Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Garden to Table Cookbook: A Guide to Preserving and Cooking What You Grow


The Garden to Table Cookbook is a well researched, practical, and accessible guide to preserving and using garden harvests sensibly and economically written by Kayla Butts. Released 18th Oct 2023 by Fox Chapel, it's 192 pages and is available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook formats. 

This is an attractively made and usable book with recipes. The author is a nutritionist & dietician as well as an experienced gardener and she writes simply and eloquently about the interconnections between food, health, and well-being. The chapters progress logically: the connection between soil and somatic health, general food preservation techniques, and 4 seasonal recipe chapters (utilizing spring, summer, fall, and winter harvests).

Recipes are appealing and simple, allowing the vegetables to shine. There aren't any overprocessed or convenience foods included, it's all from scratch. Each recipe includes an introduction, yields, ingredients listed bullet-style, and followed by step-by-step prep directions. Ingredients are provided with imperial (American) measurements only. Nutritional information is not included in the recipes. Nearly all the recipes are accompanied by one or more photos. The photography is clear, well styled, and attractive throughout. 

Four and a half stars. Nothing absolutely groundbreaking here, and it's not going to replace readers' copies of Ball's Blue Book, but there are numerous good recipes for canned relishes, sauces, and solid home cooked meals. There are lots of vegetarian/vegan friendly recipes, but also meat/seafood recipes as well. They're clearly marked.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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