My Reading Basket (Edition One!)

Thanks for reading this post, I'm so excited to visit with you!  

After you've gleaned all the good information you need, visit our new blog platform at www.farmandhearth.com to read even more fascinating tidbits from the kitchen and the fields. 

Dear avid readers and part-time literates,

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?

Hamlet: Words, words, words.

I love seeing what other people put in their grocery carts.  I love seeing what they plant in their garden.  And I love seeing what they are reading!

Don't worry, I won't recount for you what is in our pantry right now (you might not all be as weird as I am!). Rather, I want to share a few of the books in my reading basket right now, and ask you what you are are currently reading!

In this modern era, we have books from the library, books we bought at the store or received by mail for review, Nook books, and audio books - so I, of course, take advantage of all these avenues for word input and have something going in each category.  I'm including Amazon affiliate links for each book in case you want to click through and read reviews or buy the book for your Kindle or whatever.

Listening in my car

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs  |  I'm only a few chapters in.  It's very entertaining!  I'll warn gentle readers that, so far, I have encountered a few instances of language.  It's also a little scary, so if you have young ones I would suggest reserving this for your own personal reading or drive time!  So far, it is a wonderfully written, vivid mystery!

Listening on the Nook

The Curse of the Pharaohs by Elizabeth Peters  |  The second book in the acclaimed 19-book series based on the doughty character Amelia Peabody and her archaeological enterprises in Egypt during the Victorian period, I have read the first six books and own the entire series.  I haven't read them in a while, though, so before I picked back up on the series I wanted to listen to the books and refresh my memory.  The book plays during the day (in fact, it's playing right now!), and makes great entertainment while I'm washing dishes. You can download the Overdrive Media App to your smart phone, laptop, computer, or reading device and use it to check out eBooks and eAudiobooks from your local library.  This is a tip my mom shared with me, and it has filled my life with free and wonderful literature!   

Reading on the Nook

Wheat Belly by William Davis, MD  |  This controversial book is surprising, shocking, and not surprising at all!  I am two-thirds finished with the book and enjoying it immensely; you will probably see a full review on it later in the blog, as it has already impacted the way we eat (and yes, I am aware of the arguments against the book - I love controversial books and blogs!).  

Reading for the blog

The Home Creamery by Kathy Farrell-Kingsley  |  Publishers have generously sent me rafts of books to review for the blog - and I can't wait to share the entire list with you (most of them are accompanied by giveaways!  Hurray!).  I am not sure yet if this book is my favorite on home creamery work yet, though.  I've made about half the recipes in the book and had to supplement them with information from other books.  I know Storey has a second book on home creameries, so I may check that one out before I settle the review.  

Reading for the Sacramento Book Review

Once Upon a Flock: Life With My Soulful Chickens by Lauren Scheuer  |  I just finished reviewing this book, and I can't wait for the review to be published at www.citybookreview.com.  I thought it might be a mildly entertaining, and maybe cute book about chickens, but it was so much more than that!  It was, in fact, a moving story and an anthropological and zoological study that made me realize that chickens are not just egg-laying creatures, but truly soulful beings with little minds of their own!  It was emotional and it was touching, and it left me yearning to start my own home flock!! 

Reading for fun

The Other Side of the Dale by Gervase Phinn  |  Compared often to James Herriot's All Creatures books, this story chronicles the adventures of a school inspector in North Yorkshire in days of yore.  The stories are humorous and colorful, the writing is clean and fresh, and - I'm about a third through this book - so far, everything is clean and wonderfully family-friendly.  

Reading from the library

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom  |  I have only just cracked the cover on this, but I can't wait to read it.  It's set in old-time Virginia and the main character is a white slave.  

Reading for education

Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson and Sally Clarkson  |  A gift from my parents, this book is especially useful if you plan to school your children at home.  I have only just begun to wade into it, but the Clarksons are acknowledged pioneers and innovators in the field of home education!  A worthy read!  

A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola  |  Another staple for the homeschool parent, this book is filled with revolutionary (to a country steeped in pen-and-desk tradition) concepts for education.  

Reading in the kitchen

Prairie Home Cooking by Judith Fertig  |  I cycle through my cookbooks and periodically re-read favorites to plumb them for new concepts and recipes I may have overlooked on the last circuit.  I am currently re-reading PHC, one of my favorite books, and one of the first in my collection.  It was a gift from my grandma and I treasure it!  

There are more books, many books in the basket and on my kitchen counter, but of course I am always seeking further recommendations!  Every once in a while you just hit that perfect, golden book that lives on and on as a classic family favorite!  

What are you reading right now in your various categories?  Do you have a reading basket, or a shelf of books waiting to be consumed, or an Amazon wishlist?  Do you read for pleasure, or just for school or work?  Are you reading any of the books I mentioned here, and do you have further suggestions for me? 

Reading words, 

Mrs H
tweet us @_mrs_h for chewy nuggets
Pin us at Pinterest for pretty photos and intriguing articles
Follow us on Facebook for recipes, giveaways, and brilliant flashes of perspiration!

I Will Never Eat a Florida-Grown Conventional Tomato Again

The Wednesday Review: 

Reviewing books, products and more you may be interested in

Dear patient readers, 

Stop! Put that hamburger down!!

You all know my spiel on eating organic, local food - it's better for your body, it's kinder to the world we are entrusted to steward, it's better economic practice, yadda yadda. 

But what if lives depended on it?

Horrify yourself into investing in local, organic tomatoes with Barry Estabrook's Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit . (Affiliate link - note cover has changed)  

I was alerted to this book by a thoughtful and somewhat frightening review by the mysterious Mrs S, which you must read if you are considering eating tomatoes again.  Ever.  Get a sampling of what the book will discuss by reading her thorough review.  I checked it out at the library, then we ended up buying it on Mr H's Nook; it was too good to not own.

This book is a one-sided expose on the tomato industry.  Quite frankly, I have no need to hear the other side.  There is no reasonable justification or logic for the cruelty and bad practice engendered by these companies.  I don't care about the bottom of line of the company, the sweet drawings of farms on the tomato labels, the cheap price of the tomato in the grocery store, the wholesome American that wants a cheap, store-bought sliced tomato on their sandwich in winter and deserves to be able to afford out-of-season fruits in any part of the country, keeping burgers on the 99-cent menu for families that can't afford more, the cruel rationalization that we should provide horrific-condition jobs for illegals since they'll come here anyway, or the families of the management that are struggling to pay bills despite their thieving and gross manipulations.

In Search of the Promised Tomatoland, Part 1

How can we justify buying tomatoes that are two dollars cheaper per pound, made possible by costing somebody, somewhere, their life and livelihood?  

We say that organic tomatoes cost an arm and a leg, but we're being figurative. 

Conventional tomatoes are costing arms and legs, but these are real arms and legs.

Children are being born without limbs, thanks to hazardous pesticides akin to Agent Orange soaking the sandy soil of Florida where the tomatoes are grown.  Saturating the men and women working in the fields, filling their pores and lungs with poison.  Most of them illegal in this country, they are powerless against the injustice.

The publisher's synopsis of Tomatoland

Read another blogger's review

How Industrial Farming 'Destroyed' the Tasty Tomato

Americans can't afford to buy Florida's conventionally-grown tomatoes any more.  I will never buy one again.  Not after reading this.  Not if I want to sleep at night.  And if we can't afford to buy tomatoes that weren't stolen by taking the lives of somebody else to produce them, maybe we can't afford tomatoes at all.  

Mrs H
tweet us @_mrs_h for chewy nuggets
Pin us at Pinterest for pretty photos and intriguing articles
Follow us on Facebook for recipes, giveaways, and brilliant flashes of perspiration!

Vegan Eats World: Review, Giveaway, and Spicy Drunken Noodles recipe!

The Wednesday Review:

Reviewing books, products and more you may be interested in

This giveaway is now closed. Thank you to all who entered!  Read on for the review and a free recipe, however! 

This is the fifth book in a series of giveaways!  

Like us on Facebook to stay up to speed with all our giveaways!  

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.  They did not pay me for my review.  As some of you know far too well, the opinions expressed herein most definitely are and perhaps unfortunately always will be my own! 

Dear cooks of international flair, 

I've been having way too much fun with this giveaway series.  Not only am I loading up on a stack of fresh cooking material for the kitchen and hopefully helping you to do the same, but I've been "meeting" readers from far and wide!  We've had winners in Missouri, Utah, Texas and Massachusetts, and I am curious to see where this next book will go!  The last book we gave away was Nourishing Traditions, and it sailed off to a new home in Utah!  We're giving away another book from the outstanding press, Da Capo Lifelong {follow them on Facebook for recipes, giveaways, and information on fabulous cooking books}; they generously offered us this giveaway on top of the one they just sponsored for Vegan Cupcakes!  

Speaking of generous, everybody's a winner with this review, because Da Capo's publicist gave permission to share a recipe for all of us to enjoy!  Read on for Spicy Drunken Noodles ... 

Vegan Eats World: 300 International Recipes for Savoring the Planet by Terry Hope Romero

This is a book on international cooking, and I guess it also happens to be vegan - which is almost beside the point when you start exploring these flavorful, exotic dishes that weirdly can be made as easily as a bowl of spaghetti, in your own kitchen!  

This is also a huge book.  Almost as big as my (huge) baby, it boasts over 300 recipes from around the world! 

What's with vegan eating?  Vegan and vegetarian eating may be a pseudo-faddish lifestyle for some Westerners, but in many parts of the world it's just a way of life; animal products may be costly or hard to come by, and people rely on a plant-based diet in many regions as a matter of necessity.  Not surprisingly then, fabulously creative and delicious recipes have developed in remote parts of the world, meals which are consumed by everybody, not just card-carrying "vegans"!  You might be living a purely vegan lifestyle and seeking new material to jazz up your weeknights, or you may be roasting a turkey this afternoon but looking for a nutritious side dish with a little Mediterranean flair, or hoping to use up a few extra eggplant and thinking a Lebanese Moussaka Stew might fit the bill.  I, a die-hard self-professed advocate of whole milk, cheese and bacon, am delighting over the traditional Garlicky Potato Dip from Greece, Coriander Rye Muffins from Russia, Okra Masala (Bindi Bhaji) from India, and Takeout Stir Fry Noodles with Mushrooms and Greens from China!

What's inside: Rather than dividing the recipes by region, which is a cute idea but can be inconvenient when you want to quickly find a soup for a cool evening, these recipes are conveniently and handily divided by food genre.  Preceded by a section familiarizing novice cooks on tools, ingredients and lingo, there are twelve fat chapters in this book: Spice Blends (like Olive Oil Harissa Paste), The Three Protein Amigos: Tofu, Seitan and Tempeh (like Lemon and Olive Chickpea Seitan), Pickles, Chutneys and Saucier Sauces (like Whipped Garlic Dip), Salads, Spreads and Sandwiches (like Avocado Mango Cashew Salad), Soups (like White Bean Farro Soup with Chickpea Parmigiana), Curries Hearty Stews and Beans (like Mexican Homemade Refried Beans), Dumplings Breads and Pancakes (like Ethiopian Savory Crepes), Asian Noodles to Mediterranean Pasta (like Sizzling Seitan Pho Noodle Soup), Hearty Entrees (like Korean Veggie Bulgogi), Robust Vegetable Entrees and Sides (like Crisp Stir-Fry Greens with Veggie Oyster Sauce), Rice and Whole Grains: One-Pot Meals and Supporting Roles (like Crusty Persiaon Rice with Dill and Fava Beans), and Sweet Beginnings (like Walnut Spice Sticky Cake).

Recipes are all accompanied by a few little purple symbols, helping cooks that are seeking a dish to fit certain specifications: 123 denotes the easiest recipes; 45 denotes under-45-minute recipes; a chair marks recipes that are mostly inactively cooking on the stove or in the oven so you can be out of the kitchen; $ indicates inexpensive ingredients; low-fat marks recipes with a tablespoon or less of added fats; G indicates gluten-free recipes; and S marks recipes without soy.

Of course, the book is scattered throughout with beautiful color photographs of many of the delicious recipes you'll be encountering.  With recipes using traditional fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi, recipes that bring on the heat with berebere and harissa, recipes that are familiar and recipes that are bizarre, there is something exploratory and exciting for everybody in this book.  But perhaps we should let the recipes speak for themselves?  I'll leave you with the recipe for Spicy Drunken Noodles, and then you can check out the book on your own or enter the giveaway below!

photo courtesy of Isa Chandra Moskowitz
used with permission

Pad Kee Mao 

(Spicy Drunken Noodles) 
From Vegan Eats World, reprinted with permission

Serves 2 to 3

There are many colorful stories about the origins of 

this addictive, fiery Thai noodle dish, but the strangest 

one may be about the wife who was so fed up 

with her drunken husband she turned to revenge 

via loading up his favorite noodles with fistfuls of 

hot chile peppers. Seems like her plan backfired, 

because the heady mixture of savory sauces and 

fiery chilies made him (and countless fans after) 

swoon and ask for seconds. Your homemade spin on 

this takeout favorite need not be punishingly hot to 

be just as good.

Thai soy sauce: Like her sister recipe, Pad See Ew (page 230), Pad Kee Mao is best made with genuine Thai soy sauces. One bottle of each Thai sauce will last for dozens of noodle dishes, making spontaneous Thai-style noodles an easy weekday meal treat. Chinese- or Japanese-style sauces don’t have the correct flavors; your dish may be good, but it won’t taste like Thai food. Thai thin soy sauce (light amber color, thin consistency, and strong, salty taste) does the job of standing in for fish sauce. Golden Mountain sauce is a special Thai seasoning sauce with a consistency and flavor slightly like Worcestershire sauce; it’s vegan, with complex flavors that soy sauce alone can’t cover. Thai black soy sauce and sweet soy sauce are thick and sweet sauces with molasses-like notes; both have their own unique character, but in a pinch are interchangeable. But for the most authentic tasting dish, use both!

Authentic Thai vegetables are much more challenging to find than the sauces, but a little cabbage, carrot, or even a few florets of broccoli or a handful of snow peas are fine.

Regarding the rice noodles, you have license to use whatever you can find. Many Thai restaurants use slippery, chewy, wide fresh rice noodles.  These noodles are delicious and will make the most authentic-tasting dish but can be difficult to find. If you can’t find sliced, fresh flat rice noodles at Thai markets, investigate Chinese markets for bags of soft fresh rice ho fun noodles: huge rice noodles that resemble a floppy kitchen towel folded into a squishy bundle. Regular Pad Thai rice sticks, if not authentic, are an easy-to-find substitute.

If you can’t use fresh ho fun noodles immediately, they can be refrigerated but will be stiff after being chilled a few hours (but they can keep for weeks, so it’s worth stashing an extra bag in the fridge for future stir-fries). To refresh ho fun noodles, steam them for 4 to 8 minutes until soft and pliable enough to unfold; the older the noodle, the more steaming required. Gently unfold this super noodle (if it rips a little don’t worry), and slice or tear into pieces. Don’t worry if they’re not pretty, they’ll taste like dynamite in noodle stir-fries. Keep the fresh noodles covered with a moist paper towel until ready to stir-fry.

Drunken Noodle Sauce

2 tablespoons Chinese vegetarian stir-fry sauce (see page 13)
2 tablespoons Thai thin soy sauce (see page 19)
4 teaspoons brown sugar or palm sugar
1 tablespoon Thai Golden Mountain sauce (see page 18)
2 tablespoons Thai black soy sauce or Thai sweet soy sauce (see page 19), or
1 tablespoon of each sauce
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons lime juice
2 to 3 teaspoons Asian chili garlic sauce or hot red pepper flakes

Noodles and Vegetables

12 ounces Thai fresh flat rice noodles or Chinese fresh ho fun noodles
3 tablespoons peanut, canola, or grapeseed oil
5 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
3 to 4 red or green hot chile peppers
(Thai, Indian, or serrano), sliced into paper-thin rings
One 8-ounce package fried tofu or 1 recipe
Savory Baked Tofu (page 50), sliced into
1/4-inch thin strips
3 cups shredded Napa or savoy cabbage
1 carrot, sliced into matchsticks
3 scallions, both green and white parts, thinly sliced
1/2 cup lightly packed Thai basil leaves
1/2 cup lightly packed cilantro leaves
Lime wedges for squeezing over noodles

1. If the rice noodles are very fresh and soft, you don’t need to cook them; just tear into bite sized pieces if needed and proceed to the stir-fry. If already sliced, gently separate the noodles and set aside, or refold the ho fun several times into a wide tube and slice into wide, 2-to 3-inch strips. If the noodles have been refrigerated and are hard, set up a bamboo or metal steamer over boiling water. Steam the Thai noodles or the whole, unsliced ho fun until soft (4 to 8 minutes), then turn off the heat and keep covered. If using ho fun, when the noodle is cool enough to handle, either slice into strips or tear into pieces 2 to 3 inches wide with your fingers. Keep covered until ready to use.

2. In a liquid measuring cup whisk together the vegetarian stir-fry sauce, Thai thin soy sauce, brown sugar, Golden Mountain sauce, black or sweet soy sauce, rice vinegar, lime juice, and chili sauce. Chop the vegetables and arrange all of the ingredients within easy reach of the stove for the stir-fry.

3. Preheat a wok or large skillet over high heat, then pour in 1 tablespoon of the oil. When the oil is rippling, stir in the garlic and chilies, stir-fry for 1 minute, then add the tofu and fry another 2 to 3 minutes until the tofu browns on the edges. Transfer the tofu to a dinner plate. Add another tablespoon of oil and add the carrot, cabbage, and white part of scallions and fry for 2 minutes until slightly softened. Transfer to the plate with the tofu.

4. Add the remaining tablespoon of oil, add the noodles, and stir-fry for 1 minute. If the noodles start to stick, dribble in a teaspoon or two of water; whenever sticking starts to happen add a little water but don’t add too much or the noodles will become mushy. Now drizzle on half of the sauce, stir-fry for 2 minutes and return the tofu, cabbage, carrot, green parts of scallions, and the remaining sauce. Stir in the basil leaves and cilantro. Continue to stir-fry for another 1 to 2 minutes or until most of the liquid has been absorbed, everything is coated in sauce and the noodles are gently seared in some places. Transfer immediately to serving plates and squeeze lime wedges over noodles before devouring.

Add any of the following to the stir-fry before adding the noodles:

With Green Peppercorns: Stir in 2 to 3 teaspoons of fresh green peppercorns along with the chilies.

With Shallots: Slice a large shallot into paper-thin slices and fry along with the garlic and chilies until golden.

With Snow Peas, Baby Corn, or Broccoli: Add a handful of snow peas, baby corn or thinly sliced broccoli along with the cabbage

Without Noodles: Or omit the noodles entirely and double the amount of vegetables for a spicy all-vegetable Thai stir-fry.

Enter the giveaway!  

1. Leave a comment below.  Do you prepare vegan foods already, or are you just an international-cooking fan?  What is the best feature of this book for you?  Use a current e-mail address or Facebook page when you leave your comment, and I will contact you via that route when you win - so be sure it's one you check!  Winner will be chosen Wednesday, January 23, 2013.

2. Share this giveaway with a friend!  The more popular a review is, the more giveaways we are privileged to do in the future!  Use Pinterest, Twitter, e-mail, Facebook or any other medium to share this review with somebody, and feel free to add a bonus comment for yourself letting us know you did so.

We're still giving away more!  Chef AJ's Unprocessed, Ron Schmidt's Untold Story of Milk, and a bonus, edible round from Tropical Traditions - so follow us on Facebook to be alerted to all our giveaways!!! 

Bon voyage,

Mrs H



tweet us @_mrs_h for chewy nuggets
Pin us at Pinterest for pretty photos and intriguing articles
Follow us on Facebook for recipes, giveaways, and brilliant flashes of perspiration!

2013: Ideas for the New Year

Thanks for reading this post, I'm so excited to visit with you!  

After you've gleaned all the good information you need, visit our new blog platform at www.farmandhearth.com to read even more fascinating tidbits from the kitchen and the fields. 

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2013!  Are you making New Year's resolutions?  Are you changing anything, hanging new calendars, spring cleaning in winter, preparing to file taxes?

Watching ma cook from a handy perch in the hiking backpack

I don't generally make New Year's resolutions because when I think of something that needs to change, I need to effect it immediately and not wait for a Tomorrow Me to get motivated to do it; however, a new year does bring the chance to refresh and revitalize many things in the home, and it can be helpful to make some clear determinations for a better life!

My New Year 

Twelve New Things 
Every year I like to come up with 12 New Things to do in the year ahead.  Each item is assigned a month, although mine don't necessarily happen in that order.  I got this idea from Sarah Mae's blog, one of the first blogs I started following when I joined the world of blogging, and one of my favorites to this day.  I finished almost all of my goals last year, except for Poor Man's Caviar - any unfinished goals will be rolled over into my 2013 list, which has not yet been completed!
12 New Things 2012 (somebody said #6 was cheating because it was inevitable, but you tell me if it's fair to include it in the list!)  
12 New Things 2011

Pantry Challenge
There are a variety of different versions of this, but the basic goal is to spend a month eating primarily from your pantry, "until the back of every freezer, fridge and cupboard shows" and to get creative with that half a box of orzo, the container of rice noodles you never finished, the bag of filo dough, and all that other stuff that can languish and be overlooked.  Some things, like milk and eggs, are still brought in fresh, but ideally you save money on the grocery bill, put the cash in the bank, and have a fresh start for your pantry!  I'll be evolving my own method, but we've already started a version this month and I've been excited to see some old familiar things finally hit the table!
Good (Cheap) Eats Pantry Challenge

No Spend Month Challenge
This is a great challenge that pairs quite nicely with the Pantry Challenge!  You can engage in varying levels of intensity, but the concept is pretty well spelled out in the name - you buckle down and really don't spend anything, as much as possible (and you have to be serious for it to really have an effect on your bank account!).  Bike or walk instead of drive; if you see a tool or book you'd love to have, write it down and save it for later - who knows, you might get one for free or decide you don't need it ... this happens to me more often than you might think!  In short, do everything you can to keep the purse strings cinched shut for a month, something that is sometimes easier accomplished by knowing it is only temporary.  And, after the month has passed, you may find that some expenses just don't need to be added back in! (Be forewarned that my goal might look more like "no spend deployment challenge" ... hence a little longer than just a month!)
Shannon's No Spend Month Challenge

Living Large in Smaller Spaces
There are all sorts of different organizing challenges and plans for clearing out junk, freshening your living space and losing dead weight.  You just have to find one that resonates with you - for me, it's a variety of choices.  To start things off gently, try Junk Your Kitchen, the 21 Day Organization Challenge, some of the many challenges and tips at Bowl Full of Lemons, or the 8-Week Housekeeping Challenge.  I'm using a variety of these, in parts, and two books which have rocked my world.
Guided by the truly liberating and motivating principles in this book: Scaling Down : Living Large in a Smaller Space

And loosely following the excellent, simple one-year plan in this book: One Year to an Organized Life: From Your Closets to Your Finances, the Week-by-Week Guide to Getting Completely Organized for Good

Organizing Finances

While I keep a pretty meticulous filing system, I think my management of our finances has a lot of room for improvement.  I've taken over all the bills and finances since we joined the military, as Mr H's deployments and sporadic training schedule interfere with him being able to take a consistent management role in this area.  I keep him apprised of all our statuses, of course, and he is involved in large purchases and decision-making; but the bulk of paperwork and day-to-day purchases falls on me.  We are blessed to be debt-free, but manipulating the finances to stay in the black and also set aside for the future still takes serious effort!  Follow Melissa and her family of 11 as they live on $8,000 a year! 

I am following the year plan in this book: One Year to an Organized Financial Life: From Your Bills to Your Bank Account, Your Home to Your Retirement, the Week-by-Week Guide to Achieving Financial Peace of Mind

Sort Digital Photos
I try ... but they keep flooding in so quickly, it's more than I can take!  We have a new external hard drive, and I want to dump all our photos (from various computers and laptops) here, sort, and clean up the files.
Organizing Photos by A Bowl Full of Lemons

What We Eat
Eating better isn't about cutting foods out, or restricting certain items - it's about eating so much good stuff, you don't have room for the junk!  With a kitchen loaded down with fresh produce, home-grown and home-canned goodies, and delicious raw milk, home-made yogurt and crackers and more, I've started a slow resolution over the past few months to gradually cease buying anything processed (prepared foods - this includes items such as cream-top yogurt, gourmet pickles and other items that aren't really bad for you).  While we don't buy foods such as Twinkies or bread, we still buy enough prepared foods to give me cause for concern.  This may seem work-heavy, but the core of our diet is really quite simple foods and much of which can be prepared in advance or during down-time.  Why eliminate all purchased prepared foods?
Save money because homemade yogurt is cheaper, and better-tasting, than store-bought
Cut out unnecessary snacks because it's easier to buy and eat crackers or ice cream on a whim, than to take the effort to make them
Avoid mystery ingredients because even the most meticulous vetting can still result in some strange additives, sources and contamination

10 Green New Years Resolutions
Maybe you already do some of these things, and maybe you want to do better at them: bring reusable shopping bags, walk or bike instead of drive, bring your own water bottle - funny how "green" things are also "lean" things!  Save money and the planet?  That's a win!
10 Green Resolutions from Small Footprint Family

Do you have resolutions, goals or plans for the new year?  What would you add to these ideas - is there something you think I should include?

Mrs H

tweet us @_mrs_h for chewy nuggets
Pin us at Pinterest for pretty photos and intriguing articles
Follow us on Facebook for recipes, giveaways, and brilliant flashes of perspiration!

We're sharing this post with like-minded readers and bloggers at Small Footprint Family, Crystal and Co, Frugally Sustainable, Tilly's Nest, Poor and Gluten Free

Booklist: Top Picks and Recommendations

Thanks for reading this post, I'm so excited to visit with you!  

After you've gleaned all the good information you need, visit our new blog platform at www.farmandhearth.com to read even more fascinating tidbits from the kitchen and the fields. 

Dear Reader,

If you are hunting for a last-second Christmas gift, or just in the mood to find some new literature for your shelves, here are my top cookery-book recommendations!  While I love all the books in my collection and many not listed here get used very frequently, these are the books I go to the most.  I keep these ones close to the kitchen, and their pages are oily, splattered, scribbled on and well-loved!

Click here to see a complete booklist of the cookery guides in my kitchen.  

Click here to read reviews I wrote for books we gave away in the past here on the blog, and for the San Francisco/Sacramento Book Review.  

Home Preserving, Canning, and DIY

Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving  A must-have guide for any homemaker.  Not only covering the rudiments of canning - explaining in detail and with illustrations how to both pressure can, and water-bath can - this book also address freezing and dehydrating, the other two most popular forms of food storage.  With recipes that have become our family favorites, and simple, straightforward instructions on everything from jerky to chutney to pickles to flash-frozen kale, this book is a staple for the kitchen shelf!  See the pickles we made here.

Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects  A favorite of mine, it has my most-well-loved recipe for lemon curd, an egg pasta I can hardly live without, and a collection of popsicle recipes that saw me through the hottest, sweatiest days of a post-partum summer!  I absolutely love this book, and every recipe I have tried from it has been an A+ winner.  And the sequel, which I don't yet own, is doubtless just as wonderful and beautiful: Can It, Bottle It, Smoke It: And Other Kitchen Projects

The America's Test Kitchen DIY Cookbook  An outstanding book that every DIYer, urban homesteader, home cook and processed-free-fan should absolutely own.  Read my full review here.  If you take anything home today, let it be this book.

Baking and Bread-Making

Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day  If you are one of those cooks like me who wasted untold bags of flour and yeast on bread that came out thick, heavy, ugly, and lumpy ... Welcome this book with open arms.  Regardless of your skill level, Reinhart will perfect and upgrade your bread, bun, pizza-dough, cinnamon-roll, biscuit, baguette and boule skills to the level of artisan.  I always wanted to eliminate store-bought bread items from our kitchen, but my bread wasn't nearly satisfactory and it always seemed so complicated a chore.  After this book came to our home (recommended by Miz Carmen), we stopped buying bread.  See a sample recipe here.  

King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains (King Arthur Flour Cookbooks)  Another recommendation from the Miz, this book is a winner.  It is my particular delight to choose a new item every few days to accompany our dinner, and this book wormed it's way right into the center of my heart.  I love it.  I love it.  Recipes for cookies, bread, cake, biscuits, all the usual plus more - and all using whole grains, delicious, wonderful, comforting, beautifully laid out and with two sections of photos.  See a sample recipe here, and here.  

Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie  My mom got me this book for Christmas and I almost cried the first time I made the crust and it turned out so exquisitely!  A beautiful, thorough compendium on PIE, this book is not only beautiful, but useful.  

The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook: All the joy and variety of baking-the experience and tradition of America's most historic flour company (King Arthur Flour Cookbooks)  My second cookbook ever (the first was this, a book which I still own and LOVE the recipes from), this book has all the important recipes, variations, lessons, tips, tricks and even historical anecdotes for anything Flour that comes out of the kitchen, from doughnuts to butter cake to sourdough starter to waffles! This book is possibly (being one of the oldest in my collection and well-loved) one of the very messiest I own!

General Cooking Guides: All-Purpose In the Kitchen

The New Best Recipe: All-New Edition  Outstanding book covering all the basics of the kitchen: every cook should own this book.  Every recipe is a go-to, trustworthy and successful dish.  I have never had a flop from this book!  See a sample recipe here, sourced from a book that is a shorter selection of recipes from this one.  

Nourishing Traditions:  The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats  An excellent book for everybody learning to make their own yogurt, soak their own grains and brew their own medicine.  Read my full review here.  

The America's Test Kitchen Quick Family Cookbook: A Faster, Smarter Way to Cook Everything from America's Most Trusted Test Kitchen  This book is so much fun!  I love how the recipes in it can be whipped out in short order (but big flavor!), and it has been my saving grace more than a few times.  Read my full review here.

Soups, Stews, and Big Pots

Twelve Months of Monastery Soups  I cannot recommend this book strongly enough.  My older sister owned it growing up, and when I married Mr H I instantly went and bought this book (actually, I bought it just before we got married, so I wouldn't have to live a day without it).  Whenever I have a quick dinner I need, a long dinner I can start early, or a vegetable I am at a loss for, I flip through this very simple, spare book.  Lots of recipe, very little extra foofoo, it gets straight to the point.  All the soups have been winners, from Avocado Veloute to my age-old classic well-loved dearly-adored Caldo Verde!  See a sample recipe here.  

Recipes from the Root Cellar: 270 Fresh Ways to Enjoy Winter Vegetables  I accidentally left this book at my friends' house and she texted me how she was secretly glad I did!  When I came a few days later to pick it up, she said she was hastily trying to finish reading the entire thing!  Not only have I been stunned and boggled by the quality of the dishes in Chesman's repertoire, but I love her seasonal take on produce, especially useful to me since I prefer to cook with local and in-season foods.  Tackle turnips, love leeks, and krunch kale with all her fantastic recipes! 

Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever with More Than 400 Easy-to-Make Recipes  As you well know, this book has melted into my kitchen with such love that I can't even get it off my kitchen counter.  This is the best slow cooker book available! Read my full review here.  

Cooking Under Cover: One Pot Wonders -- A Treasury of Soups, Stews, Braises, and Casseroles  I "borrowed" this book from my mom three years ago.  Still "borrowing" it.  Can't let her "have" it back .. Ever!  I love how the recipes in this book all go into one pot, and come out like gourmet, way-too-much-work-went-into-this dazzlers.  Whenever I use a recipe from this book, I feel like a fancy chef (the book includes wine pairings, in case you are a fancy chef!) and I've never had anybody turn down a meal from this book, ever! 

Specialty Cooking: Sweets, Drinks, Entertaining

The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments  Don't let yourself head into another summer season without this ice-cream guide to see you through!  No longer can I eat store-bought ice cream (Dreyers?  Please ... spare me the sixty ingredients!), not after enjoying real ice cream.  The chocolate ice cream in this book?  So wicked, you can only eat a tiny bowl.  The cream cheese?  Ginger?  Lemon?  Tin Roof Sundae?  Stop me, please!  I love this book.  See a sample recipe here.  

Homemade Soda: 200 Recipes for Making & Using Fruit Sodas and Fizzy Juices, Sparkling Waters, Root Beers and Cola Brews, Herbal and Healing Waters, ... and Floats, and Other Carbonated Concoctions  Goodbye canned soda.  Hello home-carbonated drinks!  The title just about sums it all up, and you can read my full review here!  

Barefoot Contessa Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust  This book is one of the newest in my collection, so I actually can't say it is splattered yet.  But I wanted to include it here because I truly enjoy all of Ina Garten's cooking so much.  I was introduced to her friendly cooking show when I was working as a hospice volunteer, and one of the patients I sat with wanted to watch her show many times.  I realized how easy her cooking was, how simple, straightforward, and fresh.  Using just a few quality ingredients, she was setting a table that looked out of this world!  Read my full review here. 

The Versatile Vita-Mix  You know why I wanted this book so badly (read why here!), and now that I have it I am loving every minute of it!   From smoothies to johnnycake, this book has been a family standby since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and I am more than proud to have it join my collection now!

Homeopathy, Gardening, and Lifestyle

Prescription for Nutritional Healing, Fifth Edition: A Practical A-to-Z Reference to Drug-Free Remedies Using Vitamins, Minerals, Herbs and Food Supplements  This book isn't a doctor, but it can help pinpoint the causes of various malaises and offers solutions from the comfort of your home.  

The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!  An excellent guide for homesteaders today, this book will get you started on hog-raising and gardening!  Read my full review here.  

Vertical Vegetables and Fruit: Creative Gardening Techniques for Growing Up in Small Spaces  Read my full review here.

Culinary Reactions: The Everyday Chemistry of Cooking  An informative guide that will leave you better equipped for improvising, creating and experimenting with fewer flops in the kitchen!  Read my full review here.

World Cuisine

Giada's Kitchen: New Italian Favorites  Great, simple recipes - all of them delicious; lots of color photographs! 

Where Flavor Was Born: Recipes and Culinary Travels Along the Indian Ocean Spice Route  This is a big fat book with lots of revolutionary (to the Westerners) and flavorful ways to use spices.  I enjoy international cooking for the simple reason that, while not only bringing new flavors and textures to my plate, it also expands my view of certain foods and helps shift paradigms in thinking about say, cinnamon or star anise.  

Ray's Boathouse: Seafood Secrets of the Pacific Northwest  A book from my native Washington state, this beautifully appointed book is a sophisticated treatise on preparing fresh salmon, crab, lobster and more.  

Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers' Markets  What a gem this book is in my collection!  It has saved me more than once with an overful refrigerator of produce, while on the hunt for a new way to use some bountiful vegetable.  (Eggplant jam?  Summer squash pasta?) 

Italianissimo: Over 600 Great Recipes From Every Region of Italy  Actual italian recipes (think: not Olive Garden) with lots of pictures, although the pictures are not really my favorite part.  The best, fastest and easiest pizza crust I've seen yet is in this book; pizza bianca and acutal italian pizzas (no cheese!) will please everybody!

Gluten-Free, Vegan and Vegetarian Cooking

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World: 75 Dairy-Free Recipes for Cupcakes that Rule  Looking to do some vegan baking?  This miniature book has way too many recipes for its size!  Read my full review here.  

Raw Food/Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow  Almond milk, smoothies, cashew cheese and other excellent ways to prepare raw and vegan food: use as a supplement to your already-nutritious diet, to learn some new ways to prepare vegetables and nuts, or if you are a raw foodie it will be an excellent all-purpose "cook" book! 

Fresh From The Vegetarian Slow Cooker: 200 Recipes for Healthy and Hearty One-Pot Meals that are Ready when You are  I love this book - and recommend it to anybody starting a vegetarian diet (or vegan, as any recipes not vegan have alternate ingredient options).  It was a chance find in a bookstore and I am glad I stumbled across it; soups, lasagne, even dessert and appetizers are included - and all of them with ordinary ingredients you can find in the grocery store.  

Gluten-Free Vegan Comfort Food: 125 Simple and Satisfying Recipes, from "Mac and Cheese" to Chocolate Cupcakes  Unglutenites rejoice - lots of recipe titles you will recognize but in exciting - gluten-free - new ways!   Read my full review here.


Mrs H

tweet us @_mrs_h for chewy nuggets
Pin us at Pinterest for pretty photos and intriguing articles
Follow us on Facebook for recipes, giveaways, and brilliant flashes of perspiration!

Scroll through the books here!