As a Midwesterner I frequent Chicago and I  have been to the Berghoff Cafe.  The Bergoff Cafe is a larger than life restaurant that is loud and extremely fun.  The best part about the Berghoff Cafe is their vast selection of Berghoff Beers.  I like the original Amber.  They also have amazing food.  My favorite is the beer cheese soup.  I discovered that they had a recipe for the soup in the book. 

The Berghoff Cafe book and food is based around three principles: Reuse, Recycle and Reinvent.  What does this mean.  Well extra potatoes become Lyonnaise Potatoes, Potato Soup and more.  The roasted turkey breast goes on to star in the turkey reuben.  Basically everything is used for multiple purposes and never wasted.  This is a great principle in this economy.

Almost every recipe in the book contains a little history about the recipe, an ingredient or a historical period when the recipe was originally developed.  For instance they include history about “shot and a wash”.  Shot an a wash is basically whiskey dropped in beer.  Basically it is a refined boilermaker.  This was done as back in the day water was often impure and drank at ones own risk.  Further whiskey was primitive and had a lot of impurities making it have a bad taste.  So back in the day after a people would take a shot they would rinse their mouths out with beer instead of water.  Thus, a shot and a wash. 

This book is organized in a standard fashion from appetizers to entrees to desserts.  Although the majority of the book is appetizers.  The appetizers sections starts with Bar Snacks moves on to Soups, Sandwiches, Salads and Sides.  Then it moves on to Daily Specials to Pizzas.  Then it finishes up with Desserts.

Any book that starts out with bar snacks has to be awesome.  They have recipes for everything from deviled eggs to soft pretzels.  They even include a recipe for a classic relish tray.  When I was growing up my Grandma Donna always had a relish tray at every meal. I loved the gerkins, block olive and baby pickles.  Although not a real recipe, it contains the ingredients to assemble the perfect relish tray.

My favorite thing at the Berghoff Cafe is the Beer Cheese Soup.  They include the recipe for this in the soup section.  The soup is contains four cups of cheese and a whole bottle of beer.  While it is missing some bacon, it is a great recipe.  They garnish the soup with a freshly baked pretzel or freshly popped popcorn.  If this is the exact recipe from the restaurant then it is an amazing recipe.

The book also includes a whole section on pizzas.  Yep, I spent a couple of hours analyzing this section.  They have a great pizza that utilizes bratwurst and sauerkraut.  It is very similar to the Reuben pizza that I made.  It starts out with a caraway crust, topped with brown mustard and then layered with brats, kraut and onions.  Along with this tasty recipe they also have others that include smoked sausage and potato pizza and cafe’ onion and bacon pizza.  Every pizza in this section sounds amazing.

Overall this is a great book.  It contains easy and wholesome recipes that are amazing. This book totally reminds me of the comfort foods that I grew up with in the midwest.  If you are looking for easy comfort food with a midwestern twist this book is for you. 

The Berghoff Cafe Cookbook is available wherever books are sold and is available on Amazon here.

I am not the biggest fan of Down Home With The Neelys TV Show.  Not that I hate it, I think the food is great.  I find it quite lovey dovey and hard to watch.  You can only watch two people grind each other on the TV while they cook for so long.  I think the show would be a lot better with a little less PDA.  Based on that I figured the cookbook wouldn’t be the best.  However, I was completely wrong.  The book is nicely written, full of great stories and awesome recipes.

This book starts off with some great introductions.  The forward is written by Paula Deen.  From this I found that the Neelys were discovered by Paula’s Sons.  During their brief stint on the show Road Tasted the Deen boys came across the Neelys.  They told their mom and after a single episode of Paula’s Party their new TV career was started and the rest is history. 

This book includes great quotes and tips from both Pat and Gina.  Their personalities shine through in each chapter and really adds to the book.  Pat and Gina also include recipes and stories from their family members.  This includes grilling and barbecuing tips from Pat’s brother Tony.  Tony has excellent tips on how to start a smoker and how to cook on an offset fire.

Since the Neelys know barbecue, the book is centered around barbecue.  I see nothing wrong with this.  I love barbecue so this totally sparked my interest in this book.  The book starts out with Neelys barbecue seasoning and barbecue sauce.  These recipes are then used as a base for most of the barbecue recipes.  The sauce is a sweet Memphis tomato based barbecue sauce that sounds awesome.  I am going to make this sauce this week. 

The book is not all barbecue.  There is also great recipes for everything from coconut shrimp with spicy peanut sauce to corn chowder to chicken and noodles.  There are also great southern recipes like fried chicken, creamed corn, seared okra and tomatoes, Gina’s collard greens and barbecue spaghetti.  I have had some great barbecue spaghetti in my days and the one in this book sounds delicious.

Overall this a great book.  I must admit that my initial thoughts on this book were completely wrong.  The recipes are great and are easy to read.  The food is not complicated and the recipes use basic ingredients.  This is a book for common cooks with normal food budgets.

Down Home With The Neelys is available wherever books are sold and is available on Amazon here.

Every Wednesday I review a cookbook and/or food related books to help weed out the good the bad and the ugly. This week I am reviewing No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach by Anthony Bourdain.

I am a huge fan of Bourdain, I have all of his books. I enjoy all of them. Amazingly enough, this book was signed by Anthony Bourdain himself.  I ran into him at the DC Central Kitchen Food Fight.  He was hosting it with Jose Andreas.  He is one tall man with cowboy boots on.

I will not the celebrity encounter hinder my review of this book.

No Reservations is photo book of Bourdain’s journeys while hosting the TV show No Reservations. I decided to do this review in a question/answer format. You will see why.

Is it a cookbook? No. No recipes included.

Does it contain words? Yes, but very little. Mostly are captions. The book is broken up into sections by continents that Bourdain visited. Bourdain does include a little intro with each chapter reminiscing about the places he visited that relate to the chapter. Descriptive? Not really. Mostly lost thoughts. To me it was more reminiscent of Jack Handy more than Anthony Bourdain. Each picture also has a caption. Although they all are not that descriptive. Take for instance this one, “women with shea nuts at market”, or “working the sandwich counter at Salumi”. If you love one liners this book is for you.

Does it have pictures? Yes. Are they good? Some are. Most are taken indoors or at night and are pretty poor in quality. They are either over or under exposed, poor color and some are just not that focused. For a book of pictures I wanted to see some better ones. But, there is a but, there are some amazing pictures in this book. The picture show a story about food and about culture. Plus, there is a food porn section starting on page 239. The pictures are about the same quality as the others, but you can see enough to make yourself hungry.

Overall this book seems quickly pushed together. Like they just wanted to get another book out. For a coffee table book that is full of images, this book falls quite short. I would totally recommend this book if it had great photos throughout, but it doesn’t. As a fan of Bourdain this book is really disappointing. If you love Bourdain, pick it up. You will see a lot of photos of him exploring the world. But if you want a great coffee table book, I would pass.

No Reservations is available wherever books are sold and is available on Amazon here.

Every Wednesday I review a cookbook to help weed out the good the bad and the ugly. This week I am reviewing The Scandinavian Cookbook by Trina Hahnemann.  When I saw this book I had to have it.  Being Scandinavian in descent, I wanted to learn more about traditional Scandinavian cooking.  Yes, I am Swedish.  Hej – (“hello”).  This book covers recipes from all over Scandinavia, from Denmark to Norway and yes Sweden.

This cookbook is organized very differently than most. Actually, it is organized in a unique and extremely cool way. It is organized by month of the year, and the different types of food that you would eat during each month. Not just comfort food, but by the types of food that are in season. Seasonal cooking is a great to way to help the environment. Fresh corn shouldn’t be available in the winter. If it is, it has been shipped from halfway around the globe to your table. There is a lot of energy wasted in shipping food. Enough of me preaching, back to the book.

The cookbook starts out in January and goes through the months all the way to December. Along with the recipes there are a ton of great photographs of the food and seasonal pictures from all around Scandinavia. The photographs are amazing. Lars Renek is the man behind the beautiful photographs in this book. Bravo, Lars! Bravo! Even if I couldn’t read, this book would be amazing because of the photographs.

The recipes are equally amazing. A lot of the recipes are for Smørrebrød which are Danish open faced sandwiches.  They are preferably made with rye bread and are served with aquavit and beer.  They had me at sandwich and only sweetened the deal with the aquavit and beer.  The Smørrebrød come in all different types.  From flounder and shrimp with basil dressing to chicken and lovage salad.  I must admit, I had no idea what lovage was.  Lovage is a perrenial plant that resembles celery.  My favorite Smørrebrød that was in the book had to be the smoked cheese salad on rye.  Wow, a cheese salad.  The cheese used in the book is rygeost which is a soft smoked cheese from Denmark, but they say you can substitute smoked ricotta.  Along with cheese it uses a lot of the same ingredients that you would put into a tuna or chicken salad, but you substitute cheese for protein.  Amazing!  Why didn’t I think of this.  Scandinavian people are awesome!

The book also covers seasonal drinks.  From hot chocolate in the winter to red currant and strawberry smoothies in the summer.  Not all of the drinks are alcohol free.  Take for instance the elderflower cordial that utilizes fresh elderflowers picked when they bloom in June.  The elderflower cordial is diluted with champagne for a fresh taste of summer.

Being a Scandinavian cookbook there are plenty of seafood recipes.  There are recipes for almost every type of seafood.  From flounder to salmon to mussels to lumpfish roe.  I love seafood and usually find myself preparing most of it the same way.  For some reason when it comes to seafood, I am not creative.  This book has sparked my interest.  There is a recipe in here for cauliflower soup with grilled scallops.  The creamy cauliflower soup with the smokey grilled scallops topped with lemon, sounds delicious.  I am totally going to make this and post about it.

In all, I loved this book.  I love that it is organized by month and by what is in season.  It totally takes the guess work out of what to cook.  Open the book, turn to the current month, and make something amazing.  Although the cauliflower soup is listed in November, all of the ingredients are in season here in Washington, D.C.  It is my lucky day.  I would totally recommend picking up this book.  The recipes, pictures and stories are worth it.   Trina Hahnemann has written a great book.

The Scandinavian Cookbook is available wherever books are sold and is available on Amazon here.

Every Wednesday I review a cookbook to help weed out the good the bad and the ugly. This week I am reviewing The Art & Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet. I love baking. I guess it is the engineer in me that loves the precise measurements and the ability to use cool cooking tools. Honestly, the fact that the recipes are so precise and need to be that precise is comforting to me. When it comes to precise measurements and exactness, this book does not disappoint. It includes conversion tables and measurements of ingredients based on weight. I love using kitchen scales. I may be weird, but this book is awesome.

After reading the first chapter of this book, I knew that it was going to be my new favorite baking book. They discuss every basic ingredient from flour to sugar to milk. Each section has a description of the basics for the ingredients, the history, how they are made, how they interact with other ingredients, and best of all, the differences between the varying types of each ingredient. For instance, butter has coloring added to it as winter and summer butter varies in color. This is because of the types of food that cows eat during the varying seasons. During the winter cows normally eat dried grain leaving the butter pale in color. During the spring and summer cows normally eat green grass leaving the butter yellow and more appealing in flavor. So yellow coloring is added to butter to make is so that spring/summer butter can be found year round.

This book is part of the Sur La Table culinary series of books. This is awesome as there is a section on culinary equipment. This might now sound like much, but they describe each piece of culinary equipment and provide you with a maximum amount of dough/batter that can and/or should be placed in the equipment. Pages 12-13 of the book include a baking pan volume chart. This describes each type of baking pan and the maximum capacity by volume for each pan. Extremely helpful when you are trying to figure out how much bread dough to put in a 8.5 x 4.5 x 2 loaf pan. Just so you know, 6 cups.

The book is laid out nicely based on type of baked good you are trying to make. Yeast breads, layered pastries, quick breads, pies, tarts, fruit desserts, cookies, cakes, custards, souffles, and finishing techniques. In each section they list the recipes for each food and further include random “what the pro’s know” tips and Tips for success throughout the book. These include tidbits that can make or break your baked goods. For instance, the easiest way to inhibit fruit from turning your muffins blue is to use buttermilk. The acidity in buttermilk stops the color change.

I would like to point out that the book has a sole section of souffles. Souffles scare the crap out of me. Every time that I make them they fall, aren’t cooked properly or are just plain bad. This book in just 3 pages describes the process and techniques used in making the perfect souffles. After reading this section I felt as if I could go and make a perfect souffle right then. I have never read a cookbook that explains hard techniques in such a way that I immediately felt that I could make them without a problem.

Overall this book is amazing. It includes great recipes, great pictures and great information on baking. The book is a great reference for not just recipes but for conversions, cooking equipment and various other tips that are included with almost every recipe. I would recommend this book to everyone that is interested in baking. Plus it includes a great recipe for pizza dough. I love pizza.

The Art & Soul of Baking is available wherever books are sold and is available on Amazon for around $26.

Every wednesday I review a cookbook to help weed out the good the bad and the ugly. This week I am reviewing America’s Best BBQ, 100 Recipes from America’s Best Smokehouses, Pits, Shacks, Rib Joints, Roadhouses and Restaurants. This book is co-written by Ardie A. Davis and Chef Paul Kirk. Both barbecue legends. Even being barbecue legends I don’t know how they pulled this one off. They went into the best barbecue restaurants in America and came out with recipes for some amazing food.

Starter and Appetizers

Like most cookbooks this one is broken up into sections based on courses. Chapter one discusses starters and appetizers. They have included recipes from Onion Rings from Leonard’s Pit Barbecue in Memphis, Tennesee to the famous Burgoo from the Moonlite Bar-B-Q in in Owensboro, Kentucky. The one killer appetizer that I found in the book was Fried Cheese Stick Grits from Memphis Minnie’s Barbecue Joint and Smoke House in San Franciso. A new take on the southern tradition of grits. If you were wondering how these guys came away with such good recipes from the restaurants, Ardie says that they were ready to arm-wrestle for the cheese stick grits recipe.

Main Dishes

This is the heart and soul of barbecue, the main dish.  Ardie and Paul have recipes for Memphis-style ribs from Jack’s Barb-B-Que in Nashville, Tennesee – The cooking method for Pit Bar-B-Que from Cooper’s Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que and the recipe for Pork Butt from the 17th Street bar and grill in Murphysboro, Illinois.  When I was in college there was a BBQ joint in Milwaukee called Speed Queen and they had the best rib tips.  I have always wonder the best way to cook ribs tips.  While not Speed Queen’s recipe, this book has the Rib Tip recipe from Lem’s Bar-B-Q house in Chicago.  They are slow cooked and the excerpt includes the recipe for Lem’s spicy gravy. 

Sides and Condiments

Every great barbecue restaurant has amazing sides.  This section includes sides and condiments from some of America’s most notable restaurants.  Like, the famous fries from Arther Bryant’s In Kansas City and Barbecue Beef Rub from Goode Company Barbecue in Houston, Texas.  Ardie and Paul pulled out all of the stops in this book.  The best of the section though is a recipe for Eastern North Carolina Coleslaw from Stamey’s in Greensboro, North Carolina.  This is not your traditional coleslaw as it uses a ketchup base.  According to Ardie and Paul, “The sour notes in the slaw complement the sweetness of the pork.”  Sounds like I might be making this next week.

Desserts

Yes, barbecue restaurants serve dessert.  From the Apple Dumplings at Rooster’s Bar-B-Q in Harrison, Arkansas to the Banana Cream Pie from Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Que in Decatur, Alabama.  But the best in my opinion, Deep Fried Oreos from RUB (Righteous Urban Barbecue) in New York City.  I usually make a pancake batter but they swear by a mixture that start with white cake mix.  Hmm.  Sounds delicious.  Time to fire up the fryer.

Overall

If you love barbecue then you have to get this book.  Secret family recipes revealed for some of your favorite items at famous barbecue landmarks.  On top of that this book is full of great stories about the proprietors and pit masters.  I wish I was a barbecue legend so that I could walk into a famous barbecue joint and walk out with the recipes.  But like me, you don’t have to as Ardie and Paul did all of the work for you.  Make sure to check out page 186 for Paul and Ardie’s take on the top ten barbecue restaurants.

America’s Best BBQ  is available wherever books are sold and is available on Amazon for around $14.

Every wednesday I review a cookbook to help weed out the good the bad and the ugly. This week I am reviewing a classic, The Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. This book has been a classic since 1930.  Every other year or so they update it with new recipes.  The newest version is a winner. Updated for the modern era, it contains everything that you would ever need to know about basic cooking .  It further includes one of the best recipe references that I have ever used.  I frequently reference my new cook book before I start to create a dish.

The first section of the book, Cooking basics, teaches everything from meal planning, to using food labels, to shopping strategies, to setting a table.  It also includes a guide to cooking terms and techniques.  At first glance I was like whatever, but when I started to think about this is a great feature.  If you don’t understand a term in the recipe how can you create it. 

After the intro chapter, they go right into the recipes.  They split the recipes up into the various types of food.  Like, beans, rice and grains, breads, candy, eggs and cheese and conclude with vegetables.  In all there are twenty different chapters on the different types of food.  Each jam packed with mouth watering recipes and photos. 

I have worn out the bread section in my copy of the book.  The white bread, whole wheat bread and sourdough bread are just a few that I have tasted.  They are delicious.  Although I don’t technically call it bread, but pancakes are also in this section.  Pancakes are technically a quick bread and are thus classified in the bread section.  The pancake recipe is great and makes just enough for 2-3 people.  I use the basic recipe as a starter for all of my pancake recipes.

This book is great reference for the home cook.  It has easy to read recipes that are well tested and come out perfect every time.  This book was the very first cookbook that I had ever purchased.  It is easy to read and includes step by step photos for a lot of the recipes.  This book is the result of the better homes and gardens test kitchen and their hard work to make sure that each recipe has the perfect taste, texture and appearance.  They further refine each recipe to make sure that instructions are clear and easy to follow.  Basically this is the ultimate beginners cook book.  If you need a perfect gift for a graduate, new home owner or a friend (who quite frankly can’t cook) this book is all you need.

Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book (Better Homes & Gardens Plaid) is available at most retailers.

Every wednesday I review a cookbook to help weed out the good the bad and the ugly. This week I am reviewing, The Joy of Jams, Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves. I reviewed the Joy of Pickling a couple of weeks ago, and I must say that Linda Ziedrich is the Queen of preserving food. Her lastest book allows you to showcase the fabulous flavors of the fruit without masking them in artificial sweetners, chemicals and artificial flavorings. As a matter of fact, not a single one of the recipes in the book require store bought pectin. So this is the ultimate way to make fresh, healthy and tasty jams, jellies and preserves.

The hardest part about making homemade jams, jellies and preserves is mastering the technique. Anyone can read a recipe, but turning that recipe into a spectacular preserve takes technique. The first part of this book contains the Preserver’s Primer. A section explaining the techniques and vocabulary that will be used in the recipes. For instance, what is the difference between grape jam, grape jelly and grape preserves. Jam is crushed or chopped fruit that is cooked with sugar until the mixture sets. Jelly is a gelled mixtured of sugar and juice that is acidic. Preserves are whole or sliced fruits in syrup or jelly.

Linda goes on to describe the advent of packaged pectin and why it became so popular. Story short, it made cooks lives easier, but it also took away from the art of preserves. She includes a chart of natural pectin content in each type of fruit. For example, Strawberries are low in pectin and actually may need some artificial pectin to make them solid. Also natural pectin reacts with sugar and heat. So, Linda describes the sugar content needed for each pectin level of fruit. All of this stuff is great information that you can not get from the directions in a gelatin box.

Another important part of the Preserver’s Primer is how to test for gelling. Gelling is the point wherein your preserve is done and ready to be jarred. It can be done by temperature, a spoon test or by a saucer test. Each test has its own negatives and postives, but Linda has explained all of them so if you are cooking you can try each. That way you can perfectly cook the preserves every time. Linda has also included a troubleshooting guide on pages 30-31 to help you determine what went wrong with your preserves if you have a problem, and the preventative measures that should be taken to avoid the problem in the future.

The rest of the book is organized in by fruit in alphabetical order. She includes over 200 recipes from everything from Apples to Zucchini Preserves. The recipes are all straight forward and include a list of ingredients and exact directions in big print.

The best part of this book is the background into jam and jelly making, along with descriptions of the techniques necessary to make perfect jams and jellies. Linda Ziedrich has written a book that describes the processes involved in making jams and jellies in a way, that any novice could pick it up in an afternoon. If you are sick of the flavorless mass produced jams and jellies in the supermarket, I recommend that you pick up this book. After reading this book, I wanted to go to the Farmer’s Market and buy all of the fresh fruits in season, so that I could start making jams and jellies.

The book is available at Amazon for less that $15. The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves: 200 Classic and Contemporary Recipes Showcasing the Fabulous Flavors of Fresh Fruits

Every wednesday I review a cookbook to help weed out the good the bad and the ugly. This week I am reviewing I’m Just Here For MORE FOOD by Alton Brown. As an engineer and a certified nerd, I love Alton Brown. His show is designed around humor and the basics, that make food what it is. He takes the most complicated concepts and makes them fun and interesting. His newest book does not disappoint.  

Alton Brown’s   sequal to I’m just here for the FOOD.  This book is all about baking.  It is organized well and is set up to teach experienced and inexperienced cooks about baking.  Just like his first book in the series, this book is full of information.  Alton breaks down the book into the Parts Department, the muffin method, the biscuit method, the creaming method, the straight dough method, the egg foam method and custards.  Alton shows how all basic baked goods are created using one of the six methods disclosed above.

The Parts Department

Alton describes how each ingredient reacts with every other ingredient.  He teaches how proteins, carbohydrates, fats, water and air all come together to make the perfect baked goods.  My favorite part is that he describes each type of ingredient reacts in a baked good.  For instance, sugar tenderizes baked goods by breaking up proteins and asorbing water, they preserve by bind water, sugar leavens by airating fat molecules and sugar browns by breaking into color and aroma compounds when heated.    This section is the basis behind why our food looks, tastes, and feels the way it does.  I actually read this section a couple of times as it was so interesting. 

The Muffin Method

The basis of the muffin method is that you combine all of the dry ingredients in one bowl and all of the wet ingredients into a separate bowl.  Then you add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.  In this method you stir until just combined, remembering not to overmix.  In this method Alton describes why we sift our flour.  Flour when sifted is airated and requires less mixing to form a batter.  Thus, less stirring means less gluten, meaning a more flaky biscuit.  A thing to note, muffins are not cupcakes.  Cupcakes are moist and tender, a muffin is meant to be coarse and crumbly.  Another great tip is that you should heat your oven a tad higher than the recommended temperature before you place your muffins in the oven.  After you place them in the oven reduce the heat to the recommended temperature.  This will compensate for the cooler pans and the oven door being open.  Thus, giving you a better final product. 

The Biscuit Method

The basis of the biscuit method is to cut the fat into the dry ingredients.  Then once the fats are dispersed in the dry ingredients, you add the wet ingredients into the center and quickly mix.  Then you turn the mixture out on a surface and knead briefly.  Alton describes how this method is used to create biscuits, scones, shortcakes and dumplings.  My favorite part of the section is making homemade saltines.  I am always amazed at recipes for things that I wouldn’t even think to make at home.  The recipe is quick and simple.  I believe that you will be seeing a post in the near future about homemade saltines. 

The Creaming Method

The basis of the creaming method is to cream the sugar with the fats.  Once creamed you add the eggs and stir.  Then finally you gradually add the dry ingredients.  You have seen me use this method many times.  Take for instance my awesome chocolate chip cookies.  But, I never realized that the shortening should be at a temperature a little colder than room temperature.  According to Alton, he prefers using it at around 50 degrees.  You can either refrigerate it or cool it in a glass of ice water.  If you do the latter remember to dry it off before using.

The Straight Dough Method

The basis of the straight dough method is to start by soaking the yeast. Then adding the ingredients to a work bowl starting with the wet ingredients, then the dry, and finally the salt.  Mix until a dough ball is formed and then turn out on a surface to knead.  Allow to rise.  Punch down and allow to rise again.  Proof quickly and bake.  This is the method that I used to create my sour dough bread.  Alton uses it to make everything from dinner rolls, to pizza to homemade bread.  I am always learning from this book.  Near the beginning of the section he has step by step illustrated instructions for kneading dough.  I must say his method appears to be far superior to my punch and fold method. 

The Egg Foam Method

The basis of the egg foam method is to separate the eggs.  Using cream of tartar beat the egg white using a whisk until the whites are foamy and opaque.  Then use accordingly.  This method is the basis of meringues, souffle’s and angel food cake.  There is a recipe for cheesy souffle’ that sounds amazing.  There is 2 whole cups of cheese in it.  I love cheese almost as much as I love bacon.  I said almost, Bond.  This recipe would be amazing with some bacon bits in it.  Remember don’t over mix your egg whites and remember to fold so that you don’t crush your pretty air bubbles.   

Custards

The basis of the custard is to capture liquid in the mass of coagulated protein molecules to thicken it.  Basically it is the basis of custards, quiche, puddings and ice creams.  I have always found the process of tempering egg yolks with scalding hot liquid as hard and quite time consuming.  Mostly because I cook the eggs forcing me to start over.  Alton has put my fears to rest with a tourtise v. hare illustration describing the process.  Yes, this book even has illustrations for the kids.  The best part of the section for me was the cheesecake.  I love cheesecake, but I always overcook it and cause the top to crack.  Alton has a solution for that too.  He cooks it with the oven on for an hour and turns the oven off and leaves the cheesecake to cook in the oven with the residual heat.  Genius!  This prevents overcooking and with the times he lists, it is pretty fool proof.

Overall

This book is just as good, actually even better than the first.  This might be because I love to bake, but I think Alton has learned some new ways to get the information across.  The book is perfect for a beginner or for a seasoned cook that would like to know more about food.  I totally recommend it.  It was fun, entertaining and down right informative.  Alton is a genius with food.

Every wednesday I review a cookbook to help weed out the good the bad and the ugly. This week I am reviewing The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich. When I first got this book I said to myself, “Am I really going to make pickles. Aren’t pickles just cucumbers and vinegar. Plus, don’t pickles take forever to make.” I had it all wrong, after reading this book I realized that I had a lot of misconceptions about pickles. Plus, what I learned about pickling turned me instantly into a pickling type of person.

Pickling can be quick
When I think of pickles I usually think of the ones that you buy in the store that come in the neon green brine. I was under the impression that they take forever to make. You need to get canning equipment, tons of salt and vinegar, and boil and let sit for months. To my surprise pickling can take as little as 10 minutes. I made burgers the other day and topped them with a quick pickle of onions and jalapenos that I found right in this book. They were the best part of the burger. No cooking or canning required. Just soaking in a brine of salt and vinegar. My first misconception was dismissed. Plus, the quick pickles were awesome.

Pickles are not just made from cucumbers
Linda has recipes for all types of vegetables, fruits, meats, fish and eggs. Who knew you could pickle meat. You can pickle beef, pig’s feet, oysters, shrimp, mussels and all types of eggs. Reading about the pickled eggs reminded me of when I was in college. During my ten year in college I spent some time in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Northern Wisconsin. Every bar had pickled eggs and now thanks to this book I can recreate the lost memories by making some eggs of my own. You can definitely pickle more than just cucumbers. My second misconception was dismissed.

Pickling is an International Affair
Pickling is done in every culture. You have Irish corned beef, Swedish Gravlax, Hungarian Summer Pickles, Chinese Fermented Daikon, Vietnamese Pickled Bean Sprouts, Korean Kimchi and numerous others. My favorite and the one that I am totally going to make is German Sauerkraut. I have been making my own brats, so why shouldn’t I make my own sauerkraut. This book has a great recipe for sauerkraut, you will be seeing a post on sauerkraut soon.

Overall
Overall this book is awesome. Buy fresh produce that is on sale and pickle it so that it keeps until you need it. There really isn’t a better book for this economy. Plus, pickles are just plane ole tasty. I forgot to mention that they have a couple of recipes for standard dill pickles. I haven’t made any yet, but I am sure that they will be 100 times better than the ones from the store.

If you would like to learn more about pickles or get any of the recipes for the pickles that I have listed above I suggest that you go out and buy this book. I promise that you won’t be disappointed.