A YEAR IN LUCY'S KITCHEN
BY LUCY WAVERMAN
Review by Barb & Ron Kroll
A Year in Lucy's Kitchen—Seasonal Recipes and Memorable Meals
(Random House) ISBN 978-0679314585 067931458X
Lucy Waverman provides seasonal recipes and menus for everyday meals, ethnic cuisine, holiday celebrations and entertaining guests at home. Spring, summer, fall and winter recipes include soups, main dishes, salads, desserts, preserves, drinks, slow-cooked stews, roasts and braised dishes.
No-cook seasonal recipes
Seasonal recipes and mouth-watering photos in Lucy Waverman's 304-page cookbook make you want to start cooking right away. The easy recipes and menus are organized by month, to take advantage of fresh produce in farmers' markets and gardens, and to help you plan seasonal holidays like Easter and Passover.
Every chapter of A Year in Lucy's Kitchen begins with a menu and an introduction by Lucy Waverman, describing the inspiration for her recipes. One chapter is based on fresh Swiss chard, peas and berries from farmers' markets. Another features no-cook recipes, like mango chicken salad, for hot summer days.
Substitute for paneer
For each recipe, Lucy Waverman describes ingredients, serving suggestions and substitutions. For example, she recommends crisp pancetta and creamy cheese to reduce the bitterness of dandelion leaves. She also suggests an easy substitute for paneer (Indian cheese): ricotta cheese, weighed down overnight in a seive, to press out the whey.
Some sidebars include additional recipes like chive oil to garnish soups. Others describe ingredients like garlic scapes (curled green garlic tops, just under the seed heads).
Sixty-five full-page color photos by Rob Fiocca and Jim Norton depict Lucy Waverman's delicious dishes, as well as serving ideas and garnishes.
Pairing wine with foods
Each menu includes Bruce's Wine Tips with wine and food pairing suggestions by Lucy Waverman's husband, Bruce MacDougall. For example, Bruce suggests an Argentinean Malbec as a good wine to go with hamburgers.
Sidebars in A Year in Lucy's Kitchen provide cooking tips, such as using tapioca flour to thicken fruit pie fillings, because it is tasteless and does not look jellied. In other sidebars, Lucy Waverman describes how to make ingredients like paneer or Indian cheese.
Sample Lucy Waverman recipes
Cashew hummus. Rack of lamb with garlic almond pesto. Roasted fiddleheads. Garlic scape salsa. Apple lemon barbecue sauce and baste. Barbecued French fries. Strawberry fig jam. Snow pea vichyssoise. Red potatoes with hazelnut pesto. Asian pear and cabbage slaw. Spiced sweet potato fries. Sag paneer. Hazelnut brittle. Fig chutney. Tablet (Scottish fudge). Low-fat chocolate brownies. White chocolate raspberry tart.
Contents
Introduction- January
- Pasta
- Marmalade
- Cuisine of the lean
- Burns Night supper
- Eastern inspirations
- February
- Bean soups
- Valentine's Day
- Chinese New Year
- The family birthday
- March
- Maple syrup
- Around-the-world curries
- Fashionable spring
- Hints of summer
- Fish and chips
- April
- Foraging
- Easter
- Passover perfect
- For foodie friends
- Simple Italian
- May
- Market days
- Victoria Day
- Paris in the spring
- June
- Grilling essentials
- Father's Day
- Backyard bistro
- July
- Preserving the season
- Fun family dinner
- Spanish dinner
- No-cook dinner
- August
- Garden tomatoes
- Portable food
- Fresh from the market
- Beating the heat
- Summer entertaining
- September
- Sustainable shellfish
- Casual entertaining
- Cooking for the cousins
- Summer's end
- October
- Peppery greens
- Beets
- New World Thanksgiving
- Bruce's birthday
- Hallowe'en
- November
- Slow cooking
- New Indian
- Perfect fall
- Eastern Mediterranean
- December
- Make-ahead holiday treats
- Harried shopper
- Deconstructed Hanukkah
- Non-traditional Christmas
Author
Lucy Waverman is a food writer, editor, TV and radio personality. Lucy is the author of eight other cookbooks including A Matter of Taste (with James Chatto), Dinner Tonight, Home for Dinner and Lucy's Kitchen.