the kitchen garden cookbook

the kitchen garden cookbook – more than 200 recipes, picking and cooking tips, preserving ideas
Published at DK Canada

About the book

Featuring delicious seasonal recipes to help make the best use of homegrown produce, The Kitchen Garden Cookbook is packed with imaginative, inspiring ideas to turn your beautiful bounty into delicious dishes. With techniques and expert advice to help you harvest, preserve, and prepare your crops successfully, The Kitchen Garden Cookbook is the fruit-and-vegetable-grower’s perfect kitchen companion.

My Thoughts

This book is simply fabulous!   It starts with being divided in season – spring, summer, autumn and winter.  For each season, you have a series of vegetables and fruits  that are ready during that time of the year and it gives you fabulous recipes to use the vegetables or fruits in.   For example, in the Spring section I have learned that spinach is in season.   One recipe for the spinach is a spinach and coconut shrimp curry.   Yummy!   The picture accompanying the recipe is mouthwatering to say the least…   It reminds me of a Thai recipe and to be honest and I am sure it will become a favourite in our family!

This book also contains interesting information on the vegetables and fruits  presented in it like when to pick, eat and store fresh, how to preserve and freezing options.    If you are wondering which vegetables and fruits are included in this book here`s the list:

1. Spring: asparagus, peas, fava beans, Swiss chard, cauliflower, spinach, lettuce, arugula, radishes,and  rhubarb.  Technique presented is how to preserve vegetables in oil.
2. Summer: green beans, runner beans, artichokes, tomatoes, peppers, Chile peppers, eggplant, okra, cucumbers, zucchini, corn, fennel, potatoes, herbs, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, black currants, red currants, melons, cherries, peaches, and apricots. Techniques presented are how to freeze vegetables, dry vegetables, make freezer pickles, make cold pickles, make relish, store under soil, freeze herbs, dry herbs, make freezer jam, make fruit jam, freeze fruit, bottle fruit in alcohol, make conserves.
3. Autumn: pumpkins and squash, onions, shallots, garlic, kohlrabi, celery, beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, cranberries, grapes, apples, pears, quinces, plums and figs. Techniques presented are how to store onions, garlic and shallots, store crops naturally, store root crops in boxes, make jelly, oven-dry fruits, make chutney.
4. Winter:  broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Asian greens, kale, cabbage, leeks, Belgian endive, celery root, Jerusalem artichokes, rutabagas, turnips, and parsnips.  The technique presented is how to salt vegetables.

I am a bit disappointed that not all recipes have pictures.   I find that I have a tendency of doing the recipes that have pictures.    Mind you I am sure that the recipes in this book are delicious.   From the recipes included in this book I am most interested in some preserving ones..   We started canning last year and we got hooked on it.  *grin*   I am open to try new canning ideas this year for sure.   

The book also contains ideas on how to store vegetables for the winter seasons.   I was very impressed with the ways of storing carrots.    Even though I do not have a garden in my backyard yet, nothing can stop me to store come fresh carrots I could buy at the market in the cooler section of the basement next fall season.   One of the cakes my husband like to eat is a carrot cake.  This recipe book contains a recipe of a carrot cake made from scratch.  Since his birthday is in December, having some fresh carrots stored in the basement would be nice to have so I can bake a homemade carrot cake for his 40th birthday this year!

Now if only my oven can get fixed (it stopped two weeks ago and a piece is out of stock at this moment) I could prepare different recipes to my family!   

The kitchen garden cookbook is available at your favourite bookstore, even amazon.ca.

GREAT NEWS!

DK Canada has agreed to give away one copy of the kitchen garden cookbook to one of my readers.

To participate, tell me which NEW vegetable or fruit presented in the list above you would plant in a garden and why this one in particular (whether you have one or not)! This entry is mandatory. Don’t forget to include your email address in the comment.

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6) Blog about this contest and give me you link (3 entries) – Give me your link and enter three times in the comment section.

Don’t forget to include your email for each steps. No email means I will have to pick someone else. I need to be able to contact you if you win! Random.org will be use to determine the winner. You will have 24 hours to contact me and give me your mailing address so I can send it to my contact which in turn will ship the prize to you!

Open to Canadian residents ONLY.

Deadline: May 28, 2011.

Disclaimer: Thanks to DK Canada for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.