The Only Cookbooks You Need

Cover via Amazon

This week, as I was developing my weekly menu, I got to thinking about the cookbooks I have versus the cookbooks I use. Like many home cooks, I have acquired more cookbooks than I can ever possibly use on a regular basis. I love to browse through cookbooks, especially those with beautiful photography, even if I don’t make very many recipes from them. I have noticed that I used to buy a lot more cookbooks than I do now, because I used to experiment a lot more. Now, I’ve settled on the kinds of dishes that I like to cook at home and that my family like to eat, which keeps me returning to the same cookbooks again and again.

If I had to ruthlessly pare down my cookbook library, I think I could easily make do with just eight cookbooks and spend a lifetime happily cooking from them. These are the four basic cookbooks I consider essential:

• The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters
• How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
• The Joy of Cooking
• The Foster’s Market Cookbook

The Waters book is essentially a home-cooking course for beginning cooks, and I return to its classic, simple recipes again and again. The other two contain pretty much every recipe I’d ever want to make, and they offer lots of variations so I don’t get bored. However, these all-purpose cookbooks tend to skimp on categories that I consider essential: breakfast, easy entertaining and cookies. Luckily, the Foster’s Market cookbook does a terrific job filling in those gaps (especially cookies).

Every now and then, I like to cook something more elaborate, from one of the four basic food groups: Italian, French, Mexican and Southern. I could buy hundreds of cookbooks in each of these categories, but I really only need one that’s definitive and comprehensive for each style of cooking I want to do. Over the years, I’ve settled on these four:

• Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan
  
• Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells
• Authentic Mexican by Rick Bayless
• Sara Foster’s Southern Cookbook

Of course, your favorite regions or types of dishes will be different than mine, so I would suggest researching the cookbook offerings and locating that one definitive cookbook in each category. It’s so much easier cooking out of just a few books and getting to know them very well than it is trying to find that one recipe you want to make from among hundreds of cookbooks.

Italian Sausage Soup

It is raining today, and actually feels like fall is coming, so here is a warming soup that is quick and easy enough for a weeknight meal. This is another entry in my favorite recipes series. This soup comes from Sara Foster’s cookbook, Sara Foster’s Casual Cooking.

Italian Sausage Soup

• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 lb. Italian sausage
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1 14.5-ounce can chopped tomatoes with their juices
• 1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• Salt and pepper
• 4 cups spinach, cabbage, or other greens, washed and trimmed
• 4 basil leaves, thinly sliced

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Cut open the sausage casings and squeeze the meat into the skillet, discarding the casings. Add the onion and saute 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sausage is light brown all over and the onion is tender and translucent. Drain the fat from the skillet. Add the stock, tomatoes and beans. Season to taste and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the greens and basil.

Review of Sara Foster’s Southern Kitchen

Sara Foster’s Southern Kitchen by Sara Foster with Tema Larter

When you open Sara Foster’s Southern Kitchen, you will want to start cooking right away, just to transform the gorgeous photos on the page into food on your plate. As with Foster’s other cookbooks, Southern Kitchen focuses on crowd-pleasing food made with fresh, seasonal ingredients. This time, she’s returned to her roots and offered classic Southern dishes with a modern sensibility. This is the food of church picnics and summer barbecues, the food Grandma used to make, but more healthful and definitely easy to cook.

Foster makes these Southern classics very accessible to the home cook. While you may need to stock up on certain ingredients, such as cornmeal, buttermilk, and grits, most are available at the local grocery. The main exception might be country ham, called for in many dishes, which may have to be mail-ordered depending on where you live. Foster provides a handy glossary and list of sources that will help you locate some. While it’s worth special-ordering a country ham for a holiday meal or party, that’s not an ingredient I would want to keep on hand all the time.

One thing I like about Foster’s recipes, besides the mouth-watering pictures, is how easy she makes it to adapt or vary them according to the cook’s taste or what’s in season. She offers seasonal variations on many dishes to encourage cooking with ingredients that are fresh and readily available, preferably from the local farmers market. And she suggests “Sara’s Swaps,” ways to change up the recipe and make it new every time. Also handy are the tips provided for learning new techniques or what to serve on the side.

Of course, I couldn’t resist trying the Pimiento Cheese, a Southern classic. This sandwich spread is definitely better when you make it yourself, but be aware that the quantity this recipe makes is enough to feed an army of Southern belles. Another good test of Southern bona fides is a cornbread recipe. The Salt and Pepper Skillet Cornbread was truly one of the best cornbreads I have ever made, and is sure to become a staple in my house.

Foster pays homage to other traditional Southern foods, dedicating one chapter to pork, “a food group all its own,” and another to grits and Carolina rice. The seafood chapter covers everything from catfish to crawfish. If you’re a fan of Foster’s cookbooks, you know she loves breakfast, and she doesn’t skimp here. I highly recommend the Fried Green Tomato BLT, for breakfast or any time of the day.

The fried green tomato BLT.

This cookbook is a boon for gardeners, who will find many ways to use up excess produce. One of the longest chapters is dedicated to vegetables, as sides, casseroles, and salads. The Watermelon-Tomato Salad with Shaved Feta and Handfuls of Mint is a new classic, perfect for a picnic or barbecue. Speaking of barbecues, the Baked Butter Beans should be a Fourth of July cookout standard. A chapter on dressings, pickles, and condiments has tasty recipes for putting food by, such as Sweet Pickle Relish, Quick Cucumber Pickles, Green Tomato Chow-Chow, and many more.

Many recipes in Southern Kitchen seem best-suited to special-occasion cooking: parties, barbecues, holidays, and other get-togethers. There are some recipes suitable for weeknights mixed in, though. For instance, the Crispy Chicken Cutlets with a Heap of Spring Salad are not only tasty, they’re ready in thirty minutes.

Most of the recipes I tried turned out as lip-smacking as their photos made them out to be. There were only a few disappointments. For instance, Granny Foster’s Simple Pound Cake took much longer than the recipe directed to bake, and it was still liquidy in the middle when it came out of the oven. It firmed up as it cooled, however, and it was pretty yummy underneath a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some fresh berries. When even the “failed” dishes get eaten, you know the cookbook is worth the investment.

Whether you’re a Southerner by birth missing the tasty foods of your childhood, or you just want to try your hand at some down-home Southern cooking, Sara Foster’s Southern Kitchen is the perfect place for you to be.

Article first published as Book Review: Sara Foster’s Southern Kitchen by Sara Foster with Tema Larter on Blogcritics.

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Some Old Favorites: Grilling Out on the New Deck

A recent cooking challenge that I haven’t gotten a chance to post about yet was to resurrect some old favorites. I chose backyard barbecue favorites in honor of our new, expanded, gorgeous deck, and to give my husband a chance to cook for a change.

The menu was: grilled turkey burgers, mini baked potatoes and quick pickles. I have posted the turkey burger recipe before. This is the only turkey burger recipe I have found that results in juicy, tasty burgers rather than dried-out hockey pucks. Giving credit where credit is due, the original recipe came from Sara Foster’s Casual Cooking.

That cookbook was also the source for the mini baked potatoes idea. You don’t even need a recipe for these. Just substitute medium-sized Yukon gold potatoes for russets. Poke holes in the top and bake at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Load them up with all your favorite fixings. Despite being so simple, this is a genius idea, because often a full-sized baked potato is just too much.

Finally, the quick pickles came from another Sara Foster book that I’ve been featuring a lot on this blog lately: Sara Foster’s Southern Kitchen. (Expect a full-fledged review very soon.) Even though this was a new recipe I was trying, it qualifies as an old favorite because I’ve been making some variant of these pickles for years. It’s a great way to eat garden cucumbers, and it also works for zucchini.

Here’s my version of a quick recipe for quick pickles. For 1 pound of cucumber slices, combine 2 cups water and 1 cup white wine vinegar. Add 1 tablespoon coarse salt, plus fresh dill, red pepper flakes and/or sliced garlic, as desired. You can also throw in diced red onion, if you like. Let the pickles marinate at least 1 hour. These pickles keep about 1 week in the fridge.

Smooth Gazpacho + Fried Green Tomato BLT

I’m sorry I’ve been so delinquent updating this blog. Summer has gotten crazy-busy, and my only writing time has been severely curtailed ever since my little one got inconsistent about napping. When he doesn’t nap, I don’t get any writing time, so I can’t blog. It’s definitely cut into my productivity.

I cooked my last challenge a couple of weeks ago, but I’m just now getting around to posting it. It’s still seasonally appropriate, though. The challenge was to make a chilled soup, one I hadn’t tried before. I have to admit that I didn’t go very far out on a limb for this one. I made a blended gazpacho.

Usually, when I make gazpacho, it’s pretty much a salad in a bowl. This time, I was inspired by Thomas Keller‘s recipe for Sun Gold Tomato Gazpacho, from Ad Hoc at Home. This soup is blended until it is silky smooth. It has a wonderful mouthfeel that encourages you to keep eating and eating. My husband also loved it. (Although the Kid, as per usual, turned up his nose.)

This soup uses cherry tomatoes, which should be abundant just about now. I was going to take advantage of some wonderful heirloom cherry tomatoes I spotted in the co-op, but by the time I went back to get them, they were all gone. So instead of using the yellow tomatoes that are called for, I substituted red. It didn’t hurt the soup any, so far as I could tell.

I served this with another great recipe from Sara Foster‘s Southern Kitchen: Fried Green Tomato BLTs. I didn’t have actual green tomatoes yet, so I used red ones from the co-op that were still a bit mealy. They fried up great and the sandwich was tasty, although nothing really beats a basic BLT at the height of tomato season. I encourage you to make your own mayonnaise for your BLTs. I stirred in some chopped basil, which gave it a summery taste. Here is my recipe for fool-proof homemade mayo.

Cherry Tomato Gazpacho

Yields: 6 servings (leftovers keep well in the fridge)

• 1 cup cold water
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed and peeled
• ¼ cup coarsely chopped onion
• 2 lbs. cherry tomatoes, stemmed and halved
• 1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and sliced
• 1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded and cut into large pieces
• 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar, or to taste
• ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
• pinch or two of cayenne pepper, or to taste
• salt, to taste
• ¾ cup good-quality olive oil
• 1 tablespoon minced basil, for garnish

1. Reserve 1 cup of the tomatoes, ½ of the cucumber and ½ of the pepper for garnish. Dice the cucumber and pepper. Refrigerate until serving.

2. In a large bowl, add the water, garlic, onion and remaining tomatoes, cucumber and pepper. Let marinate in their own juices for 5 minutes or so. Transfer to a food processor or blender and blend until completely smooth. Strain to remove any larger bits of tomato peel.

3. Return the mixture to the blender or food processor. Add the vinegar, smoked paprika, cayenne and salt. With the blender or food processor running, slowly pour in the oil, blending until very, very smooth. Taste and add more vinegar or seasonings as desired.

4. The gazpacho can be refrigerated up to 2 days. To serve, garnish with the reserved diced vegetables and minced basil leaves.

Adapted from Ad Hoc at Home, p114.

More Southern Cooking!

I got busy over Memorial Day weekend and cooked a lot out of Sara Foster’s Southern Kitchen. Pretty much every recipe was an unqualified winner, with a couple of minor exceptions. First, the good.

Yes, that is bacon all over those baked beans.

You know how sometimes when you make a recipe, you think: That’s it! I don’t have to try another version, because this is the one I’m going to stick with forever. That’s how I felt when I made these baked beans. They weren’t at all hard to make, and they were absolutely delicious. They use butter beans (but you could substitute any cooked bean), and I have never thought butter beans tasted so good. Usually, I’d rather not taste them at all. But these beans were sweet and smoky and spicy, all at the same time. They were everything you’d want baked beans to be, and they made the perfect accompaniment to all the hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken we were grilling up. Add some watermelon, and you’re set.

Speaking of watermelon, I also made the Watermelon-Tomato Salad with Shaved Feta and Handfuls of Mint. This was another keeper. The watermelon added a touch of sweetness that rescued somewhat bland tomatoes, which aren’t at their peak yet. Lots of basil and mint and a garnish of feta rounded it out. I need to make this salad every summer.

I also tried the Crispy Chicken Cutlets with a Heap of Spring Salad. This is a simplified version of buttermilk fried chicken. The cutlets are dipped in flour, soaked in buttermilk and egg, and then coated in homemade bread crumbs. They are shallow-fried until crisp. These cutlets were just great, much better than the Chicken Nuggets I made a while back. I liked the springtime salad they were served with, and I thought the Buttermilk Green Goddess Dressing was a nice accompaniment. It was light and herby, perfect for this time of year. My only complaint is that it was a little thin for my tastes, probably because I made it with plain yogurt instead of mayonnaise, which was one of the suggested variations. So it was lighter, but a little too watery.

Finally, I attempted to make dessert. I have to admit up front that baking is not my forte, and I am about ready to give up on making cakes and their kin altogether. This time I attempted Granny Foster’s Simple Pound Cake. This was a true pound cake, for it required a pound of eggs, a pound of butter and a pound of flour. And it was gigantic, probably way too much batter for the pan. As a result, it took forever to cook, and even when I took it out of the oven after almost two hours, it still wasn’t set in the middle. It did firm up as it cooled, though, so we were able to eat it. It tasted darned good, although a bit on the sickly sweet side for my tastes. Everyone enjoyed it, and after piling some ice cream on top, we didn’t really notice the slight mushiness. But this is the first recipe from this book that I’ve tried and would not make again. Still, I can already tell that this book is a definite keeper.

My challenge this weekend was to make some barbecue classics, and I think the baked beans certainly qualify.

Sara Foster’s Southern Kitchen: The First Recipes

As I promised, I’m cooking from my brand-new Sara Foster’s Southern Kitchen over the next month and sharing the results here. At the end of the month, I’ll post a full-fledged review, but until then, you’ll just have to ogle the pictures. Try not to drool!

Last night, our theme was a warm-weather barbecue. From the cookbook, I made this gorgeous and delicious Salt and Pepper Skillet Cornbread. Honestly, this is going to be my main cornbread recipe from now on, it’s that good.

To accompany, my husband grilled chicken slathered with West Tennessee Thick and Sticky BBQ Sauce. This sauce was so easy to make, and it tasted delicious. We had simply grilled eggplant slices to accompany.

I also made Sara Foster’s Pimiento Cheese. Pimiento cheese is not my favorite thing, but it tastes miles better when it’s homemade, as opposed that florescent orange stuff they sell in the grocery store. No photo, but the recipe is online, and you can serve it on toasts made from the cornbread, which here’s my little one very much enjoyed.

Thanks to my husband for doing the grilling and taking the photos!

Super Bowl Challenge: Sliders

This week, I had a challenge for our mini Super Bowl party, which was to make sliders. This was a real challenge for me because (a) I’d never made them before, and (b) I don’t eat beef. My husband requested both a beef and turkey version, so I did get to eat some of them.

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it? I’d say this challenge was an unqualified success. Everyone enjoyed them, and my toddler even ate half of one. I may have been designated the official burger maker of our family, which is funny because, again, I don’t eat beef.

The first issue for me was what kind of beef to use. Many of my cookbooks advise grinding your own meat for burgers, but I wasn’t prepared to go quite that far. I decided on ground chuck because of the higher fat content. Burgers need fat to be delicious.

I also needed a good recipe. After some Internet searching, I settled on this one by Alton Brown (I’m not going to re-type it; just follow the link). This recipe has an interesting technique. You roll out the beef on a large cooking sheet into a very thin layer. You then season the top part and fold it over. Cut that into squares to get the White Castle-style burgers. My only quibble was that the instructions were to cut 8 squares, which seemed to make very large burgers for something that is called “mini man burgers.” I ended up cutting them into 16 burgers, which was just the right size for our tiny hamburger buns.

Speaking of buns, I did attempt to make my own, but my attempt failed gloriously. My dough did not rise. I don’t know if the yeast was kaput, or if I did something wrong in the initial step when I combined the yeast with warm milk. At any rate, I intend to try again sometime in the future, as the pictures of the finished bread in Peter Rinehart’s Artisan Breads Every Day are just way too yummy to resist. Still, for this challenge, we ended up using the backup, which was mini Martin’s potato rolls. Nothing wrong with that.

As for the turkey version, I do have a turkey burger recipe that I have been working on for a while now, and that I think it is pretty good. (Scroll down for it). You do have to add some fat and other flavors to the mix, because turkey burgers will turn into hockey pucks if you don’t. I ended up using the same technique of rolling the ground turkey mix out thinly. Then I added a layer of cheddar to the middle before folding and cutting. The cheddar adds much-needed fat while cooking the burgers, and the little pocket of cheese in the middle is a nice surprise when you’re eating it.

As for toppings, I decided to go traditional. I provided mustard, ketchup, iceberg lettuce, cheddar cheese, pickle slices and pickled red onions (recipe to be posted tomorrow). Next time we make them, my husband wants to try a barbecue version using the barbecue sauce I made for a previous challenge. But for a football game, these little burgers couldn’t be more appropriate. We also had potato skins, cheese bread, guacamole and salsa for dipping — we feasted.

Turkey Burgers

This recipe was adapted from Sara Foster’s Casual Cooking. Makes 4 large burgers or 16 sliders.

In a bowl combine:

• 1 pound ground turkey,
• ⅓ cup fresh bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon hot sauce
• salt and pepper
• cheddar cheese, cubed or sliced (optional)

Mix well and form into 4 patties or 16 sliders. Optional: insert a cube or slice of cheese in the center of each burger. Either grill or pan-fry in a little oil for 5 minutes each side, until there is no pink at the center and an instant-reading thermometer measures at least 150 degrees. Serve them hot on buns, topping with your favorite condiments.

Buffalo Chicken Strips with Blue Cheese Dip

Football season is upon us. I know because my husband disappears every Sunday afternoon and Monday night, giving me some much-needed alone time.  Ahhh, I love the autumn.

Kidding aside, these buffalo chicken strips are a great recipe find from Sara Foster’s Fresh Every Day, and they go perfectly with football games. You can even grill them at your next tailgate party. I like them because they’re a lot less trouble than wings but deliver the same taste, and they give me an excuse to make blue cheese dip. I would probably dip grasshoppers in blue cheese dip and eat them. (Well, only if they’re deep-fried.)

Buffalo Chicken Strips

Serves 4 to 6

• 4 tablespoons butter, melted
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon hot sauce (Tabasco or Texas Pete)
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (about 1½ pounds)
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• ½  teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Chunky Blue Chese Dip (recipe follows or you could substitute leftover Blue Cheese Dressing)
• 2 celery stalks, halved and cut into 3-inch sticks

Preheat a grill or the broiler. Whisk the butter, oil, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper and paprika together in a small bowl. Cut the chicken breasts diagonally into ½-inch-wide strips and season with salt and pepper. Place the strips in a shallow dish or bowl, pour half the sauce over them, and toss to coat evenly.

Brush the grill or a baking pan lightly with oil. Place the chicken strips on the grill or in the pan and cook 2 to 3 minutes per side, until cooked through. Serve with the Chunky Blue Cheese Dip, the remaining wing sauce and the celery sticks.

Chunky Blue Cheese Dip

• ¼ cup well-shaken buttermilk
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• ½ teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
• 4 ounces crumbled blue cheese (about 1 cup)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

Stir the buttermilk, mayonnaise, vinegar, ½ teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon pepper together. Stir in the blue cheese. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste and stir in the chives. Refrigerate in an airtight container up to 1 week.

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Classic Cucumber Salad

I made this for dinner last night with the last of our garden cucumbers. This quick marinade is probably my favorite way to eat cucumbers. You can vary the herbs and citrus to suit your menu; for instance, basil is delicious in this salad. Do not omit the small amount of sugar, though, as it really helps the flavors shine.

The original recipe is from Sara Foster’s Casual Cooking, but as the title says, it is a Southern classic.

Classic Cucumber Salad

Serves 4 to 6

• 1 cucumber, thinly sliced (about 3 cups)
• 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, cilantro, basil or mint
• Grated zest and juice of 1 lime or lemon
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• Salt to taste

Combine all of the ingredients in a medium bowl and toss to mix. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for about 30 minutes to chill.

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