Homemade Kitchen: Real Food, Real People

You have a friend in Homemade Kitchen.
Alana Chernila's philosophy and approach to cooking is so warm and inviting.
Chernila comes across as someone you'd welcome in your kitchen AND as someone that would welcome you in hers.

Each chapter title nourishes you with confidence and conviction.
Start where you are.
Feed yourself.
Do your best and then let go.

At the outset, Chernila stresses that homemade food is the opposite of perfection, giving the cook freedom to experiment and explore, put his or her own stamp on the food.   This cookbook reminds you of the pleasure cooking can give.

The photographs are wonderful and the recipes are easy to follow.  Most of the recipes call for easily found ingredients.  Nothing too exotic, no cutting edge molecular gastronomy, no reinventing the wheel here.  Real food for real people.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

Donning the Blue Apron

I usually enjoy grocery shopping and farmers markets, picking out my own produce and planning menus around what's in season, what looks best.   Now and then, I need a break from food shopping and menu planning to attend to rewrites and rehearsals, students, work.   So when a foodie friend offered me a free trial with Blue Apron, I couldn't wait to see what meals were coming in my basket.

To whet my appetite, my friend had been posting photos and sharing her experiences, comparing Blue Apron to Sun Basket.

The three meals I chose from Blue Apron were:

Pan-seared cod with pickled grapes & summer succotash 

I had to use my own tomatoes, as mine arrived heavily bruised, moldy, unusable

Pork Ramen w/fresh ramen noodles & summer vegetables

The pork was juicy

Blackened Chile-Dusted Chicken with zucchini rice & corn tomato saute

The Pros:

All the meals tasted delicious

Recipes are easy to follow

My husband willingly shared the chores and mise en place since there were clear directions

The calories are right

Fun to plate

Packaging is recyclable

The Cons:

Some of the garlic cloves on my bulb were dried out, brown 

My tomato was heavily bruised, moldy and unusable

My zucchini arrived w/pockmarks everywhere, too soft so I bought another one

No leftovers 

BOTTOM LINE:  Would I become a regular?  Semi-regular?  Well, it all depends on the menu.  Really.  Whet my appetite, Blue Apron, and up the quality control of ingredients.  We like protein and go easy on carbs.  Our diet is more paleo but not exclusively so which is why I chose the week that I did.   The menu options feature a lot of carbs -- rice, bread (sandwiches), pasta -- and less protein, which unfortunately doesn't appeal as much to us. 

Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice

I'm not a dessert person, and nine times out of ten, I would choose savory over sweet as my final course of the evening.  This makes tasting menus and idineLA menus less appealing to me as they frequently feature a sickly sweet, super fattening, highly caloric dessert.  Can't I have two appetizers instead?

That said, I am excited to experiment with the recipes in Sugar & Spice.  Seneviratne addresses the same questions in this wonderful new cookbook.  How do we make our desserts healthier and more delicious?  More satisfying?   Especially at a time where most of us are watching our weight and counting our steps?

Go back to our spices.  What explorers once risked their lives to find and collect.   The recipes are organized by spices, and the recipes vary in difficulty and length of time required.  This book gives you great incentive to keep your spice rack fresh, and to use them up before they lose all their flavor. Can't wait to make the gingerbread even though it serves twelve.  Anyone care for a slice?

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review.