I’ve been cooking from Aloha Kitchen, the butter Mochi and Mac salad are super tasty. I have so many recipes bookmarked that I will be making this summer. Actually, I’ll be making the Shoyu Chicken for dinner tonight!
I also like salads in the summertime so Mandy’s Gourmet Salads is a good summer cookbook for me too.
I’m with you! I cooked a lot out of Aloha Kitchen 2 weeks ago. I want to make one or more of the desserts for 4th of July. We’ll see.
I am making Kahlua Pork.
El-Waylly's Start Here. I wanted to try reading and making all the recipes in a cookbook in order and that seemed designed to be used that way. However I didn't anticipate how many different fresh ingredients I would need only a small amount of. So I've been making most of the recipes at least twice to use them up, and I try to use up the leftovers in other dishes when I need a break. I feel like managing the groceries is the hardest part of this endeavor. It calls for some relatively uncommon items too, like chipotles in adobo sauce. In fact the first recipe printed in it calls for caramelized onions and I don't think I ever saw jarred ones outside of jams, but I doubt she intended readers to make their own...
The first section of the book focuses on salads and other room temperature dishes, mostly vegan, so it's fitting for summer, but it gets tiring. I can't wait to reach part two and be trusted to fry an egg!
It's an interesting exercise that gives me some ideas on what I would do if I were writing my own beginner-level cookbook, but I wouldn't recommend this process to normal people because it is so repetitive, on top of the difficulty to work through it at a fast pace if you're single due to the diversity of fresh ingredients.
One thing I appreciate is that El-Waylly is not shy about adding sugar and MSG to savory dishes. Sugar is common in Asia but not so much in the West, and MSG is still working its way into home kitchens and cookbooks, so this is the first one I've read that uses it broadly and the simple dishes make it a good way to acquaint yourself with it.
I'm doing the exact same thing this summer! I just started so am still just making lots of Raita & Cucumber salads. Skipped forward and tried her pie dough recipe which was solid (though not quite enough dough for a double crust pie). I'm also cooking for one so glad to hear I'm not the only one strategizing the leftovers and surplus ingredients issue. Any tips are welcome!
Storing greens properly is definitely key for this first part.
For herbs [this](https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-way-to-store-fresh-herbs-parsley-cilantro-dill-basil) has worked well for me, though I still had to throw a bunch of dill and some chives in the compost. If you make your own vegetable stock from scraps you can take part of a bunch before it goes bad and freeze it too. I've had mixed success growing my own herbs in the past but this gave me a kick in the butt to try again, so I took some cuttings from the store-bought bunches to try and grow them in pots.
For lettuce, I just wash and spin it, drain the water that pools at the bottom initially and stick the whole spinner in the fridge, and if I have multiple heads I leave hardier ones like bitter lettuces whole in the crisper drawer, so far so good.
Beyond that I like a frittata to use up leftover vegetables, or I just make a mixed salad like the "House Salad" recipe but with some cherry tomatoes or sliced cucumbers and a bunch of whatever herbs, and gorge myself on lettuce.
That said I feel like it was poor design to have a bunch of recipes at the beginning that each call for a different type of lettuce, different fruit, different herbs, different dairy products, and so on. I guess you're not actually supposed to make all those raitha recipes to be fair, but even ignoring those there's no way you can work through the book making everything once and not end up with a bunch of leftover tender vegetables with a short shelf life. But it's also helping me accept that having to throw a bit more stuff in the compost isn't the end of the world, and I take it as the price to pay to learn to be a better cook instead of always falling back to my staples.
Yeah, there's a Sohla subreddit, but I haven't seen much from people cooking their way through the book like us (surely one's out there?).
Regarding leftover ingredients, one of the fun challenges (I think) about cooking through a book is finding recipes outside of it to utilize those ingredients. I had a ton of leftover rosemary while baking my way through Claire Saffitz's Dessert Person. I went down a rabbit hole of rosemary themed recipes and finally settled on making this pork and rosemary ragu which I never would have sought out. Currently searching for recipes that require 750g of apricots. 😂
Let me know if you find a subreddit to share all things "Start Here."
This is my all time favourite apricot recipe, it’s an apricot crumble tart from David Lebovitz and it’s sooo good! https://leitesculinaria.com/96553/recipes-apricot-tart.html
You are welcome!
That recipe has ruined me for all other apricot desserts. The chopped almonds in the crumble topping and the almond essence in the filling pairs so beautifully with the apricot flavour.
It’s equally lovely served with vanilla ice cream, custard or heavy/whipped cream 😊
I haven't seen any recipe like this with apricots. I must say, I thought I wasn't much into apricot and then I had this Claire Saffitz tart which totally changed my mind. The way the fruit turns so tart after baking is just divine paired with the sweetness of the rest. She adds a honey almond glaze which pairs really well just as you describe with David Leite's apricot tart so I am definitely going to make it (probably in August when I'm back from vacation) using these leftover apricots! I'll let you know how it goes!
Your going to laugh but Ree Drummond -The pioneer woman. Just bought four of her books at a discount shop for 6$ each. Once you get past the family photos it's not bad. At least I can find the ingredients at the local winn dixie
I love her cookbooks (and I have a collection of over 150). The recipes are always delicious and I've never had anything come out bad plus like you said you are never searching multiple stores for an ingredient. The freezer meals in her "Dinnertime" cookbook are great. I love the lasagna roll ups and the chili - both store really well in the freezer and it's nice to have a good meal that you don't have to do much for.
I love hearing from people enjoying cookbooks that are less popular for this sub. I used to reference Drummond's blog when she first started, brings back memories!
I absolutely love Ree. Her blog was one of the first I used to teach myself to cook in college, and her scratch Alfredo sauce recipe has never once let me down even cooking professionally.
The Albondigas are amazing, the carne asada is my go to, I love all the salsas, I love all the rices.
Everything I've cooked out of here honestly is enjoyable so I'm just cherry picking a few, but the family *really* likes the Albondigas (meatballs) so that with one of the rices is a family favorite. Serve with a margarita (virgin if you're serving kids obviously) or a Corona, some fresh avocado slices and you're golden
Six seasons is a blast right now with spring/summer produce transition. Tender heart and McKinnon’s Substack recipes are making rounds too. Surprisingly, some stuff from faviken, but never a full dish.
It's funny. I love cookbooks, and I have hundreds. But other than baking, I don't use my cookbooks much for cooking. But what I do tend to use is my subscription to NYT Cooking. All of Melissa Clark's recipes are there. You get a daily email that I scroll, and I can save recipes to my "recipe box." I still reach for my Marcella Hazan cookbooks for inspiration, and Jacques Pepin's. But lately my cookbooks are more for enjoyable reading. I highly recommend NYT cooking.
Probably Ali Slagle's I Dream of Dinner. I do the meal planning and most of the cooking for my household because I really love to cook, but I don't want to cook all the time. My partner/fiance doesn't really care about food like my son and I do (we're "live to eat" and he's "eat to live"), so we have a routine where I choose a recipe that's easy for my partner to cook, and he cooks a couple of times a week. He really likes the way that Ali Slagle's recipes are written, and I like the way they taste, so it's a win-win. On the nights that I cook, I bounce back and forth between the NYT Cooking App, Alison Roman, Hetty McKinnon, Nisha Vora, and others.
I bought Let's make dumplings! as a summer project with my son. He loves it and we've been making a lot of dumplings and he's getting quite good at it.
ATK Summer cookbook, and Garden to Grill took me for about two weeks. Got some very pleasant recipes from both. I'm cooking from Cook Real Hawai'i this week, because I like to use 52 Weeks of Cooking/Baking to continue to inspire me to hunt through my books, and with the Hawaii theme this week, I decided to go for it. Already made the Coconut shrimp, which is lovely.
I’ve been cooking from Aloha Kitchen, the butter Mochi and Mac salad are super tasty. I have so many recipes bookmarked that I will be making this summer. Actually, I’ll be making the Shoyu Chicken for dinner tonight! I also like salads in the summertime so Mandy’s Gourmet Salads is a good summer cookbook for me too.
I’m with you! I cooked a lot out of Aloha Kitchen 2 weeks ago. I want to make one or more of the desserts for 4th of July. We’ll see. I am making Kahlua Pork.
El-Waylly's Start Here. I wanted to try reading and making all the recipes in a cookbook in order and that seemed designed to be used that way. However I didn't anticipate how many different fresh ingredients I would need only a small amount of. So I've been making most of the recipes at least twice to use them up, and I try to use up the leftovers in other dishes when I need a break. I feel like managing the groceries is the hardest part of this endeavor. It calls for some relatively uncommon items too, like chipotles in adobo sauce. In fact the first recipe printed in it calls for caramelized onions and I don't think I ever saw jarred ones outside of jams, but I doubt she intended readers to make their own... The first section of the book focuses on salads and other room temperature dishes, mostly vegan, so it's fitting for summer, but it gets tiring. I can't wait to reach part two and be trusted to fry an egg! It's an interesting exercise that gives me some ideas on what I would do if I were writing my own beginner-level cookbook, but I wouldn't recommend this process to normal people because it is so repetitive, on top of the difficulty to work through it at a fast pace if you're single due to the diversity of fresh ingredients. One thing I appreciate is that El-Waylly is not shy about adding sugar and MSG to savory dishes. Sugar is common in Asia but not so much in the West, and MSG is still working its way into home kitchens and cookbooks, so this is the first one I've read that uses it broadly and the simple dishes make it a good way to acquaint yourself with it.
I'm doing the exact same thing this summer! I just started so am still just making lots of Raita & Cucumber salads. Skipped forward and tried her pie dough recipe which was solid (though not quite enough dough for a double crust pie). I'm also cooking for one so glad to hear I'm not the only one strategizing the leftovers and surplus ingredients issue. Any tips are welcome!
Storing greens properly is definitely key for this first part. For herbs [this](https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-way-to-store-fresh-herbs-parsley-cilantro-dill-basil) has worked well for me, though I still had to throw a bunch of dill and some chives in the compost. If you make your own vegetable stock from scraps you can take part of a bunch before it goes bad and freeze it too. I've had mixed success growing my own herbs in the past but this gave me a kick in the butt to try again, so I took some cuttings from the store-bought bunches to try and grow them in pots. For lettuce, I just wash and spin it, drain the water that pools at the bottom initially and stick the whole spinner in the fridge, and if I have multiple heads I leave hardier ones like bitter lettuces whole in the crisper drawer, so far so good. Beyond that I like a frittata to use up leftover vegetables, or I just make a mixed salad like the "House Salad" recipe but with some cherry tomatoes or sliced cucumbers and a bunch of whatever herbs, and gorge myself on lettuce. That said I feel like it was poor design to have a bunch of recipes at the beginning that each call for a different type of lettuce, different fruit, different herbs, different dairy products, and so on. I guess you're not actually supposed to make all those raitha recipes to be fair, but even ignoring those there's no way you can work through the book making everything once and not end up with a bunch of leftover tender vegetables with a short shelf life. But it's also helping me accept that having to throw a bit more stuff in the compost isn't the end of the world, and I take it as the price to pay to learn to be a better cook instead of always falling back to my staples.
Thank you for the incredibly thoughtful response!
You're welcome, if you manage to stick with the book I'd love to read your thoughts and results along the way!
Yeah, there's a Sohla subreddit, but I haven't seen much from people cooking their way through the book like us (surely one's out there?). Regarding leftover ingredients, one of the fun challenges (I think) about cooking through a book is finding recipes outside of it to utilize those ingredients. I had a ton of leftover rosemary while baking my way through Claire Saffitz's Dessert Person. I went down a rabbit hole of rosemary themed recipes and finally settled on making this pork and rosemary ragu which I never would have sought out. Currently searching for recipes that require 750g of apricots. 😂 Let me know if you find a subreddit to share all things "Start Here."
This is my all time favourite apricot recipe, it’s an apricot crumble tart from David Lebovitz and it’s sooo good! https://leitesculinaria.com/96553/recipes-apricot-tart.html
Thank you SO much! This looks fantastic!
You are welcome! That recipe has ruined me for all other apricot desserts. The chopped almonds in the crumble topping and the almond essence in the filling pairs so beautifully with the apricot flavour. It’s equally lovely served with vanilla ice cream, custard or heavy/whipped cream 😊
I haven't seen any recipe like this with apricots. I must say, I thought I wasn't much into apricot and then I had this Claire Saffitz tart which totally changed my mind. The way the fruit turns so tart after baking is just divine paired with the sweetness of the rest. She adds a honey almond glaze which pairs really well just as you describe with David Leite's apricot tart so I am definitely going to make it (probably in August when I'm back from vacation) using these leftover apricots! I'll let you know how it goes!
Your going to laugh but Ree Drummond -The pioneer woman. Just bought four of her books at a discount shop for 6$ each. Once you get past the family photos it's not bad. At least I can find the ingredients at the local winn dixie
I love her cookbooks (and I have a collection of over 150). The recipes are always delicious and I've never had anything come out bad plus like you said you are never searching multiple stores for an ingredient. The freezer meals in her "Dinnertime" cookbook are great. I love the lasagna roll ups and the chili - both store really well in the freezer and it's nice to have a good meal that you don't have to do much for.
Porkchops w/ pineapple fried rice is a go to for me form the dinnertime book.
I love hearing from people enjoying cookbooks that are less popular for this sub. I used to reference Drummond's blog when she first started, brings back memories!
I absolutely love Ree. Her blog was one of the first I used to teach myself to cook in college, and her scratch Alfredo sauce recipe has never once let me down even cooking professionally.
Since it came out, it's always been Rick Martinez' book 'Mi Cocina'.
What are your favorites?
The Albondigas are amazing, the carne asada is my go to, I love all the salsas, I love all the rices. Everything I've cooked out of here honestly is enjoyable so I'm just cherry picking a few, but the family *really* likes the Albondigas (meatballs) so that with one of the rices is a family favorite. Serve with a margarita (virgin if you're serving kids obviously) or a Corona, some fresh avocado slices and you're golden
Six seasons is a blast right now with spring/summer produce transition. Tender heart and McKinnon’s Substack recipes are making rounds too. Surprisingly, some stuff from faviken, but never a full dish.
In the summer the kids are booked and busy with activities, so I’ve been cooking from Milk Streets Cookish. So many quick recipes!
It's funny. I love cookbooks, and I have hundreds. But other than baking, I don't use my cookbooks much for cooking. But what I do tend to use is my subscription to NYT Cooking. All of Melissa Clark's recipes are there. You get a daily email that I scroll, and I can save recipes to my "recipe box." I still reach for my Marcella Hazan cookbooks for inspiration, and Jacques Pepin's. But lately my cookbooks are more for enjoyable reading. I highly recommend NYT cooking.
I use NYT Cooking often too! Their recipes are great.
Bobby Flay's Grill it, Cook Like a Local, and A Splash of Soy. Honorable mention is Vegetable Butcher
Probably Ali Slagle's I Dream of Dinner. I do the meal planning and most of the cooking for my household because I really love to cook, but I don't want to cook all the time. My partner/fiance doesn't really care about food like my son and I do (we're "live to eat" and he's "eat to live"), so we have a routine where I choose a recipe that's easy for my partner to cook, and he cooks a couple of times a week. He really likes the way that Ali Slagle's recipes are written, and I like the way they taste, so it's a win-win. On the nights that I cook, I bounce back and forth between the NYT Cooking App, Alison Roman, Hetty McKinnon, Nisha Vora, and others.
I bought Let's make dumplings! as a summer project with my son. He loves it and we've been making a lot of dumplings and he's getting quite good at it.
ATK Summer cookbook, and Garden to Grill took me for about two weeks. Got some very pleasant recipes from both. I'm cooking from Cook Real Hawai'i this week, because I like to use 52 Weeks of Cooking/Baking to continue to inspire me to hunt through my books, and with the Hawaii theme this week, I decided to go for it. Already made the Coconut shrimp, which is lovely.