Springtime brings a fresh crop of books, and this season the cookbook category includes new titles by local culinarians. From creative ways with plants to Southern fusion cuisine, the practical, approachable recipes in these five books will make you want to have them in the kitchen, rather than on the coffee table.
Credit: Andrew Thomas Lee
Credit: Andrew Thomas Lee
Chef Steven Satterfield of Miller Union has a reputation for produce-driven cooking. In 2015, he explored no-waste vegetarian cooking in his award-winning âRoot to Leaf.â He continues his quest to make vegetables as delicious as possible in âVegetable Revelationsâ (HarperWave, $50).
The more than 150 recipes include spice blends, vinaigrettes, condiments, toppings, âflavor bombsâ and sauces to enhance veggies. And, there are plenty of creative ideas for preparing the produce itself â be it an Indian-inspired mustard greens and spinach saag, bell pepper gravy shrimp and grits, or a lemon-glazed, spiced parsnip cake.
While Satterfield leaves no vegetable off the table, Atlanta author Cynthia Graubart picks just one. Graubartâs forthcoming âZucchini Loveâ (Storey, $14.99) is the third in her single-food cookbook series, following âStrawberry Loveâ and âBlueberry Love.â Itâs her 14th book, overall.
Credit: VIRGINIA WILLIS
Credit: VIRGINIA WILLIS
The paperback provides plenty of ideas for home gardeners who find themselves with an abundance of zucchini and want to do something besides sneak it into a loaf of tea bread or stuff it into an unsuspecting neighborâs mailbox.
Graubart grates, chops, slices, spiralizes and blitzes zukes â to make doughnuts, smoothies, egg drop soup, fritters, stir-fries, casseroles, cakes and more. Techniques such as pickling, freezing and preserving enable you to enjoy this summer vegetable throughout the year.
What would Terry Sargent do with a zucchini windfall? Heâd make grilled, smoked vegetable kabobs or smoky ratatouille. Those are among the 100-plus recipes in Sargentâs new âVegan Barbecueâ (Harvard Common Press, $24.99).
Credit: Bites and Bevs LLC
Credit: Bites and Bevs LLC
Sargent is the chef-owner of Grass VBQ Joint, a Decatur restaurant that began as a pop-up in 2017. The Georgia native â and Southern Living magazineâs 2021 Cook of the Year â worked for years as an omnivore chef, but a medical warning from his doctor prompted him to change his eating habits and take up veganism.
In âVegan Barbecue,â Sargent champions a plant-based diet through a style of cooking more commonly associated with meat. Asparagus, carrots, jackfruit, pineapple and pumpkins are just a sample of the produce that gets the low and slow treatment.
Sargent notes that his aim with all the recipes is to seek âthe true flavors and textures of real barbecue.â
He writes in the introduction that his âbiggest challenge was never flavor, it was texture! I had to experiment, and test and retest, to approximate the texture of beef, what it feels like in your mouth, or even in your hand.â
The results of his efforts with âmock-meat-makingâ include such creations as a smoked oyster mushroom banh mi sandwich and smoked âveefâ lasagna.
Sargent also finds plant-based substitutes for other nonvegan ingredients, such as cheese. âWhen I developed the best vegan cheese sauce for our smoked mac ânâ cheese, the experience, honestly, felt like it was pure science,â he writes.
Cristina Kisner knows a thing or two about food science, also gleaned through trial and error. Even before she and her husband, Sebastian Gracey, moved from their native Peru to Roswell in 2019 and opened Huh Natural and Real Food (later renamed Cristyâs Kitchen), Kisner was busy in the kitchen, treating food as medicine. Two of her five daughters had been diagnosed with health issues that ranged from allergic rhinitis to digestive problems to an autoimmune disease. In addition, her husband suffered a stress-induced heart attack.
Credit: JIMENA AGOIS
Credit: JIMENA AGOIS
She switched to organic ingredients and removed dairy, gluten and processed foods from the familyâs diet. That also is the foundation of the âcleanâ cooking and baking at their Roswell bakery-cafe. With her inspiring debut cookbook, âCristyâs Kitchenâ (William Morrow, $37.50), Kisner shares what she has learned with home cooks.
âCristyâs Kitchenâ features more than 130 wholesome recipes without gluten, dairy or processed sugars. Breakfast might bring kefir cashew yogurt and quinoa porridge. Lunch could be a smoked salmon bowl or sirloin and blackberry salad with goldenberry dressing, while dinner might be turkey cabbage rolls or yuca gnocchi with carrot greens pesto. And, healthful eating doesnât mean dessert is a no-no. She shares her recipes for raw, dairy-free cherry cheesecake with a brownie base, Peruvian-style chocolate turron and Peruvian jelly roll with dulce de leche.
Helpful notes and ingredient swaps make plenty of recipes possible for vegan, vegetarian, paleo and autoimmune protocol diets, as well. And, information on how to obtain ingredients less common in American households enables her pantry essentials to become yours, too.
âI hope what I have learned in my kitchen for my own family can help you in your own quest for health,â Kisner writes.
Credit: HAIGWOOD STUDIOS PHOTOGRAPHY
Credit: HAIGWOOD STUDIOS PHOTOGRAPHY
Just as Kisnerâs recipe collection reflects, in part, her Peruvian background, Natalie Keng brings her heritage to the pages of her debut cookbook/memoir, âEgg Rolls & Sweet Tea: Asian Inspired, Southern Styleâ (Gibbs Smith, $32).
The Smyrna resident is familiar locally as the owner of Chinese Southern Belle, whose Asian-inspired sauces are made from family recipes. In âEgg Rolls & Sweet Tea,â Keng shares her food journey, growing up as a first-generation Chinese American in the South. âBetween the worlds of egg rolls and sweet tea, I grew up feeling right at home,â she writes.
Among the more than 100 Asian-American and Southern fusion dishes in the book, youâll find mu shu wood ear burritos, Joy Luck barbecue pulled pork boa buns, and, of course, egg rolls. She calls them âmy version of authentic, even if they donât fit perfectly into any textbook genre.â
The other commonality: They are darn tasty.
MEET THE AUTHOR
Noon-4 p.m. April 22. Cristina Kisner will hold a book signing for her newly published âCristyâs Kitchen.â Cristyâs Kitchen, 1066 Alpharetta St., Roswell. 404-528-0444, cristyskitchenga.com
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