Jerry and Tina Eicher's The Amish Family Cook Book ~ Reviewed

The Amish Family Cook Book

By Jerry and Tina Eicher

Published by Harvest House

ISBN#978-0-7369-4377-2

Pages 272

About Authors: Jerry Eicher's bestselling Amish fiction (more than 210,000 in combined sales) includes The Adams County Trilogy, the Hannah's Heart books, and the Little Valley Series. After a traditional Amish childhood, Jerry taught for two terms in Amish and Mennonite schools in Ohio and Illinois. Since then he's been involved in church renewal, preaching, and teaching Bible studies. Jerry lives with his wife, Tina, and their four children in Virginia. Tina Eicher was born and married in the Amish faith, surrounded by a mother and sisters who were great Amish cooks. At fellowship meals and family gatherings, Tina's dishes receive high praise and usually return empty. She and her husband, Jerry Eicher, author of several bestselling Amish fiction titles, are the parents of four children and live in Virginia.

Review: There are several things I really enjoyed about this cookbook even thought there were no color pictures of the recipes. The pages were sturdy and could easily lay flat so you can keep referring to it as you go down the instructions for the recipe.

First of all I think this would make a great book club companion. Why? There are several recipes that come directly from this couples fiction Amish book. Included in the book are the title and quote from the book that mentions a food item the character was making or loved. For example:

In the book Rebecca's Return she mentions Rebecca's Vanilla can rolls, In the book Ella's Wish - they mention Ella's Broccoli Soup, In A Hope for Hanna, Aunt Betty's Country Fried Venison, Missing Your Smile they talk about Susan's Christmas Buckeyes, in Rebecca's Promise there is Rebecca's Oatmeal, and in A Wedding Quilt for Ella there is Ella's Beef Casserole. There are a few more. This makes for great book club fun.

I made several of the recipes in this book. I found the recipes easy to follow and all were yummy. The only thing that I missed in this cook book was the fact that she didn't mention how many servings each recipe made. I didn't know how much I depended on that especially when I was making muffins, cookies or bread.

Scattered throughout the book were Amish words of wisdom that I really enjoyed for example: "Lying in bed dreaming never got the work done."

" We don't realize how wonderful today is until tomorrow"

"Great leaders take joy in the success of those under them"

"If you walk with God you will be out of step with the world"

"The cost of a thing is the amount of life which must be exchanged for it."

This book is broken down in to several categories. Appetizers and Beverages, Breakfast, Cakes, Candies, Cookies and Bars, Desserts, Grilling, Main Dishes, Pies, Quick Breads, Salads and Gelatin Salads, Soups and Sandwiches, Vegetables and Side Dishes and finally Yeast Breads.

This book is fun in more ways than one. I highly recommend it.

Reviewed by: Nora St.Laurent

TBCNWhere Book Fun Begins!

Liz Curtis Higgs's A Wreath of Snow ~ Reviewed

A Wreath of Snow

By Liz Curtis Higgs

Published by Waterbrook

ISBN# 978-1400072170

224 Pages

Back Cover: Wrapped in a cloud of steam, the engine rolled to a stop, the screech of metal against metal filling the frosty air. Snow blew across the railway platform and around Meg’s calfskin walking boots. The weather definitely was not improving.

She ordered tea with milk and sugar, eying the currant buns and sweet mincemeat tarts displayed beneath a bell jar. Later, perhaps, when her appetite returned. At the moment her stomach was twisted into a knot.

“Anything else for you?” the cashier asked as she handed over the tea, steaming and fragrant.

Meg was surprised to find her fingers trembling when she lifted the cup. “All I want is a safe journey home.”

“On a day like this?” the round-faced woman exclaimed. “None but the Almighty can promise you that, lass.”

Review:  Liz Curtis Higgs pens moving story that driving home the real meaning of Christmas in her new novella I was thrilled to receive a review copy of. This novella is a Victorian Christmas, in Scotland, 1894.

The two main characters captured my heart as they interact with each other one snowy night on a train. They are both headed in different destinations but troubles with the train derailing have them on the same path seeking shelter for the night from the cold.

This story was easy to read and will help you get into the Christmas spirit as you experience these characters struggle in returning home to a place that didn’t have fond memories for either of them. It was a place to be avoided because of the pain and fear it conjured up.

On the train Gordon realizes who Meg is.  A surprising excitement rises up in him as he sees an opportunity to seek forgiveness for a horrible accident that happened in their childhood. He tried to ask for their forgiveness then but no one would listen, they didn’t see it as an accident. The event changed Meg’s family forever. Was he selfish to seek their forgiveness and bring up the past with its memories? Meg was sweet to him now because she didn’t know who he was, how would she treat him when she found out?

This author writes about a period time gone by when the value of family was strong and home and honesty were gifts to be treasured.  Her main characters are complex and carry the weight of unforgiveness like a heavy load on their backs. Unforgiveness holds them hostage to the horrible childhood event.  It makes the pain fresh and they live the experience over and over again. Liz shows through her characters.  forgiveness is a gift from God to set us free from the pain of the past. God gives us many chances to be set free from the chains that hold us back from really receiving all he has for us. It’s the greatest Christmas gift of all. It’s one to be passed on for sure!

Meg finally realizes who Gordon is and considers his request. Could she put herself and her family through the pain of the past?

Gordon Shaw is not the person she remembered as a child. He was a man who was humbled, changed and seeking to do the right thing. Would Meg give him that chance?

This is a story that will warm your heart and get you focused on the reason for the season. It includes a yummy recipe and questions good for family and book club discussions.

Reviewed by: Nora St.Laurent

TBCN Where Book Fun Begins!

Dawn Stoltzfus's A Farmer's Daughter ~ Reviewed

A Farmer’s Daughter

By Dawn Stoltzfus

Published by Revell

223 Pages

Back Cover:

Welcome to the warm and inviting kitchen of Dawn Stoltzfus, a young Mennonite wife and mother who was raised on a dairy farm where simple, wholesome food was a key ingredient of the good life. In A Farmer's Daughter, she opens up her recipe box, wipes away the crumbs and wrinkles from the well-loved recipes, and shares them with cooks and food-lovers everywhere. She offers us over two hundred delicious recipes that reflect the comfort foods she learned to cook from her mother, the same hearty and creative recipes she made and sold at The Farmer's Wife Market.

Along with the simple, wholesome recipes for starters, main dishes, sides, and desserts, readers will find charming stories from Dawn's Mennonite upbringing, tips and tricks for easy meal planning and preparation, and ideas for serving with flair. Anyone who loves to feed their loved ones hearty, wholesome meals will treasure this cookbook.

Review:  

I’m thankful for the review copy of this easy to use and delightful book. The recipes I tried were east to make, the ingredients were easy to find, instructions were simple and my family loved the end result.

I enjoyed reading the food for thought sections where the author talked about life, family, food and friends.

The sections in this book are broken down as follows: Drinks, Breakfast and Breads, Salads and Dressings, Summer Sandwiches and Winter Soup, Garden Fresh Veggies, Comfort Food and Sides, Main Entrees, Desserts, Cookies, Cakes and Bars, and Do It Yourself Recipes.

I made and enjoyed Pumpkin spice latte, Chai tea latte, Baked oatmeal with apples and pecans, Baked peach French toast, Pecan pear muffins, Blueberry cream muffins, Fresh corn and chicken chowder, Zucchini and Ricotta Bake, Garlic mashed potatoes, Chicken curry, Parmesan Chicken, and double chocolate chip cookies.

I found the author very interesting and enjoyed reading about her. She grew up in a real farmhouse kitchen in Ohio, where she began creating recipes for her family of six at the age of sixteen. Her father was a Mennonite Pastor and farmer. Dawn’s family raised their own beef, had fresh milk and raised chickens and gathered eggs.

She missed these fresh ingredients when she moved away from the farm and figured others did too so she opened a store in the western suburbs of Washington, D.C. called The Farmer’s Wife, in honor of her mother. The store specialized in things you could find in a farm kitchen.

She ran until she was ready to start a family of her own. In the four years her shop was opened she learned a lot about people, how important food is to families and relationships and what recipes make people smile.

She says, “Food has a way of bringing people together. Relationships are formed over food, and sharing meals with the ones you love has a way of opening out lives up to each other.”

The recipes in this book are simple to make, great to serve with your family and guests. There are tips for entertaining and ways to create your own family legacy. I can’t wait to try more meals, drinks and desserts from this book filled with yummy recipes. It’s great to use for your family and pass on as a gift.

Reviewed by: Nora St.Laurent

TBCN Where Book Fun Begins!

Deb Roussou's 350 Best Vegan Recipes and a Giveaway ~ Reviewed

350 Best Vegan Recipes
Deb Roussou
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Robert Rose (March 8, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0778802949


Description:

Delicious, innovative and easy-to-prepare recipes for everyone in search of meal-planning options to fit the vegan lifestyle.

These tempting vegan options include a wide and varied range of tantalizing meal ideas -- from amazing appetizers and salads to hearty soups, incredibly satisfying main courses and decadent desserts. This outstanding cookbook contains so much more than just incredible vegan offerings (that are also guaranteed to appeal to non-vegans and non-vegetarians) -- it also includes comprehensive and useful information on everything from stocking a vegan pantry to helpful kitchen tools and equipment.

And what really sets this book apart from other vegan cookbooks is the "Vegan from Scratch" chapter which provides information on making everything from Vegan Bouillon to Soy Cream Cheese and Smokey Maple Tofu Bacon Slices. These recipes really bring a wholly authentic vegan lifestyle into the home kitchen!


My Review

If you are new to Vegan eating, investigating it, or are trying to add delicious meatless meals to your life, this packed-with-recipes cookbook is a great resource to have on hand.

I'd love to tell you that I cook from my brain and pure creativity and never need cookbooks to get the juices flowing, but that would be a lie. Not saying I can't get on a roll and go all out. But when I'm tired, or bored, or just can't muster creative, I like me a good cookbook.

I also would love to tell you that I love internet recipes. Honestly, with a few strokes of a few keys one can really find a whole lot of what they need on the web. But, I hate cooking from recipes on my computer. There is something about a book that I can write down tweaks or suggestions for next time in the margins. I even like an occasional splatter mark in my cookbooks. (Not to be confused with spatter for those like me, who love police fiction. I do not want spatter in my cookbooks, thankyouverymuch.)

I have made a handful of recipes from 350 Best Vegan Recipes. Each of them was delicious.

My first recipe was Serrano and Roasted Pepper Cornbread. Yum. I had some leftover Spanish rice that needed a little something to make it star in another meal. With a handful of seitan bits and the cornbread layered over the top and baked with the cornbread instructions, yum, this bad boy is a keeper.

Next up was Almond Bear Claw Muffins served to breakfast guests.  Absolutely delicious. I used almond butter instead of the paste that is called for and the recipe worked well. And won raves. 

Another muffin recipe was equally delicious. Raspberry Streusel Muffins.

The Cremini and Kalamata Olivada -- YUM.

I don't think I can tell you what i still want to make from this cookbook. It would probably take less time and space to tell you what doesn't appeal to me.

Recipes on my radar include:

Trendy and creative sounding Horseradish Mustard and Panko-Encrusted Tofu and Northwest Passage Cedar-Planked Tofu. Down home fun comfort food... County Fair Corn Chip Pie. With recipes like these book covers most aspects of Vegan entertaining.

Raw and just veggie lovers will find a section that contains recipes like: Cauliflower and Zucchini Slaw, Hearts of Palm and Mushroom Salad with Lemon Parsley Vinaigrette, Grilled Artichokes with Jalapeno Mignonette Sauce, Sauteed Slivered Brussels Sprouts Over Wild Rice Cakes and Lemon Cucumber Tabbouleh. All together now, "Yum." 

The dessert section offers up a Cranberry Walnut Cake with Caramel Sauce, Jade Green Tea Pound Cake and Figgy Pudding with Brandy Hard Sauce.

A dozen or so pages contain cocktail recipes, too.

I also appreciated the resources. Like the salad dressing recipes, spice blends and basic Vegan recipe versions to replace expensive Vegan processed items. You can use this resource to make your own dairy free versions of mayonnaise, ricotta, smear, sour cream, tempehacon bits, caramel and divine chocolate sauces, vegetable broth and seitan.

Not every recipe in the book is unique, there are several basics or standard items you'll find in nearly every Vegan focused cookbook.  The recipes I tried are delicious and easy to follow.  If you are looking for why to go Vegan, or what one is, that information in not in here. However there are some resources for new Vegans like a very simple pantry list, useful kitchen tools, vocabulary, and suggested menu/party list. Most recipes can be made with commonly found-in-Vegan-household ingredients. If you are looking for some tasty Vegan recipes and like the idea that you can buy a book with 350 recipes instead of 175, then you might want to look a little bit closer at adding it to your bookshelf. It's a keeper and I will continue to cook from it.

Reviewed by: Kelly Klepfer

NOTE: Visit my blog for a chance to win a copy of 350 Best Vegan Recipes through July 21st and follow the directions. This offer is available through the publisher and available to residents of the US and Canada.  There is also a recipe from the cookbook.

Nashville Kat's The Happy Husband Cookbook ~ Reviewed

The Happy Husband Cookbook

By Nashville Kat

Illustrated by Canteen Slim

Tin Boot Publishing

A note from Kat about her book, The Happy Husband Cookbook.

"My cookbook has 204 tried and true recipes, the things we eat at our home daily. It is filled with black and white drawings my husband did. I decided to start a cookbook when I got married a little over 4 years ago. The book came from this. My husband did the art work on the front. The picture hangs on our kitchen wall and one day while having lunch together I looked at it and said, 'there's my cover.' I had the title for the book first then it all came together at lunch that day."

Review:  

Since I’m a person that absolutely needs a cook book to cook, I was thrilled to receive a review copy of this new cook book by radio personality Nashville Kat. My husband is the Chef in our house, I know he’d be great on that show “Chopped” where they have a basket of 4 ingredients and you have 5 seconds to make decide on something amazing out if them in just one hour. I’m hyperventilating just thinking about being in that situation. I don’t know about you but I would need a week to look through all my cook books for ideas and forget about making anything in just one hour. I don’t know my way around the kitchen that well! Grin! I know when it’s my turn to cook I need help!

Are you like me and looking for a meal my family will love, won’t be too hard to make and won’t cost you an arm and a leg to put it on the table? Stuck in a rut of family dinner selections and looking for something new that isn’t too hard to make? Do you want to make yummy meals your whole family will love, that will also have everyone feel full and satisfied?

Well I have good news for you, The Happy Husband Cook Book will not only make your husband happy but your kids will jump for joy too!

I have a 20, 17 and 14 year olds in my house that can be so picky about what they want to eat. I was overjoyed when they didn’t roll their eyes at trying something new and then asked for seconds. Hooray!

This book is filled with over 200 recipes and can be purchased at www.tinbookpublishing.com Nashville Kat's husband Canteen Slim has illustrated this book. There are fun food facts all through the book on the bottom of the recipes. For example under her recipe for Chicken Supreme it says that this recipe is a throw back from the 60' and goes on to say, "This is a classic recipe that you can't even locate by doing a search on Google!" (How did we ever live without Google?)

Nashville Kate said this about some of her recipes, "The Hash Brown Casserole is full of cheese and sour cream and it's so yummy! The Marinated Flank Steak is work the price of the book alone. The Peanut butter Planets will melt in your mouth. I also have a great overnight Fried Chicken recipe and there's a 2 ingredient whole chicken for the crock pot - using just BBQ sauce - It just falls off the bone!"

This book is filled with yummy food treasures! The recipes have easy to find ingredients, instructions that were easy to understand and follow and meals my family loved. I was amazed when they asked for seconds on the meals I served (they couldn't ask for thirds because I didn't make a big enough batch!! Grin!) These recipes will also be a hit at church potlucks and with your friends.

I tried several recipes from the dinner, soup and dessert categories and look forward to trying the breakfast meals which include the Breakfast Casserole, Dutch Pancakes, Grandma Bert's Cinnamon Rolls, Mouth Meltin' Muffins, and many of the bread selections, such as Buckle-ip Biscuits, Butternut Squash Bread, Peanut Butter Bread, Iowa Cornbread and many more.

The book includes over 200 receipes that are broken down into Appetizers, Soups, Salads, Dressings, 14 Meatless Main Dishes, 33 Main Dishes, Vegetable Sides, and let's not forget about the Breakfast Meals and Desserts!! Out of the meals I made from this book my favorite were the Hash Brown Soup, South Dakota Beef Stew and Strawberry Pizza Pie (I know as I work my way through the recipes in this book we'll discover more family favorites)

This author packs so much fun and yummy recipes into about a 125 page book. I highly recommend this comfort food cook book where I know you'll discover some new family favorites of your own inside its pages, like we did!

Reviewed by: Nora St.Laurent

The Book ClubNetwork

Bonus Review:  

Kat introduced me to a whole lot of food adventures while she worked on The Happy Husband cookbook. I had the opportunity to join delicious parties where she'd assign recipes and a dozen cooks would get together to eat, rate and suggest.

Kat was the first truly diverse foodie I had the opportunity to cook and eat with. And I had never heard of Miso or considered raw food until she shared some of her experiences with those items and those she gained enjoying food from all over the United States as well as an European adventure. She collects recipes and techniques like others might collect shot glasses or refrigerator magnets from all the special places and moments in life. 

Though this cookbook is not Vegan, and my regular readers all know that's my current recipe book collection bent, it's a keeper. Her recipes, though occasionally heavy on ingredients, are ALL heavy on love of food and folks and chock full of taste. Many of her recipes have stories and helpful hints. Kat loves taste and mouth feel and will work until it's just right, while her husband is a meat and potatoes kind of guy. Her experiences and skills as a foodie all come together to make for some great recipes. Her midwest roots and country bent also guarantee that many of these recipes are comfort foods that will become some of your favorites. Her husband's art work adds the cherry-on-the-top charm.

Reviewed by: Kelly Klepfer