The Cookbook Junkies

SPRING COOKBOOK ROUND UP + GIVEAWAY of COOKIE LOVE & COOKIE PRESS & MORE!

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We cookbook lovers have a yearly event that has been coined Cookbooktober.  It’s a most special time of year when the publishers release great titles to feed our addiction while our spouses give us the evil eye as packages start rolling in.  It seems that Spring releases are just as fabulous, especially this year.

First up, Mastering Pasta by Marc Vetri is just perfection.  I’m happy to share a link to my review of this beautiful book which I did for Tastebook.  I love this book so much that we’ve created a group to cook through the book and share our thoughts and photographs of our preparations of Vetri’s recipes which can be found here.

Cookie Love by Mindy Segal of Chicago’s HotChocolate Restaurant and Dessert Bar is another beautiful book full of unique cookie and bar recipes.   Just a few that sparked my interest — blondie butterscotch s’mores, apple confit breakfast pie squares, barter brownies (with a Cocoa Rice Krispies topping), graham cracker and passion fruit whoopie cookies, smoked almond shortbread with orange blossom and raspberry framboise, “The Black Sabbath” (shortbread, frosting, brittle and more in this one), goat butter shortbread, smoky bacon candy bar cookies, a chapter on rugelach and kolachkes with flavors such as blueberry jam kolachkes with orange blossom almonds, kumquat marmalade kolachkes with blackberries and black pepper, honey peach and honeycomb kolachkes) and nearly fifty more.  See the end of the post for a giveaway for this stunner of a book.

Food52 Genius Recipes  I love the Food52 books — and Food52 Genius Recipes is no exception. It’s a gorgeous book with “100 recipes that will change the way you cook”.  This collection of recipes are from knowledgeable chefs and famous restaurants — raised waffles from Marion Cunningham, Touch-of-Grace Biscuits from Shirley Corriher, Pasta with Yogurt & Caramelized Onions from Diane Kochilas, Black Pepper Tofu from Yotam Otttolenghi, Fried Asparagus with Miso Dressing from Nobu Matsuhisa, Gratin of Zucchini, Rice & Onions with Cheese, Sweet Corn and Black Raspberry Ice Cream from Jeni Britton Bauer and more.

I made Marcella Hazan’s tomato butter sauce for the first time – I’m not sure why I have never made that recipe before…perhaps I thought how can something so simple be great – but great it is.

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Nonna’s House  Cooking and Reminiscing with the Italian Grandmothers of Enoteca Maria — is wonderful. I had never heard of this Staten Island restaurant where Italian grandmothers prepare Old World Italian dishes. The stories, the photos, the grandmothers – all wonderful.

I know there have been some complaints in the past about books and small font size but the nonnas must have been behind this design. Nice clear pages with large font.

Some recipes — Linguine and Cuttlefish, Tagliatelle with Pumpkin and Chestnuts, Neapolitan Potato Pie, Rabbit with Class Polenta, Chicken with peppers, Mushrooms and Proscuitto, Potato Gnocchi with Porcini and Broccolilni, Fennel with Gorgonzola — and Chocolate Rice Crostata all look amazing.

Sharing Puglia by Luca Lorusso and Vivienne Polak is a gorgeous book with stunning photographs and tempting recipes from the Puglia region of Italy.  I got a sneak peek at a digital version of this book and look forward to receiving a hard copy to further review and share more information with you.

Milk Bar Life by Christina Tosi  is another must have book from the author of Momofuku Milk Bar and includes recipes like this kimchi quesadillas, burnt honey butter kale with sesame seeds, pumpkin gooey butter cake, salt and pepper cookies, hijacked Biscoff cookies, rosemary jelly, smoked cantaloupe jam, blueberry miso jelly, sweet and sour red onion jam, Milk Bar English muffins (to soak up the jam), chicken fat biscuits — about as wide a variety as you can get everything from blue cheese pretzels to roast chicken dinner and more.

Fika by Anna Brones & Johanna Kindvall — Fika – The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break with Recipes for Pastries, Breads and Other Treats contains 45 classic recipes from cinnamon buns to rye bread.  Other recipes include Kinuski caramel cake, almond potato cake, Finnish sticks, saffron buns, cordials, compotes and jams.

Fried Chicken by Rebecca Lang is a gorgeous little book with tempting recipes for a variety of fried chicken dishes — cornmeal crusted chicken with white barbecue sauce, sage and apple brined fried chicken, Creole chicken and buttermilk waffles, chicken milanesa with chimichurri, sorghum pecan skillet chicken, Indian fried chicken with cumin yogurt, Thai style drumsticks with sweet chile sauce, Chinese lollipop wings, Korean style fried chicken with gochujang sauce, West African fried chicken with sauteed onions and peppers and many more.

I made the chicken milanesa with chimichurri and it was just incredible — very easy for a weeknight meal and fancy enough for company.

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Franklin Barbecue by Aaron Franklin and Jordan Mackay is a master course in smoking meat, Texas-style.  While there are plenty of recipes — it is a step by step guide to great barbecue with information from finding the best meat, to instructions to build your own smoker.   It is an encyclopedia of barbecue know how.

Yogurt by Janet Fletcher contains sweet and savory recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.   Fletcher begins with a chapter on yogurt making and moves into recipes including yogurt cheese with feta, pumpkin seeds and za’atar, radish tzatziki, grilled hanger steak with grilled red onion raita, Alsatian pizza with onions and pancetta, fettuccine with fried onions, yogurt and poppy seeds, yogurt mousse with orange marmalade and toasted almonds, Indian yogurt pudding with saffron, cardamom and toasted nuts and absinthe’s golden yogurt cake.

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The Great Pressure Cooker Book by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarborough was covered here.  Love Bruce and Mark’s books – they are always great and they helped me conquer my fear of the pressure cooker.

Breakfast Recipes to Wake up For by George Weld and Evan Hanczor is a beautiful book that covers all things breakfast.  Sweet and savory dishes from blueberry grunt to biscuits, winter squash grits to savory oatmeal to cooking a corned beef and turning it into a scrumptious red flannel hash.   You can throw a stellar brunch every week for a year and mix it up with the recipes from this book.  Condiments, drinks and cocktails are covered as well.

Street Foods by Hinnerk von Bargen is a great book.  Although it has a textbook feel and paper quality, the recipes look intriguing and I’m all about street food.   Fritters, bowl food, meat on a stick, condiments — from around the world – it’s all covered.

Home by Bryan Voltaggio  was a joy to page through.  Glazed bacon biscuits, the way he does biscuits and gravy — it looks like a pot pie with little portholes of sausage gravy bubbling up, Southern style Bahn Mi, potato and eggplant puttanesca, pork shoulder and pumpkin sauerkraut, pork ribs with kimchi and Dr. Pepper, chicken wings with kimchi caramel and wing sauce, potpie fritters (P O T P I E   F R I T T E R S!!!), chess pie with sweet curry crust and goat cheesecake with blueberry-gin compote….are just a few standouts.  His plain buttermilk biscuits look stunning — but be warned — a majority of the recipes are quite lengthy with long lists of ingredients….but they are totally doable.  I don’t see many recipes that require a chemistry degree or hazmat helmet.

Venice Recipes Lost and Found by Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi is another gorgeous tome on Italian cooking.   Porcini and pecorino strudel, cocoa tagliatelle with cheese sauce, cocoa ravioli stuffed with gorgonzola and walnuts, half moons of pasta filled with beetroot in poppy seed butter, pumpkin stuffed gnocchi, almond filled doughnuts with cherry coulis and fried custard diamonds — all look and sound delicious.  The photographs in this book are charming and beautiful to savor while sipping a glass of wine planning your menu.

Pure Pork Awesomeness by Kevin Gillespie is the Top Chef contestant’s second offering.  Vietnamese spareribs with chile and lemongrass, black vinegar-glazed pork belly buns, pork pho, sweet potato pancakes with maple-braised bacon, curried pork samosas and lemon ricottta tortellini in ham broth are a few tempting recipes.  At first blush, I wasn’t overly excited as I paged through the book but as I delved further- this is great book for pork lovers and the recipes do Kevin’s reputation justice.

Better on Toast  My elderly neighbor, Ann, would always be a comfort to me during my difficult childhood — and would make me the best toast in the world with real butter. Even to this day – toast is my ultimate comfort food — if I’m sick, or stressed — I’d rather have a piece of toast than dessert.  When I heard about this book, Better on Toast, by Jill Donenfeld – I had to check it out. There are 70 delicious recipes for all kinds of goodies to put on toast. French onion toast, lavender ricotta with the following variations of cherry jam and toasted pistachios, peaches, basil and honey and strawberries and balsamic reduction and many more. There are dessert, vegetarian, seafood, meat recipes — the book is worth a look at if you are out and about. I will use it for entertaining — making unique appetizers to share with friends.

Pasta by Hand by Top Chef Masters alumni Jenn Louis is another must have pasta book.  Louis covers all types of hand formed pastas in this her debut book.   Dumplings, cavatelli, orecchiette, gnocchi and other pastas you aren’t sure you have ever heard but will be glad you read about them here – such as cecamariti “husband blinders” and cazzellitti “little hats”. There are chapters on sauces and larder items as well.  Great step-by-step photographs are very helpful with some of the forming of the pasta shapes.

Real Sweet by Shauna Sever is a dessert book with over 80 “crave-worthy treats made with natural sugars”.  Coconut sugar, muscovado, turbinado, honey, maple syrup, agave nectar and other natural sweeteners are used to create recipes such as maple cream, chocolate, and walnut torte, pistachio sponge cake with honey cream and citrus, praline cream roulade, spiced, bruleed maple pumpkin pie, banana butterscotch cream pie and iced muscovado caramel-nut blondies.   Everything in this book is indeed crave worthy and would impress your family and friends.

Man Food by Billy Law.  I loved Law’s first book Have you Eaten? but I cry foul on this book – this is not Man Food – this is Woman and Child Food too.  Honey-glazed Saganaki, cauliflower, bacon and sage gratin, soft shell crab souvlaki, bacon, brie and burnt fig jam on toast, bacon and stout chocolate cheesecake with hot fudge sauce, stout chocolate mousse and bacon and sage polenta fries — are included in a book filled with people food and eye popping photos.   The subtitle of this book is “good food for a good time” – yes, yes, indeed.

Lighten up y’all by Virginia Willis features classic Southern recipes made healthy and wholesome.  This book is full of Southern dishes revamped to make them more of an every day occurrence instead of a once in a while splurge meal. Beer-battered shrimp with spicy ketchup, turkey meatloaf with mushroom gravy, pineapple right-side-up cake and other comfort foods are presented with nutritional information to boot.

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Twenty Dinners by Ithai Schori and Chris Taylor is one of those homey, comfortable books you curl up and savor. The book chronicles musician, Chris Taylor, and photographer and former professional cook, Ithai Schori’s, year of cooking meals in a rented house in Hudson, New York.  There are 100 seasonally arranged recipes from lemon verbana tart to fig-Earl Grey jam.  Clams in bacon-mushroom broth, seared branzino with pancetta and potto panzanella and spicy tomato stew with seared halibut are three of the entrees from their selection of twenty dinners. Most dinners include a drink recipe, an appetizer, an entree and dessert.  The duo enlisted their favorite pastry chef, mixologist, sommelier and baristas to assist them in writing up detailed information on those subjects.

Sweetapolita by Rosie Alyea is the popular blogger’s debut book for fanciful cakes, cookies and more.  There are step by step instructions on setting up and decorating cakes.  Recipes for cookies, gems, decorations, frostings and icings are plentiful.   What is intriguing to me are the cake recipes — the campfire deluxe cake and the neapolita cake would open to rave reviews at any birthday bash.  The Cloud 9 cake has, you guessed it, nine layers of luscious cake and then we have the chocolate root bear float cake which makes me wish that on my last birthday I wished for this cake!

Soul Food Love by Alice Randall & Caroline Randall Williams is a healthful look at soul food cooking.  The first eighty pages covers the history of the Randall family including their struggles with food issues and health concerns.   The remaining 130 pages contain soul food recipes with a fresh, healthy approach.  Lovely recipes for peanut chicken stew, red and back bean burgers, warm onion and rosemary salad and recipes for cocktails, appetizers and desserts are included.

A Good Food Day by Marco Canora while technically a December release – this book just crossed my radar after seeing a spot on The Chew featuring Marco.  I love Canora’s approach to food using “powerfully healthy and incredibly delicious ingredients”.  In this book, the author shares 125 delicious recipes from amaranth polenta with Tuscan kale to citrus-spiked hazelnut and rosemary granola.  Have no fear, there is also a chapter on snacks and another on desserts.

Turtle Truffle Bark!  by Hallie A. Baker is the book for you if you are a turtle lover of the chocolate variety.  Every imaginable turtle combination, barks of all flavors and truffles galore!    White chocolate cashew bark with cranberries, maple walnut turtles and Chinese five spice truffles are a few of the interesting recipes in this book.

GIVEAWAY :

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I have an extra copy of Cookie Love for one of my readers, a new Pampered Chef cookie press and the Cookies Biscuits, bars and brownies cookbook and cutters  to expand your cookie making pleasure.   Added to the giveaway today:  A Taylor digital food scale to ensure perfect cookies and a Cookie & Cupcake Decorating Set!  Please leave a comment on this post telling me which Spring title you are most excited about and for a second chance please sign up to subscribe to e-mail notifications for new posts.  Be sure to leave a second comment telling me you did so.   US Addresses only – a random winner will be chosen on April 28th.  This giveaway totally sponsored by me. Good luck. Please note some of the titles here were provided to me by the publishers — although a few I purchased.  All opinions and comments are truthful.  If you would like more information, or have a question regarding a title – please e-mail me.   RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR CHOSE 101 Cindy Lehrer!

The links to Amazon are affiliate links – if you purchase a book using my links (or by using “shop now” at the top of this website for any Amazon purchase), I receive a small commission that I will use to continue this site and sponsor other giveaways.  Thank you for your support.

 

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Comments

  20. 20

    Cookie Love is most exciting to me, without a doubt. When you first posted about it on the FB page, I put it on my want list. 🙂

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  27. 27

    So many cookbooks…so little money…but I’d have to say the one that I’m coveting the most right now is Pasta by Hand.

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  28. 28

    Genius Recipes is probably the one I looked forward to the most although Mastering Pasta was surprisingly awesome and accessible.

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  32. 32

    I signed up for your email. Thank you for all your hard work. I know many people appreciate it.

    Reply
  38. 38

    We went to Chicago in my birthday a few years ago and are at Hot Chocolate. It was amazing!! So, I am excited to dive into Mindy’s book!!

    Reply
  42. 42

    I would love to own Fika, because of my Swedish heritage…. and I love the concept of Fika, who doesn’t love a cup of coffee and a little sweet with a friend?

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  46. 46

    There are several on this list that will likely make it into my collection but Home by Bryan Voltaggio is probably the one I am most excited about. His first book Volt was too cheffy for me but this one looks more accessible.

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  50. 50

    I’m always trying to get a “wow” reaction from my SO when it comes to food, and I very rarely get that satisfaction unless I ask for it which is not so satisfying. So probably Franklin Barbecue, because he loves barbecue and I’m nothing if not a people-pleaser (ha!). But I’m also doing the baking portion of my culinary degree and I really could have used the Cookie Love book last week and will probably need it again. Baking in deck ovens = not my strong suit.

    Reply
  53. 53

    Most interested in Breakfast! Not a morning person so I make breakfast at home instead of going out.

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  55. 55

    I’m most excited about Home by Bryan Voltaggio.
    And I mean excited to the point I had a dream the other night that we worked together at a hotel and he was cooking for a bunch of us. I did not want to wake up!

    Reply
  57. 57

    Great roundup, thank you so much for sharing! So many great new cookbooks coming out this spring 🙂 Just signed up for e-mail notifications!

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  63. 63

    All of the books look like keepers to me. But I am currently teaching myself hand made pasta, no machines involved. Somebody’s little gramma did it, so can I!!!!

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  66. 66

    Breakfast is the book that I would like to see. I signed up for the e-mails not long ago. Thanks!

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  69. 69

    Lighten up, Y’all is on my wishlist. We have been cooking healthy and tweaking our recipes to reflect that, so I’m looking forward to getting this book in the future.

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  71. 71

    I’m looking forward to trying the recipes from Enoteca Maria. One of these days, my husband and I will get there. (I’m in Staten Island!) Also the Marco Canora book. Saw him when he was on Top Chef Masters and I really like how he cooks.

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  80. 80

    I already have several of the titles you mentioned. I’m really enjoying cooking from Lighten Up, Y’all, Soul Food Love and Food52 Genius Recipes. You’ve got me really excited about Home by Bryan Voltaggio. I wasn’t aware of this one but from your description it sure sounds like one I need.

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  84. 84

    Milk Bar Life & Puree Pork Awesomeness are the two I really want. I would love Cookie Love too.

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  90. 90

    A Good Food Day is one I am looking forward to reading and cooking from. Many of the others look good too. So many wonderful new books!

    Reply
  101. 101

    Oh my oh my!!! These are all so amazing!!! I would love and enjoy each one!!! But Street Foods sounds so good! Im on a street food kick and would love to try some of these out! Signed up for emails!

    Reply
  102. 102

    I’m looking forward to the new Food52 book! I love their other two so this one should be a winner too!

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  109. 109

    I am most excited by “Pasta by Hand.” I love pasta and want to learn to make it at home! Thanks for the giveaway!

    Reply
  111. 111

    i think that the fried chicken book would be awesome. Cookie love looks great too. My family loves when I bake cookies. I often send cookies or treats with groups my son is with like his FFA judging teams, or just trips. It is a thrill to have a kids come up and say “I loved those cookies”. Thanks for the chance to win.

    Reply
  113. 113

    Fika sounds like a good one. Would give me a chance to explore my Swedish roots. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to win the Cookie Love book. Cookies ~ they are my first love.

    Reply

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