You can tell she comes from a large family cooking standpoint as she has a variety of ways she tells us about in order to save a goodly amount of time in the kitchen. From handly convenience foods, to make your own cream soups along with how to do batch cooking.
She takes her time and talks like you are sitting with her in the kitchen, chatting over how to make a meal or save time to do other things with your family.
There is such a plethora of recipes to choose from AND Vicki tries to make it easy by offering different ways to make the same recipe (so if you don't have a pressure cooker, make it as a casserole, or cook it on the stove top). If you want the step by step way of making bread she'll give the long way, or the short way.
Here's one I want to try with my lad yet.
We made a whole variety of meals, such as bread, muffins, pork chops, deviled eggs and more. We worked on trying recipes from different sections of the cookbooks.
What are the things that I appreciated:
- Equivalency lists! Did you that 3.5 cups of almonds is equal to a pound? Great to know eh?
- How to make sauces and extracts and things that you use ALL THE TIME when you are cooking. Did I get around to trying any of them? No.. but time will come. :)
- For those that are into low-carb or gluten free, suggestions are made.
- Her desire to help people eat healthier.
- her mini food and nutrition unit for students was a good read through and something I can work on with my lad this year. :)
- a well done index, being able to find what you need easily is a wonderful thing.
- Clear description (along with pictures) of good kitchen items.
- Clear description (along with pictures) of the different grains/wheats one can use in their cooking.
The muffins... we discovered that they taste great with a slab of homemade jam on them. :) They turned out more biscuity than muffiny though.
The bread....the lads devoured it, again with homemade jam. Though we didn't use the odd ingredients as we don't have them in the house and I wasn't buying them for two loaves of bread.
Deviled eggs. This is a recipe my lad made. Mixed reviews. I thought them better than some I tried but not as good as the ones we've most recently had.
Pork Chop Casserole...I liked this, hubby found it bland, the lad dug into the pork chops and ignored the rice. (Typical of him to do that though)
Chops in Herbs and Wine. I liked the taste of this recipe. The lad liked the meat, hubby didn't touch it... as he was in the mood for spaghetti and meatballs so did that instead.
Chicken and Noodle Casserole. I used her basic recipe but changed it up a bit...using rabbit instead of chicken, and cooking the noodles with the rabbit as a casserole and adding a few more herbs. This was excellent and would happily make again.
Things I would love to see improved:
Vicki mentioned that this cookbook was used to help her children learn how to cook, as such I thought it would be a great book to help my lad improve his repertoire. We did not find this the case as all ingredients were in imperial measure (not in grams or metric). Occasionally items such as a stick of butter were used...this one really had him wondering and we asked a friend who lives stateside what a stick of butter was equivalent too. YEAH for friends! Adding in worldwide equivalency measurements would easily resolve this issue. I later found this explained near the end of the cookbook, adding it to the recipe would make it easier.
Adding a glossary would be really nice, it would give a ready answer to questions like "Mom, what is sponging?" Instead of having mom give a completely blank look. I know how to cook, I just don't always know the right terminology at the moment! :)
End result:
There is much in this cookbook that I like, the tips and helps and lessons.. GOOD STUFF! As I've gone through this review, I discovered that I think of this cookbook more as a "way to cook naturally" rather than a whole foods cookbook. Why? Many recipes used ground grains and my hubby's whole food cookbooks will use the grains whole (like his red wheat shepherd's pie which is really good). This book teaches you use natural foods instead of the overly processed foods. Which is a great thing to do!
Thing is.. I'm a good cook. I like trying new recipes as long as they don't ask for ingredients that I don't have regularly in the house. My initial understanding (that this would be a book to help my lad increase his repertoire of things to cook) didn't pan out, once my lad hit one too many ingredient that I didn't know what it was he just shut down and said "can I use "x" cookbook instead?" Therefore, I tried out a few recipes, some that worked others that didn't. It's a decent cookbook.. the hints and ideas found within the pages are a .. for serious.. treasure trove of helpfulness to people learning to cook a more natural diet. If you want to cook better this book will help you!
Vendor: Everyday Homemaking
Product: Everyday Cooking
Author: Vicky Bentley
Received: ebook version Price:$15.99/$19.99
Pages: 198
Type: cookbook
Received: Ebook
Choice in cover colour: red or blue
A Note From Vicki
As a special offer for your blog readers, I am offering 10% off The Everyday Family Chore System and/or Everyday Cooking (print or e-book) through Labor Day! The code for your readers is TOS10books --they can apply it to as many books in their cart as they'd like, but they do need to shop first, apply the 10% discount code last. (Sorry -- eccentric cart function) Expires Sept 5.
The crew has been reviewing two items from Vicki at Everyday Homemaking. The Everyday Family Chore System and Everyday Cooking both of which can be found here.
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Thank you for your thoughtful review. I'm glad you found some recipes that you enjoyed -- and so sorry that U.S. terminology is apparently so different than European! That must be frustrating, no matter what you are reading! I hope you are able to utilize the large notes spaces and tweak a bit to your liking. Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteI'm actually just up in Canada Vicki, but to give your book an more worldwide flair consider adding the equivalency amounts, and not using American specific terms of such as sticks of butter. :)
DeleteI agree with the list of positives you gave - lots of good things. I had not thought about the fact that your measurements in Canada might look different from mine in Texas. Good to know if we get to come visit.
ReplyDeletewe use a mix of ways to cook, I have a firm appreciation for cookbooks that include more than one way to measure out the ingredients. SO very very helpful. :)
DeleteStick of butter... giggle... We use many sticks of butter here. We have noticed differences similar to those you mentioned in clothing patterns, too.
ReplyDeleteclothing patterns??? what differences have you see there???
ReplyDelete