HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN HOMEMADE GROCERIES
Review by Barb & Ron Kroll
Can it, Bottle it, Smoke it and Other Kitchen Projects
(Ten Speed Press) ISBN 978-1580085755 158008575X
Do you want to make your own pastrami or packaged food, like homemade granola? In this do-it-yourself cookbook, amateur and experienced home cooks will find cooking projects and made-from-scratch recipes for everything from how to smoke meat to homemade apple pectin.
Karen Solomon's recipes and cooking instructions make it easy for you to make your own pickles, homemade almond milk, cacao nibs, creamsicles and smoked cheese. She will even show you how to roast coffee beans. Besides great taste, this homemade food lacks the chemical additives found in packaged foods and groceries.
Homemade pastrami
Karen Solomon introduces each chapter and make-your-own-food recipe. For example, before her pastrami recipe, she explains that pastrami, which she calls Jewish bacon, is corned beef that has been smoked, rather than boiled. She recommends freezing the cooked and cooled pastrami for 20 minutes, so it is easier to slice thinly with a sharp knife.
Each from-scratch recipe includes the time required to make it, yield, cooking and storage instructions. In the chapter on deli meats, for example, her recipes for smoked meat require a time commitment of five days for homemade pastrami, but only 45 minutes for corn dogs.
Food photos by Angie Cao depict cooking projects described in the cookbook. Besides color photos of ingredients, step-by-step images show you how to make homemade bagels and other treats.
Made from scratch foods
Can it, Bottle it, Smoke it includes recipes for drinks, including homemade almond milk, soy milk, ginger beer and make-your-own sodas. The make-it-from-scratch cookbook even explains how to carbonate drinks.
Karen Solomon also describes how to make your own seasonings, ranging from vanilla extract and crystallized ginger to worcestershire sauce and curry powder.
Most ingredients are readily available. When they are not, the 150-page cookbook includes sources. E.g., in the make-your-own vinegar recipe, Karen Solomon tells you where you can buy Mycoderma aceti, a liquid vinegar starter (buy online at beer-winemaking.com or at beer brewing supply shops).
Sample recipes for making your own groceries
Carrot almond jam. Plum catsup. Homemade cornflakes and puffed rice. Smoke and chocolate spice rub. Pickled grapes. Homemade hamburger buns and hot dog buns. Sweet and spicy nuts. Chipotles in adobo sauce. Smoked almonds. Homemade bagels. Chocolate hazelnut spread. Dulce de leche. Coconut milk. Pineapple mint syrup. British-style ginger beer. Homemade ice cream cones.
Contents
- Introduction
- Jam it
- Spoon it
- Stock it
- Pickle it
- Bake it
- Stalk it
- Roast it
- Hunt it
- Smoke it
- Munch it
- Sweeten it
- Milk it
- Slurp it
- Freeze it
- Index
Author
Karen Solomon is also the author of the Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It cookbook.