Cooking from the Towering Stack - Open that Cookbook!

Most of us have a stack of cookbooks that must have called to us at one point but have yet to be actually used.

Lets motivate each other to cook from them!

To make the thread easier to reference in the future start your reply with the book title in caps!

Comments on the book in general and your experience with the recipe would be great!

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RECIPES FROM HOME by David Page and Barbara Shinn

Published in 2001, the writer’s are professional chefs focusing on recipes drawn from their mid-western family roots. The tall narrow book is laid out well with a good index. Font is fairly easily read. Not sure why I’d never cooked from it since there are many recipes which appeal to me.

Several weeks ago I had clams and corn and searched my books on EYB. The best match for my on hand ingredients was Clam and Sweet Corn Chowder (p.51). The chowder calls for Vegetable-Corn Stock (p 63). I basically halved each recipe.

The stock uses sweet corn cobs (kernels reserved), water, dry white wine, diced celery, carrots, yellow onion, white & greens from a leek, garlic, parsley, peppercorns, fresh basil, bay & thyme. Allgoes into the stock pot and brought to a boil. Skim, reduce temp and simmer for 1.5 hours. Strain (cheesecloth or fine mesh strainer). May be made ahead. Freezes up to 2 months.

My variations were sake for the wine, reduced carrot qty., omitted leek but added shallots, subbed dry bay leaf. Somehow the end result was quite a bit less than the recipe indicated. Not sure why since it was at a very slow simmer.

Clam & Sweet Corn Chowder calls for bacon, yellow onion, leek, celery, garlic, fresh bay, parsley & thyme, afore mentioned stock, sweet corn kernels, white potatoes, shucked/chopped littlenecks, heavy cream, kosher salt, f.g.black pepper, paprika.

Bacon is cooked in the soup pot, removed and some of the fat is removed. Alliums, garlic, celery and bay are cooked in remaining fat until softened. Potatoes, corn, stock & thyme are added, Simmer until potatoes are tender. Clams are added and cooked until warmed. Season with s/p. Serve with garnish of parsley and paprika. (With premade stock the chowder comes together in under an hour.)

First of all, the bacon is never mentioned again so you could simply start with bacon grease if you keep it on hand. My adaptations were dry bay, lemon thyme ,new red potatoes and a bottle of clam juice to make up the difference in my smallish amount of stock. I added the corn kernels a few minutes before the clams went in the pot since I prefer corn less cooked.

This was a really delicious chowder! The vegetable broth combined with the cream kept it from being overly rich. Definitely a keeper! And I’m now motivated to take a closer look at the rest of the book. And I’ll read ahead more carefully to catch things like the bacon/no bacon situation.

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Bookmarked! I like this idea.

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I forgot about this! Shortly after that post my work schedule changed resulting in very little time home to cook.

I’ll try to cook from the books soon!

I don’t remember this thread. Cool!