The Yumm Factor

I have bought several cookbooks lately and as yet have not actually cooked anything from them, but they hold great promise and I wish to share them here.

Cooking With Sunshine: The Complete Guide to Solar Cuisine with 150 Easy Sun-cooked Recipes by Lorraine Anderson and Rick Palkovic. This book includes not only recipes but directions for making and using solar cookers. Of especial interest to the rank beginner like myself is a chapter entitled “Warm-up: Easy recipes to show what your solar cooker can do.” The “What’s for Dinner?” chapter includes vegetarian fare as well as the usual meat and fish dishes, beans, grains and breads. “What’s for Dessert?” offers a variety from chocolate cake to butternut squash pie. “Menu Ideas” covers a wide range – easy, one-pot and last minute meals, meals for cloudy days, vegan and wheat free meals. Overall, it appears to be an excellent book!

From the Cook’s Garden: recipes for cooks who like to garden, gardeners who like to cook, and everyone who wishes they had a garden by Ellen Ecker Ogden. Okay, you’ve got a garden full of luscious vegetables, or your share from the CSA, or maybe you’ve just come back from a trip to the local farmer’s market. Now what do you do with it all? This book offers simple recipes for garden produce along with tips on the best tasting varieties to grow. The last chapter offers a few suggestions for “Preserving the Bounty,” but mostly this book is about eating what is fresh and in season.

While not strictly cookbooks, two books by Rosalind Creasy have found their way onto my bookshelf: The Edible Flower Garden and The Edible Herb Garden. Both books are lovely to look at and worth it for the pictures alone. These books cover the whole gamut – from garden design, cultivation, and preservation to an encyclopedia of plants and recipes for beautiful, eye-catching dishes.