Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant and Unfussy New Favorites Hardcover – December 7, 2017

Here’s a review from someone who actually tried multiple recipes from the book.I’ve been a reader of Smitten Kitchen for many years, although I can’t remember making a recipe from her blog. I think I wasn’t a very confident cook at the time and the kitchen I was stuck with wasn’t easy to work around. Plus I was in grad school and didn’t have the motivation to cook often so I would only admire the photos from her blog. Then one day I moved to a different city to start a new job and stocked up a nice little kitchen for myself. I started planning meals I could bring to work everyday and looked to my small collection of cookbooks for recipes. It felt like I would try a handful of recipes from a book, and maybe 1-2 recipes would be good, but then sometimes they weren’t, and then I became disinterested in the rest of the book very quickly.So far I’ve had the complete opposite experience with Smitten Kitchen Everyday. I hadn’t visited her blog in a while and was excited to see a new release from Smitten Kitchen on Amazon. Since I passed her first book (I was under the impression there would be too many recipes using sour cream and goat cheese?), I was excited for a chance to try a Smitten Kitchen book called “Everyday”. Everyday meals? Unfussy meals? I would have new favorites? Sounds good. I almost passed this one too since I’ve been trying to keep my cookbook collection to a minimum. My first impression upon scanning the pages was skepticism. Uh, cheesy beans? Corn pizza? Tomato clam chowder? Smoked fish sandwich? Hmm…One day there were strawberries in the fridge that were becoming overripe. What should I do with them? Oh, I know! There’s a blueberry recipe in the book. I can substitute the blueberries with strawberries. And since I didn’t have yogurt on hand, I would use buttermilk instead. I don’t have turbinado sugar and have no intention of buying it, so I will leave that out. The result was delicious, fluffy, and moist. It was my first time making muffins too, by the way. I have found that this has been a common theme in the book, in that her recipes are very flexible, but will still come out full of flavor.Below is a list of recipes I’ve tried so far (pictures to be uploaded).Perfect blueberry muffinsSushi takeout cobbCarrot salad with tahini, crisped chickpeas, and salted pistachiosRed lentil soup, dal styleSpiced carrot and pepper soup with a couscous swirlGrandma-style chicken noodle soupSmoky sheet pan chicken with cauliflowerBacony baked pintos with the worksThis is a personal cookbook from a food blogger, so of course there will be a short story preceding each recipe. If you enjoy reading her blog, then you will enjoy reading her cookbook. I didn’t mind at all and found it made it more fun to read and that’s one of the reason’s I collect cookbooks. The recipes were very easy to follow as I’m prepping and cooking, and include a lot of helpful notes. I believe a photo also accompanies each recipe.I have to say I greatly appreciated the addition of metric units and weights, which is incredibly rare in American cookbooks. Although I’m American, I have no idea what a small carrot or onion looks like, and would rather not spend time debating whether a potato looks medium enough at the grocery store, nor do I have any intention of measuring 12 cups of spinach. It just makes grocery shopping easier and I can scale recipes more easily.I was surprised by some of the negative reviews. I found them overly dramatic and ridiculous. Spoiler alert: This is not a vegetarian cookbook. This is not a 5-ingredient cookbook. This is not a 30 min or less cookbook. This is not a “cook a new recipe everyday after work” cookbook. If there’s baked potato in a recipe, it’s going to take an hour to bake them. If it’s too much work to throw a potato in the oven, then don’t make baked potatoes for breakfast on a Monday morning. If you can’t bring yourself to put an extra 5 minutes filling 10 scones, then don’t fill them.Don’t be deterred by the negative reviews. The same people who think the recipes in the book are fussy would be too lazy to cook from recipes that have more than one sentence in a step. This book has really motivated me to cook more and expanded my cooking skills. I’m looking forward to trying more recipes from the book, including the cheesy beans and corn pizza. I think this will be my go-to cookbook for weekly meal planning for now.

I found Deb's blog in college when, three years in, I finally grew sick of Nutri-Grain bars and Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds (wonderful food options but perhaps enjoyed best, like all else, in moderation). Since discovering her, I have fallen hard for her witty banter, conversational recipe dialogue, and (of course) her recipes. She has an excellent eye for finding a way to update a normal recipe, adding some sort of embellishment or modifying an integral ingredient to make it feel brand new. That's what I love best about Deb, because who wants to make garlic soup with only 40 cloves of garlic?The cookbook: I accidentally pre-ordered two copies rather than one and am looking forward to sending the extra off to a friend or family member (or any takers here! hah). I read through the entire book almost immediately after retrieving it from my mailbox and got myself all excited to cook everything in it (even the meat options despite being a *vegetarian*). Overall, the recipes appear to be quite approachable and surprisingly enticing (looking at you, Potatoes Anna).Likes: I love that many of the recipes are portioned appropriately. For example, there is a cookie recipe that yields two large cookies. As in, TWO LARGE COOKIES, THE PERFECT DESERT FOR TWO (or one, TBH). So obviously that's the first recipe I baked, which I will get to. I also like the variety of types of food -- pastas, rice dishes, barley dishes, tofu dishes, peanut sauces, waffle brownies, infinitely adaptable cakes, etc. I also think Deb actually understands 'EVERY DAY' which many cookbook authors seem to naively avoid. Many of the recipes in this book are pretty easy to whip up with ingredients that one might typically have in their pantry (rice, eggs, soy sauce, etc). The last thing i'd like to do after a long day of work is spend 3 hours preparing a dinner only to enjoy it for 2 minutes before hitting the sheets. So she gets it, she is aware of timing and serving size and ingredients. It's all very thoughtful.Dislikes: TBDSo far i've made...-Sushi Cobb Salad (great for a non-sad desk lunch)-Chewy Oatmeal Cookies for Two (WAY better than I expected) -- this recipe takes about 20 minutes and is highly adaptable (swap raisins for chocolate) and if you follow Michael Pollan rhetoric, it's even HEALTHY because you've made it at home.-Pizza Beans (nice alternative to actual 'za)I'm most looking forward to making...-all of the pizza recipes-waffle brownieOkay -- it's a great book! You should buy it! Enjoy!