Home Cooked: Essential Recipes for a New Way to Cook [A… (2024)

I was sent a copy of this book for review purposes, as always, all opinions are my own.

The recipes in this book aren't what most of us think of when we think of home cooking; they're more like how our grandmothers and for some of us, our great-grandmothers, cooked in generations past. This style of cooking, with its heavy emphasis on lard and butter, is a style that is slowly becoming popular again alongside the farm-to-table movement.

These are not your quick and easy weeknight recipes, or even recipes you'll pull out for Sunday dinner, instead they're recipes for what many of us would see as a whole new way to cook. They tend to focus on fresh, made from scratch ingredients and while the recipes may be time intensive, they pay off in spades in terms of flavor. However, the problem most of you will find with this book is that unless you live on or near a farm, or perhaps love to hunt, some of the ingredients may be a bit inaccessible. Recipes such as Beer Braised Rabbit with Shallots or Bird and Bunny Ragu sound absolutely delicious, but for the average city dweller they'll be next to impossible to tackle.

Fortunately the ingredients needed for most of the recipes are fairly straightforward. They require nothing more than a trip to a well-stocked grocery store or farmers' market and a whole lot of time. If you're looking to incorporate more traditional-style recipes into your meal rotation, this is an excellent book to start with. Cooking from it has really helped expand my knowledge of what used to be considered time-honored cooking techniques passed down through the generations, but I also recognize that it isn't going to be a good fit for everyone. The good news is that you don't have to tackle everything at once, if you set aside a few hours over the course of a weekend you'll be able to slowly make your way through this cookbook and stock your pantry with some absolutely mouth-watering staples.

2 1/2 stars

I received this book as an advance reader copy from NetGalley.

I went back and forth several times as to whether to request this book from NetGalley. On the one hand, I am the perfect target audience for the book, as I am a reasonably competent home cook whose current situation provides me with ample free time for meal preparation. On the other hand, I am an urban condo dweller with definite space and equipment limitations that prevent me from building fires, curing meats, storing large amounts of preserves, and the like. In the end, my intellectual curiosity got the better of me: I figured I would read the book and learn what I could, making the necessary adaptations to my particular situation. Fortunately, as I was reading the book, I learned that virtually all of the recipes were within my urban condo dwelling capability, as there were alternate preparation methods for the wood burning fires and store bought alternatives to the home canned goods.

Home Cooked begins with a ten or so page autobiographical Introduction, and then proceeds into approximately thirty pages of “Building Blocks.” The remainder of the book features recipes for snacks, starters, co*cktails, pasta, ragu, risotto, eggs, vegetables, fish, meat and desserts. Reading the Introduction is important for understanding the rest of the cookbook, as the author’s approach to cooking and entertaining was shaped by her time in Italy. This is a very personal cookbook, with a lot of anecdotes about her time in Italy in the introductions to the recipes that come later in the book.

The theory behind the fifteen Building Block recipes is to invest the time in cooking when you have it to make a few base ingredients, and then use those later to enhance fast meals. These vary from the most basic broths and canned tomatoes, to the unexpected variations on chimichurri sauce. Each Building Block recipe is prefaced by a yield amount. A short introduction that describes how to use or store the base ingredient starts each recipe. The ingredients are provided in the order of use in the recipe. Most of the ingredients are easy enough to find in the local grocery store. Two of the broth recipes call for four pounds of bones, but the author offers suggestions on how to freeze bones leftover from meals in order to stockpile the required amount. The recipe steps are clearly written and easy to follow. They are so direct as to be almost laconic – no humor or fluff about them. The recipe steps end with storage instructions and recommended storage time. Each recipe ends with a list of the recipes using that specific base ingredient. However, given the theory behind the Building Block recipes, I was surprised at how short these lists actually were.

The remaining chapters of recipes each begin with a brief introduction that explains the author’s approach to that part of the meal. Then there is a table of contents listing the recipes and their page numbers. The recipes themselves follow the format of the Building Block recipes. The ingredients required by the recipes are a little more challenging: things like rennet, edible wafer paper, Aleppo pepper, quassia bark, juniper berries, 00 flour, guinea hen, quail, squab, whole fresh squid, lamb heart, beef heart, chicken heart, and sweetbreads. The recipes widely vary in scope, including basic cheese making, bread baking, pasta making, sausage making, grilling, and candy making. A good number of the main course recipes can either be made ahead or held warm as guests arrive. Likewise, the majority of the desserts can (or should) be made ahead to facilitate stress free entertaining.

Immediately after the chapter on starters and co*cktails, the author offers a few pages on her approach to entertaining, which was shaped by her time in Italy. Her strategies to serving a good meal without stress are very simple, and are ones that I have employed at my own dinner parties. I especially appreciated her advice to “Cook within your limits” for dinner parties because a stressed host doesn’t make for a good party, no matter how wonderful the food is. Her belief in abundance also tells me that I am doing something right – no matter how much my friends make fun of me for it!

In addition to the vignette on entertaining, there are three additional vignettes on cooking in cast iron, which also includes buying and caring for cast iron; how to make great food; and a steak primer, which includes choosing and cooking your meat. Each of these was very informative, although the lengthy bit about grass-fed, grass-finished beef felt a little like propaganda for the author’s meat company.

The photography in the book is predominantly styled food photographs, although there are occasionally lovely scenic photos and personal photos mixed in. Some work-in-process photos are included in the Building Blocks chapter and subsequent recipe chapters, but these just usually give the general idea of what ingredients or textures look like. This is definitely not intended to be an illustrated how-to cook manual. Overall, the photography adds a beautiful element to the book.

Because I had buttermilk left in my refrigerator from another NetGalley cookbook recipe experiment, I decided to try the recipe for the Buttermilk Biscuits. Since I wasn’t in the mood to fuss with rolling and cutting, I followed the optional instructions to make drop biscuits by adding an extra ½ cup of buttermilk to the dough. As expected, working the butter into the flour mixture was a messy bother, especially since I didn’t have a pastry cutter to do it. Somewhere in the book, the author advocates owning kitchen tools that do at least two things and, to me, that rules out my owning a pastry cutter, especially since I seem to need it only once every other year. My result wasn’t exactly the rough cornmeal recommended in the recipe, but everything seemed to turn out just fine in the end. The resulting biscuits were light and delicious warm right out of the oven. They stood well on their own, and didn’t really need any butter or jam on them. This is definitely a recipe that I would make again!

I have a few other recipes marked to try. As I prepare them, I will update this review.

In general, I would recommend this cookbook to anyone who is interested in recipes and advice for stress free entertaining or in Italian food and lifestyle.

This is being celebrated as a new way of cooking. But if you've followed the slow food movement, there isn't anything new about how she cooks. Super fresh, seasonal ingredients, cooked simply? Great idea - but I can name at least 5 other chefs with 10 cookbooks or more touting the same thing. This is a good idea, but not new.

She owns a meat company, and those are the backstories that shine and feature more unique recipes. The chapters on starters and vegetables were hits for me, and I appreciated the co*cktails and entertaining advice.

There are lots of mood photos in here, but I would have preferred one for each recipe. The recipes are well written, but generally this is not everyday food. Good to pick up for ideas, and some different game recipes.

I got this book from the library on accident (was seeking a similar title). Anyway, the recipes are rustic Italian inspired. Part of the slow food movement. While some of the recipes sound great and I’ll likely use, many were just not my type - raw meats, organ meats, rabbit, etc. also many using ingredients that I don’t have easy access to, or the time to prep in advance. But I guess that’s the point of the book. What she does proved appears to be very simple preparations with a focus on high quality local ingredients. So for me it’s a three star book, but others may find rate this higher.

Different, rich and intense

Common sources with gorgeous, unexpected results. Recipes heavy on prep, make ahead resources like stocks, broths and sofrito frozen or tucked away get combined with skill into appealing dishes that rely on intense flavors, well presented. Great resource book.

I am not sure what I enjoyed the most, the recipes or the story of Anya Fernald.

Some of the recipes, ok the majority of the recipes I probably wont make, but its a great reference book and again her story is amazing and inspiring.

Great,simple rustic ideas

Back to basics Italian style. Focus on is on simple straightforward techniques. Ingredients that you have on hand can be quickly transformed to something great and reminiscent of adventures past.

Great cookbook and kind of unique. New recipes but presented as totally made at home, no pre-made ingredients. really made at home. Lots for meat eaters and vegetarians alike. I enjoyed the author's relationship and respect for food. Worth reading.

A really good do-it-from-scratch cookbook. A must have for the apocalypse. Funny though....I'm at an age where i am trying to embrace "pick it up fresh at the store".

Making the most of what’s in season, locally grown, and supports the farming economy just makes good sense. Sustainable use of food resources when they are used fresh or are preserved by time-tested traditions tweaked by modern methods is a win-win situation for the consumer, the economy, and the environment. With “Home Cooked”, author and food visionary Anya Fernald, along with food writer Jessica Battilana, provides the inspiration to take a second look at how we eat and manage our food. Due to the strictures and pressures of today’s lifestyle, many of us have long since gravitated away from growing our own food, seeking out the freshest ingredients, cooking ahead, “putting up” food, and turning scraps and leftovers into little bits of recipe revivers. “Home Cooked” is down-to-earth, informative, and provides much food for thought. Both the text and the photography are unfussy—warm in content and tone, with the rich, deep colors of sunrise and sunset inviting to turn the pages and try the many delicious dishes. The influences of the author’s time abroad blended with her life in California give her own special spin to the food she produces and the meals she creates. You are cordially invited to try: “Bright & Fresh Tomato Soup”; “Blistered Green Beans”; “Cornmeal Spoonbread”; “Trotter Beans”; “Tallow Fries”; “Asado Potatoes”; “Blood Orange Salad”; “Chicken Braised in Vinegar & Aromatics”; “The Greatest Pork Spareribs”; “Wine-Braised Brisket”; “Roast Beef with Horseradish-Walnut Sauce”; “Honey Nougat”; “Buttermilk Panna Cotta”; “Jam Tartlets”; “Buttermilk Pie”; “Walnut Tart”; and “Savory-Sweet Ricotta Cheesecake”. Many of the recipes are Italian-themed with Italian titles, so looking at the photo and reading the recipe ingredients will make them easier to understand. Anya Fernald is the co-founder and CEO of the Belcampo Meat Co, the world’s largest sustainable meat company, with more than 20,000 acres of farmland in California and seven butcher shops and restaurants in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas. Anya lived in Italy for many years working with Slow Food, and upon returning to the United States, launched Slow Food Nation and the Eat Real festival. Anya has been a regular judge on the Food Network’s Iron Chef since 2009, and also serves as the founding board chair of the Food Craft Institute. She lives in Oakland, California. Jessica Battilana is a food writer whose work has appeared in Martha Stewart Living, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Gastronomica, Saveur, Sunset, and the Best Food Writing Anthology 2008. She is the coauthor of three cookbooks: Vietnamese Home Cooking with Charles Phan, Tartine Book 3 with Chad Robertson, and Sausage Making with Ryan Farr. She is also the author of Short Stack Editions Volume 10: Corn. She lives in San Francisco, California.

Review Copy Gratis Ten Speed Press via Blogging for Books

A beautifully written cookbook where, detailed in the opening pages, the author Anya Fernald shares her background and her passion for cooking.

Fernald cooks with gusto and heart. She's worked with farmers, home cooks and understands the frugalness that is often required in cooking in rural parts of Italy. And with all this knowledge, she's crafted a book filled with easy to follow, simple, rustic recipes.

As an avid cook, I devoured (pun intentional) with enthusiasm. Whilst some may find the book a little 'wordy', I liked the opening gambit before each recipe because it gave a sense of familiarity as well useful hints and tips. Divided in to inviting chapters - 'Building Blocks', 'Welcome', 'Take a Seat', and 'Stay a While', Fernald takes you on a culinary journey to creating balanced, nutritious, home cooked meals for both every day and special dinners.

There were so many recipes that I wanted to try but figured I wouldn't be able to review the book in a timely manner, so pared it down to three. The first one that I tried was Sofritto - a combination of onions, carrots and celery - but never thought to caramelize it. It added a lovely depth of flavor to the Bolognese that I cooked.

I then tried the Blistered Green Beans and again another straight forward recipe but one I didn't think to do - roasting beans? The beans were so tasty and made such a difference from the usual blanching.

Finally, I did the buttermilk biscuits. But I did cheat somewhat and not make my own buttermilk. (Fernald explains how to do this). Whilst there are many favored buttermilk biscuits out there, the difference here or rather key to being different, is to make your own buttermilk.

 Overall, I found the methods easy to follow and ingredients easy to find. There may be some more exclusive things like hazelnut flour or obtaining beef bones to make your own broth but I think the point of this cookery book is to be aware of the basics, learn them and your food will become more flavorful. What I look for in a cookbook is its adaptability and I think there are many recipes in which I can tweak to my liking and not affect its essence.
A highly recommended read that will lead to cooking.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Blogging for Books to review. The opinions expressed are my own and I am not required to give a positive critique.

This would be a great gift for anyone serious about really doing it from scratch - it includes how to's for bone broth, rendered lard, etc. Also lots of just great recipes.

Home Cooked is less a collection of recipes—though it has plenty—as a methodology cookbook. If you are familiar with Slow Food and sustainable meat, you will already have a sense for Fernald’s direction as she has been intimately involved with both of these movements. Slow Food values include eating seasonal and local, and paying attention to quality such as foods grown organically and animals that are free-range and grass-fed.

What this looks like in Home Cooked is abundant flavor out of your kitchen based on just a few quality ingredients that are balanced well, so that each item can put its best foot forward. Fernald starts with base recipes such as stock, canned tomatoes, sofritto, lard, and cheeses. These foundational elements are great because you can make a big batch, store it, and forgo things like chopping onions on a meal to meal basis. Meals can now come together quickly, even though everything is completely from scratch. Each base comes with a list of recipes they will be used in throughout the book. Fernald then applies these flavor bursts to the book’s sections: snacks, vegetables, pastas, eggs, and risotto, fish and meats, and desserts. The result is simple recipes that provide a wealth of taste.

This book stands out to me in two ways. There is no limit to what “home made” means. She has recipes for butter and buttermilk, pasta dough, encasing your own sausage, sour krout, you name it. You can get as down and gritty as you feel so inclined. It is entirely satisfying to take a piece of meat and use every single ounce of it: innards, bones, fat, and flesh.

You are invited to read the rest at TheWillowNook.com!

*Review copy courtesy of Bloggingforbooks.com*

Belcampo founder and CEO Fernald created this new cookbook, full of recipes inspired by the rural cooking of Italy.

When I saw the title of this cookbook, I thought "Oh nice! Simple, flavorful recipes for home cooked meals." Unfortunately, that's not what this book is. While I think that a lot of the recipes seem really interesting and sound delicious, it's not exactly the way I cook. Everything is made from scratch, from the pasta to the cheese, there are ingredients that don't seem that easy to come by (at least, they aren't in my grocery store), and it involves time that I don't have (or don't want to give up). A lot of them also called for a cast iron pan, which I don't have.

That said, I did make three recipes from the book and they were all good. I made the Amoretti Morbidi, Asparagus and Fried Eggs with the Aioli in the book. I liked the personal touch Fernald gave every recipe, and the instructions were easy to follow. There are a few more recipes that I would like to try, perhaps with the help of family or friends, especially the panzerotti.

The physical book is beautiful. It lays flat, making it easy to look at the recipes while cooking, the pictures are gorgeous and hunger inducing, and pages are thick. I liked the hard cover binding with a fabric finish on the spine. It looks like the kind of book that I would have found in my grandmother's kitchen (which I mean in the best possible way).

I think that this cookbook would best be suited for an experienced cook who enjoys challenges when it comes to cooking.

I love, love, LOVE this cookbook! Even the title spoke to me as I am a home cook. I've never had formal training and I don't claim to be even close to a professional. I just love food and cooking to feed my family. However, just because you're a home cook doesn't mean you have to stick to simple meat and veg type meals, and this book showcases that. While it includes great recipes for simple food, many of these recipes have inspiring new twists to them.

To pull you out of your comfort zone, the author includes delightful recipes for such things as Toma Cheese with Green Herbs, and Fresh Ricotta to introduce you to cheese making, or recipes for preserving your own food such as bone broths, canning tomatoes, making your own butter and buttermilk and more. The Fresh Ricotta is easy to follow with amazing results. I've made ricotta off and on for years, and this is a great recipe for it. There are recipes for making your own pasta, sauerkraut, confiting meat and so much more.

This book is high quality inside and out. From the binding to the photographs to the dishes themselves, this is a cookbook to cook from again and again. It has easily won its way onto my favorites shelf. I highly recommend you give this cookbook a try. It will not disappoint!

I received a copy of this book through the Blogging for Books program for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I loved reading about Anya Fernald's life learning about foods of other countries, and the way she learned to appreciate their customs, and their cuisines. I am really glad she put this book together since it seems like amazing fresh food, made with ingredients she sources as close to home as possible. I admire her work with the Slow Food movement, and sustainable foods. As a brief memoir of getting hands on experience with foods in other countries this book would be worth it to read. I was happy that I was sent a copy of this book from Blogging for Books, and I love cookbooks like this, when the have incredible pictures of most of the recipes they provide.

However, these recipes look very detailed and complicated for someone like me who just doesn't have the cooking skills to do these things. I think I will stick the recipes for her sauces, and her appetizers (her roasted red pepper dip looks so amazing in the photo that I wanted to lick the page). If a whole cow, or a whole pig ever comes my way I will happily refer to this book to learn how to pick out the best cuts of meats, and make my own sausage. If I ever want to make my own pasta, this is the book I will use to help me out, as Fernald provides very detailed instructions on how to make many different kinds of fresh pasta.

I loved that this cookbook took traditional methods of cooking and preserving food and updated it for today's use. The book is gorgeous and has many great pictures to get you started on your way to cooking great food. The pictures show the food presented beautifully and I'm always thankful for pictures, especially if I've never cooked the dish so I know about how it should turn out. I really liked that it promotes sustainable food and encouraged you to get your food from places close to you. It provides fresher food and helps support local farmers which is a win win situation.

Some of the recipes and ingredients were a little out of my comfort zone and are things I wouldn't normally cook, but
I'm grateful for recipes that include them so that I'm able to experiment. This book include basics from pickling to sauses and even homemade pasta. I love that broths are included since they are a great way to use leftover bones to create flavor profiles for new dishes.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review

This is an awesome book, it just has fabulous photographs and the information just makes sense. This is cooking like it should be, fresh and honest. An there is no wastage, you use everything and make your own ingredients, the way the older generation did, before we went to the supermarket and bought food filled with preservatives and chemicals. These recipes are the way food should be cooked and eaten. I love this book.
I have made the ricotta and the simple cheeses, the omelette, the pasta and the sauces - sausages are my next challenge.
The recipes are easy to follow, maybe a few of the ingredients are not as easy to source as they are unprocessed, but most of the recipes can be done without too much trouble. This covers starters, main meals, sweet dishes and drinks to mention a few. As I say this is a fabulous book to cook with but also to browse - there is a lot to learn from it.
This book was provided to me in return for an honest and unbiased review

Some of the recipes in this book do include obscure ingredients, but that is my only issue with them. There are recipes for sauces, co*cktails, snacks & starters, main dishes, side dishes, pasta, and desserts. There are also short essays throughout about entertaining, how Anya Fernald developed into the amazing chef she is today, how to build and cook over an open fire, cooking with cast iron, choosing meat, and a few other topics. The pictures in the book are lovely. I found the recipes to be unfussy and straightforward.

This is not a recipe book that will have you opening cans. This is a book that is all about making everything yourself and letting nothing be wasted. I do try to cook this way as much as possible. These recipes give me many ways to expand on what I can make completely from scratch.

This book was sent to me by Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

Beautiful pictures, a well-designed cookbook and it’s broken down into sections making it an easy read. Proves it’s homecooking one of the first photos of putting sofrito in ice cube trays –a trick my mama taught me when I learned her Puerto Rican cooking traditions (although the sofrito in this book is nowhere near the recipe used in PR cooking).
There have been recipes that I’ve never heard of (Bagna cauda) and while it’s not something I’d normally try (anchovies?!) it does make me curious to try her other recipes and there are recommendations of how to use this specific condiment.
Her pastas and risotto recipes look amazing and easy to try. I like that the recipes are short, and the instructions are simple. Her ingredients can be a bit different (hearts and livers) but again, it’s exciting enough to make me want to try the recipes!

I got this cookbook because I loved the cover! For one thing, I thought it looked perfect to add to a wedding gift basket! As I looked inside the book I was a little surprised by the style of recipes offered. They are more hearty and ''earthy'' than I expected. They are not as American as I expected from the vintage-style cover. After realizing that the author of this cookbook resides in California I understood better the style of cuisine. I would call it a mixture of Californian and Italian, actually. I was not a fan of all the recipes; there were too many charred vegetables and unusual meats and seafood. However, this style of cookbook is sure to please a variety of cooks! The recipes are certainly very healthy-looking.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.

I would give this book three out of five stars because I was not a big fan of this book. I found that the recipes as a whole lacked a theme to connect them at all. I also did not like the fact the many of the recipes required the reader to make one or two other recipes for the recipe. I found that very confusing and it caused me to miss out on getting all the needed items for the recipe when I was shopping. Nothing about this book was awful, but there was no spark to it. There was nothing special that made it better than other cookbooks. I was provided with a free copy of this book for only my honest review.

I really enjoyed diving into Fernald's experiences with Italian cooking, and how it affects her cooking today. With a wonderful focus on local food, and traditional cooking and preparation styles to let the flavour of great quality food shine through. My favourite thing about Home Cooked is the way it empowers you by teaching fundamentals and how to expand on them. Highly recommended.

*I received an ARC from Netgalley, all opinions are my own*

Lovely photographs accompany these recipes of home made traditional foods. Many of them have ingredients that I think many people may have trouble finding and may not wish to use, such as pork back fat and mortadella, but it is definitely a unique cookbook. I received this book free to review from Netgalley.

A very useful instruction guide giving tips and recipes for producing tasty well cooked meals from simple ingredients.
The photographs are inspiring and the history of how Anya Fernald got to where she is today is very interesting and informative.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Ten Speed Press via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.

Many recipes I would try, but largely the ingredients are things I don't necessarily have access to (local food in northern CA is different than IL). Despite that, many interesting looking techniques and several recipes that I bookmarked.