard and he cooks! W-I-N-N-E-R!

I want many more food filled nights such as this.