7 Cookbooks For The Foodie On Your List
You've resolved to eat healthier and dine at home as a family more often this year. Good job. But you won't stick to that plan very long if you're forced to do the cooking every night. Drop a subtle hint to your loved ones with one of these cookbooks, all of which offer fantastic recipes you can try out in your own kitchen, creating mouth-watering meals that will easily best anything you can get delivered in a Styrofoam container. This video was made with Ezvid Wikimaker.
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Boudin King Cake from Acadiana Table
Quick Tips to Help You Stay Healthy
- Cook more meals at home
- Establish a workout routine
- Get a fitness tracker and compete with your friends
- Go for a hike now & then
- Take up yoga and stretch regularly
- Establish a regular sleeping pattern
- Make a smoothie in the morning
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Tips & Tricks for Vegetarians & Vegans
- Experiment with how you prepare tofu. It has a bad reputation, but it can be a great component of a meal if it's flavored and cooked right.
- Stock up on vegan snacks. Just because you're on a plant-based diet doesn't mean you can't have fun with your food.
- Consider a meatless diet for your dog, although of course you should talk to a vet before making this major change.
- It's not hard to get the protein you need from whole foods, but if you're a body builder or just concerned about protein intake, try mixing a vegan protein powder into a shake or smoothie.
- If you're making this change for health reasons, remember to create sustainable habits so that you don't lose steam after a week or two.
Cauliflower Risotto from Wicked Healthy
In Depth
Anyone with an internet connection can find basic recipes at the click of a button. But serious home cooks know that there's nothing as inspiring as a beautifully bound, full-color cookbook. This list, presented in no particular order, highlights seven outstanding cookbooks that share a range of different cuisines.
#1 is Acadiana Table: Cajun and Creole Home Cooking from the Heart of Louisiana. The title refers to the region of Southwest Louisiana, surrounding Lafayette and stretching to the Gulf. It's Cajun country and the heart and soul of the French Acadians in America. Author George Graham is from the area. Previously a finalist on Food Network Challenge, he began sharing recipes online before compiling this tome.
The book, published by Harvard Common Press, contains 125 recipes, some of them previously featured on the blog, some totally new. Graham presents fresh takes on Cajun classics like gumbo, crawfish bisque, and crab etouffee. Graham's original creations include things like the Bluesiana Burger, a Fourth of July treat made with zydeco sauce, root beer glaze, and Mardi Gras slaw.
Graham presents fresh takes on Cajun classics like gumbo, crawfish bisque, and crab etouffee.
At #2, we've got The Modern Cook series by cook, writer, and stylist Anna Jones. Led by the joy of food, she believes that vegetables should be put at the center of every table. Her first book, A Modern Way to Eat, is a contemporary take on vegetarian cooking, packed full of delicious, healthy recipes that are quick and easy to make.
In the follow-up, A Modern Way to Cook, Jones extends her project, finding ways to make clean, nourishing, vegetable-centered food realistic on any night of the week. The third title in the series, The Modern Cook's Year, shows readers how to make the most of seasonal produce, using simple, hugely inventive flavors and ingredients.
For #3, it's Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food. Authored by writer and food photographer Nik Sharma, whose column A Brown Table appears in the San Francisco Chronicle, the book features delicious and intriguing recipes and 270 original images. Here the bold flavors of Indian cooking combine with familiar foods of the American South and California in fresh ways.
Authored by writer and food photographer Nik Sharma, whose column A Brown Table appears in the San Francisco Chronicle, the book features delicious and intriguing recipes and 270 original images.
The book introduces home cooks to new ways of thinking about flavor. Not just a modern Indian cookbook, it walks readers through a range of healthy ingredients and techniques, utilizing spices including turmeric, saffron, and za'atar. Some of the featured recipes include quince paste, spiced rack of lamb, and ice cream made with mango, coconut, and star anise.
Coming in at #4, The Wicked Healthy Cookbook, written by Chad Sarno, Derek Sarno, and David Joachim, featuring a foreword by Woody Harrelson. Taking inspiration from their popular food blog, the New England-born brothers and their collaborators celebrate food that's good for you but tastes so good you think it must be bad for you.
They want readers to give up meat and eat more vegetables, especially if they are green, locally grown, and organic. The book showcases new cooking techniques, easy-to-follow tips and tricks of the trade, and the most innovative methods of food prep. Among the recipes, they've got herb crusted butternut squash tenderloin and hand-made gnocchi with leek butter.
They want readers to give up meat and eat more vegetables, especially if they are green, locally grown, and organic.
#5 brings us to The Gefilte Manifesto. More than a cookbook, it's a call to action, a reclamation of time-honored techniques and ingredients, from easy dishes like classic sour dill pickles to more elaborate fare like crispy honey-glazed chicken with tsimmes. Authors Jeffrey Yoskowitz and Liz Alpern see it as a comprehensive guide to contemporary Jewish cooking.
Offering fresh twists on classic Ashkenazi cuisine, The Gefilte Manifesto was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and was recognized by USA Today, Epicurious, and Newsday as one of the best cookbooks of the year. Yoskowitz and Alpern are founders of The Gefilteria, a New York City-based food venture that offers products and classes.
For #6, we've got Jeff Keasberry's Indo Dutch Kitchen Secrets: Stories and Favorite Family Recipes from Stroopwafel to Rijsttafel. This full-color, hardback cookbook concerns the unique culinary heritage of the Indo Dutch diaspora, which started in the former Dutch East Indies, described through a collection of delicious, easy-to-prepare recipes and stories.
This full-color, hardback cookbook concerns the unique culinary heritage of the Indo Dutch diaspora, which started in the former Dutch East Indies, described through a collection of delicious, easy-to-prepare recipes and stories.
Following the path of the people who traversed different continents and multiple cultures while managing to preserve their heritage to reinforce their identity, the book shares a little known secret of the culinary world, more than 350 years in the making. These dishes explore and celebrate the blending of Indonesian and Dutch, and the resultant Indo Dutch fusion cooking style.
Closing out the list at #7 is The Forest Feast Cookbook series. In these books, photographer and Sonoma County native Erin Gleeson shares artful & entertaining ideas, style inspiration, and simple, vegetable-focused recipes illustrated by her own watercolors, hand-lettering, and photography. Published in 2014, Gleeson's first title became a New York Times bestseller, and was inspired by her move to a cabin in the woods after a stint in New York.
That book was followed by an edition designed especially for kids aged 8 to 12, inspiring them to begin cooking. Another volume attends more directly to entertaining, with menus for all different types of occasions. The fourth title in the series is inspired by travel, chronicling the author's three-month family trip through Spain, Italy, France and Portugal, and presents plant-forward small plates.