This Will Make It Taste Good: A New Path to Simple Cooking
Product ID: 185548036
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An Eater Best Cookbook of Fall 2020 From caramelized onions to fruit preserves, make home cooking quick and easy with ten simple "kitchen heroes" in these 125 recipes from the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of Deep Run Roots . “I wrote this book to inspire you, and I promise it will change the way you cook, the way you think about what’s in your fridge, the way you see yourself in an apron.” Vivian Howard’s first cookbook chronicling the food of Eastern North Carolina, Deep Run Roots, was named one of the best of the year by 18 national publications, including the New York Times , USA Today , Bon Appetit , and Eater, and won an unprecedented four IACP awards, including Cookbook of the Year. Now, Vivian returns with an essential work of home-cooking genius that makes simple food exciting and accessible, no matter your skill level in the kitchen. Each chapter of This Will Make It Taste Good is built on a flavor hero—a simple but powerful recipe like her briny green sauce, spiced nuts, fruit preserves, deeply caramelized onions, and spicy pickled tomatoes. Like a belt that lends you a waist when you’re feeling baggy, these flavor heroes brighten, deepen, and define your food. Many of these recipes are kitchen crutches, dead-easy, super-quick meals to lean on when you’re limping toward dinner. There are also kitchen projects, adventures to bring some more joy into your life. Vivian’s mission is not to protect you from time in your kitchen, but to help you make the most of the time you’ve got. Nothing is complicated, and more than half the dishes are vegetarian, gluten-free, or both. These recipes use ingredients that are easy to find, keep around, and cook with—lots of chicken, prepared in a bevy of ways to keep it interesting, and common vegetables like broccoli, kale, squash, and sweet potatoes that look good no matter where you shop. And because food is the language Vivian uses to talk about her life, that’s what these recipes do, next to stories that offer a glimpse at the people, challenges, and lessons learned that stock the pantry of her life. Review: What would Vivian do? THIS is what Vivian would do and this book shows you how you can too! - Honestly, I thought that Vivian would be hard pressed to top her last incredible book. I mean, if your first book is an expansive ode to Eastern North Carolina (and one that weighs around the same as a small car) and that locale is where your inspiration hails from, then where do you go from there? In the introduction to This Will Make it Taste Good, Vivian confides in us that she did struggle with that issue for a long time before finally landing on the concept of how to cook delicious, fast, simple, every day dishes at home without sacrificing big flavor and she has succeeded in that, BIG time! I LOVE how this book provides ten piquant “hero recipes” complete with substitutions and then gives each hero an entire chapter to explore each one fully, via some wonderful sounding recipes for mains, snacks, drinks, salads, smoothies, desserts, glazes the list goes on. In addition to the recipes themselves she also provides a heap of other ideas on how to use each hero recipe, so that you can imagine yourself stockpiling it and reaching for it time and time again to amp up everything you cook! This book is 1950’s rollicking, with truly great, quirky, super cute pics of Vivian, funny recipe names, every food photo looks delicious – some are ugly delicious because we are not sacrificing flavor for a delicately garnished plate here, and every dish looks like something I want to eat immediately. From Where's My Medal Grits and Chicken, Fried Chicken Finally, Mussels Will Work For You, This is 40 Fettuccine (with fried zucchini and herbdacious sauce), Gingered Cabbage in a Quirky Cream, Little Bit Scrappy Little Bit Rock n Roll Parfait. I haven’t even tried to list the ones I want to cook, because I actually want to cook everything in this book. Seriously. There is something for everyone, from healthy sides, to cheese dip. From Glazed Ribs to Hippie Burritos it’s got it all! Vivans book is divided into the following chapters, and I have described the hero recipe for each chapter below: Little Green Dress – a briny herbaceous bright and vinegary condiment with olives, capers, garlic, shallots, parsley, mint, lemon, anchovy (you can omit this) hot sauce. R-Rated Onions – you guessed it caramelized onions Can-do Kraut – a simple cabbage and cucumber kraut Red Weapons – Tomatoes and Jalapenos in Brine with olive oil (and Vivian uses these four components as four separate ingredients! Citrus Shine – preserved citrus Community Organizer – similar to a sofrito but more vinegary and sweeter, using tomatoes, onion, garlic, bell peppers, red wine vinegar and brown sugar. Herbdacious – a pesto with garlic confit, basil, parsley, scallions and another soft herb of your choice. Quirky Furki – a punched up version of furikake using salt and vinegar chips (sign me up!) V’s Nuts- caramelized, spicy, umami toasted nuts. Yes to all of that! Sweet Potential - fruit preserves. Vivian gives a single recipe with a description of many different fruits and how to handle them for this simple recipe. So there you have it. Ten flavor bombs. Ten different chapters. To give you an idea of how extensive a chapter on a single flavor bomb is, I will go through the Sweet Potential chapter as that chapter gives us a broad selection of sweet, savory and drinks options. Sweet Potential Recipes: The Sweet Potential preserved fruit recipe Roasted Brussels Fruit Spinach Smoothie(it sounds really good) Chicken salad wrap with pumped up flavor courtesy of the Sweet Potential, and apples and grapes and goat cheese. Glazed Grilled Side of Salmon (we are told we can also try the same method on chicken wings, duck, pork) Four different pan sauces for pork A Bubbly Hot Sweet/Savory Cheese Dip Four Cocktails Glazed Baby Back Ribs A cake that is hard to describe so I will leave that to Vivian “its quick, its gooey, it’s sweet and tangy, it’s like tres leches cake and corn muffins had a messy casserole baby” and it looks delicious. A bread pudding breakfast Bake All of the above recipes are made using the preserved fruit recipe that is provided. However, the variations don’t stop there, as Vivian goes through the following fruits as being suitable for the main hero recipe, Sweet Potential: Apples and Pears, berries of all kinds, figs, peaches, cherries, nectarines and apricots, grapes (all kinds) watermelon, citrus, and she also discusses the inclusion of spices. You could actually make all of the recipes above using dozens of different versions of Sweet Potential (using the same Sweet Potential formula) for a completely different flavor profile each time! The really cool thing here is that once you have know your way around a particular recipe, you can switch it up by giving the hero recipe seasonal variations. Confession time, I regularly make a delicious component for a dish and have leftovers of the condiment, or dressing or sauce etc. Often the recipe tells me how long it keeps in the fridge but fails to give me any ideas on what to do with it, besides the one recipe. It is a particular gripe of mine and one that generally hasn’t been addressed in any of my other cookbooks. At least not in any concerted way. A chef often gives an amazing sauce recipe and ONE recipe using it, or a couple of vague “also good with pork” wishy washy lofty, dismissive hand waving, its easy, type comments, and then says “make double or triple, it will keep in the fridge for two weeks” yeah but what to do with it exactly? How to use it before you have to toss it? That’s one of those conundrums that seems easy to a chef, right? Vivian knows that we mere mortals struggle with this, and here she gives us all the tools to riff like a chef in our own kitchens. This is a tour de force. This is brilliant. I love the concept, the recipes for each hero AND the recipes using each hero. I am thrilled, I can’t wait to cook my way through this book and I heartily recommend it to anyone who loves punched up flavors, simple delicious recipes and who has the desire to riff like we know what’s goin’ on! If this review was helpful to you, would you please click the helpful button? It always gives me a huge kick to see that my reviews were helpful to other like minded cooks. You might also be interested in my other cookbook and ingredient reviews and my ideas lists of kitchen tools etc. On my profile I also have an "ideas list" containing all of the books that I have reviewed previously. You may be interested in reading some of those also. Happy cooking! Review: Simple Cooking Exciting and Accessible - What has18 chapters, 331 pages and leaves you drooling, a Vivian Howard cookbook! She has outdone herself again. Her first cookbook! Deep Run Roots is an award winning cookbook, and it also won Vivian many kudos. This cookbook is similar in one way, Vivian tells the story of the recipe or how this cooking has impacted her life. This cookbook makes simple cooking exciting and accessible. You start out by reading this as you would any book, the stories of the food. There are 18 chapters and 10 chapters dedicated to the food and recipes. The photos are simply luscious, the photographer is Dexter Miller, and he knows how to glorify the food. Everything about this cookbook is exquisite and yet simple. Each chapter and recipe has an unusual and eye catching name. Hippie Burritos, Rock Me Don’t Shake Me Lemon Pie, Tomato Gravy To Me, and Caesar Me Convinced, are just but a few of these quirky recipe names. What fun must have been had thinking up these names. The point, of course, is that this is food for everyday. A simple addition that makes everything taste better. The side dishes often bring the food alive. Little Green Dish is a dish that is the most famous, a combination of olives, Shallots, fresh herbs, a particular vinegar, anchovies, capers and olive oil that can be kept in a jar in the fridge for up to a few weeks. Good luck making it last that long. This side dish is delicious on baked potatoes, chicken, steak, a filling with grilled cheese and even on pizza. This is the kind of food that brings back memories of good times and families. A really fun page is a list of things Vivian would do with food or her recipes. You will have to read it for yourself. This book is more than a cookbook, it is a lesson on family, life and how it all comes together. Recommended. prisrob 10-21-2020
| Best Sellers Rank | #163,621 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #193 in Southern U.S. Cooking, Food & Wine #198 in Gastronomy Essays (Books) #818 in Celebrity & TV Show Cookbooks |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,282 Reviews |
F**!
What would Vivian do? THIS is what Vivian would do and this book shows you how you can too!
Honestly, I thought that Vivian would be hard pressed to top her last incredible book. I mean, if your first book is an expansive ode to Eastern North Carolina (and one that weighs around the same as a small car) and that locale is where your inspiration hails from, then where do you go from there? In the introduction to This Will Make it Taste Good, Vivian confides in us that she did struggle with that issue for a long time before finally landing on the concept of how to cook delicious, fast, simple, every day dishes at home without sacrificing big flavor and she has succeeded in that, BIG time! I LOVE how this book provides ten piquant “hero recipes” complete with substitutions and then gives each hero an entire chapter to explore each one fully, via some wonderful sounding recipes for mains, snacks, drinks, salads, smoothies, desserts, glazes the list goes on. In addition to the recipes themselves she also provides a heap of other ideas on how to use each hero recipe, so that you can imagine yourself stockpiling it and reaching for it time and time again to amp up everything you cook! This book is 1950’s rollicking, with truly great, quirky, super cute pics of Vivian, funny recipe names, every food photo looks delicious – some are ugly delicious because we are not sacrificing flavor for a delicately garnished plate here, and every dish looks like something I want to eat immediately. From Where's My Medal Grits and Chicken, Fried Chicken Finally, Mussels Will Work For You, This is 40 Fettuccine (with fried zucchini and herbdacious sauce), Gingered Cabbage in a Quirky Cream, Little Bit Scrappy Little Bit Rock n Roll Parfait. I haven’t even tried to list the ones I want to cook, because I actually want to cook everything in this book. Seriously. There is something for everyone, from healthy sides, to cheese dip. From Glazed Ribs to Hippie Burritos it’s got it all! Vivans book is divided into the following chapters, and I have described the hero recipe for each chapter below: Little Green Dress – a briny herbaceous bright and vinegary condiment with olives, capers, garlic, shallots, parsley, mint, lemon, anchovy (you can omit this) hot sauce. R-Rated Onions – you guessed it caramelized onions Can-do Kraut – a simple cabbage and cucumber kraut Red Weapons – Tomatoes and Jalapenos in Brine with olive oil (and Vivian uses these four components as four separate ingredients! Citrus Shine – preserved citrus Community Organizer – similar to a sofrito but more vinegary and sweeter, using tomatoes, onion, garlic, bell peppers, red wine vinegar and brown sugar. Herbdacious – a pesto with garlic confit, basil, parsley, scallions and another soft herb of your choice. Quirky Furki – a punched up version of furikake using salt and vinegar chips (sign me up!) V’s Nuts- caramelized, spicy, umami toasted nuts. Yes to all of that! Sweet Potential - fruit preserves. Vivian gives a single recipe with a description of many different fruits and how to handle them for this simple recipe. So there you have it. Ten flavor bombs. Ten different chapters. To give you an idea of how extensive a chapter on a single flavor bomb is, I will go through the Sweet Potential chapter as that chapter gives us a broad selection of sweet, savory and drinks options. Sweet Potential Recipes: The Sweet Potential preserved fruit recipe Roasted Brussels Fruit Spinach Smoothie(it sounds really good) Chicken salad wrap with pumped up flavor courtesy of the Sweet Potential, and apples and grapes and goat cheese. Glazed Grilled Side of Salmon (we are told we can also try the same method on chicken wings, duck, pork) Four different pan sauces for pork A Bubbly Hot Sweet/Savory Cheese Dip Four Cocktails Glazed Baby Back Ribs A cake that is hard to describe so I will leave that to Vivian “its quick, its gooey, it’s sweet and tangy, it’s like tres leches cake and corn muffins had a messy casserole baby” and it looks delicious. A bread pudding breakfast Bake All of the above recipes are made using the preserved fruit recipe that is provided. However, the variations don’t stop there, as Vivian goes through the following fruits as being suitable for the main hero recipe, Sweet Potential: Apples and Pears, berries of all kinds, figs, peaches, cherries, nectarines and apricots, grapes (all kinds) watermelon, citrus, and she also discusses the inclusion of spices. You could actually make all of the recipes above using dozens of different versions of Sweet Potential (using the same Sweet Potential formula) for a completely different flavor profile each time! The really cool thing here is that once you have know your way around a particular recipe, you can switch it up by giving the hero recipe seasonal variations. Confession time, I regularly make a delicious component for a dish and have leftovers of the condiment, or dressing or sauce etc. Often the recipe tells me how long it keeps in the fridge but fails to give me any ideas on what to do with it, besides the one recipe. It is a particular gripe of mine and one that generally hasn’t been addressed in any of my other cookbooks. At least not in any concerted way. A chef often gives an amazing sauce recipe and ONE recipe using it, or a couple of vague “also good with pork” wishy washy lofty, dismissive hand waving, its easy, type comments, and then says “make double or triple, it will keep in the fridge for two weeks” yeah but what to do with it exactly? How to use it before you have to toss it? That’s one of those conundrums that seems easy to a chef, right? Vivian knows that we mere mortals struggle with this, and here she gives us all the tools to riff like a chef in our own kitchens. This is a tour de force. This is brilliant. I love the concept, the recipes for each hero AND the recipes using each hero. I am thrilled, I can’t wait to cook my way through this book and I heartily recommend it to anyone who loves punched up flavors, simple delicious recipes and who has the desire to riff like we know what’s goin’ on! If this review was helpful to you, would you please click the helpful button? It always gives me a huge kick to see that my reviews were helpful to other like minded cooks. You might also be interested in my other cookbook and ingredient reviews and my ideas lists of kitchen tools etc. On my profile I also have an "ideas list" containing all of the books that I have reviewed previously. You may be interested in reading some of those also. Happy cooking!
P**B
Simple Cooking Exciting and Accessible
What has18 chapters, 331 pages and leaves you drooling, a Vivian Howard cookbook! She has outdone herself again. Her first cookbook! Deep Run Roots is an award winning cookbook, and it also won Vivian many kudos. This cookbook is similar in one way, Vivian tells the story of the recipe or how this cooking has impacted her life. This cookbook makes simple cooking exciting and accessible. You start out by reading this as you would any book, the stories of the food. There are 18 chapters and 10 chapters dedicated to the food and recipes. The photos are simply luscious, the photographer is Dexter Miller, and he knows how to glorify the food. Everything about this cookbook is exquisite and yet simple. Each chapter and recipe has an unusual and eye catching name. Hippie Burritos, Rock Me Don’t Shake Me Lemon Pie, Tomato Gravy To Me, and Caesar Me Convinced, are just but a few of these quirky recipe names. What fun must have been had thinking up these names. The point, of course, is that this is food for everyday. A simple addition that makes everything taste better. The side dishes often bring the food alive. Little Green Dish is a dish that is the most famous, a combination of olives, Shallots, fresh herbs, a particular vinegar, anchovies, capers and olive oil that can be kept in a jar in the fridge for up to a few weeks. Good luck making it last that long. This side dish is delicious on baked potatoes, chicken, steak, a filling with grilled cheese and even on pizza. This is the kind of food that brings back memories of good times and families. A really fun page is a list of things Vivian would do with food or her recipes. You will have to read it for yourself. This book is more than a cookbook, it is a lesson on family, life and how it all comes together. Recommended. prisrob 10-21-2020
B**E
Lovely book
Very beautifully illustrated cookbook.
C**S
Who doesn't need a flavor hero?
The title of my journal entry tonight is, "Why I Love Vivian Howard." And among many other reasons, whether you watch her shows, read her books, or cook her recipes, what is true of Vivian Howard is: "This Will Make it Taste Good." This is such a generous cookbook, from the art, to the range of suggestions with what to do with the flavor heroes, to the flavor heroes themselves. It does feel very personal, it's so fun to read, and it's a great extension of Vivian Howard's accomplishments, but the bottom line is that all of the flavor heroes in this book will literally make anything you cook taste good. I've watched many of her Zoom demos to promote the book on her FB page, and was inspired to make the R-Rated onions before the book even arrived on my doorstep. Like she says, she's developed the recipes in a way that you can hit or miss the mark by 10 degrees and still get a delicious result. Scrambled eggs have never looked so fancy, but these onions will elevate soups, stews, breads, pizza, and just about anything else. I'm excited to next try 'Red Weapons." I bought a small batch of these from her online store, and OMG. I don't know how else to describe them. They're a condiment like you've never known, and they serve so many purposes. I made my roomate nearly cry in joy when I threw them last-minute into some seared scallops. She thought I'd reached the 'next level' as a home cook, and all it took was a spoon in a jar. This book is a gift, Vivian Howard is a gift. Watch all of her shows, buy all of her books, live a more satisfying life.
I**O
Good recipes
Based on other poorer reviews, I wouldn’t agree as I have the other cookbook she wrote. Feel a good book for my collection.
A**N
Novice cook here: I really like it!
A year ago, just before my 74th birthday, I decided to finally learn how to cook. To my amazement, a whole new world opened up to me. I still consider myself very much a novice, but now a novice who isn't afraid of making mistakes any more and who is much more open to new ideas about techniques and flavors. I'd pre-ordered this Kindle book and then forgotten about it, so when it suddenly arrived yesterday evening, I was intrigued. I ended up staying up quite late, inhaling it. And today, I wrote out the first recipe in a small notebook so I could take it to the store and buy - anchovies??? And capers? And fresh mint? (Honestly, I don't recognize myself lately!) A little while later and a lot of food processor mincing (such fun to see the rapid change), ta-da: Little Green Dress! Now, after I've used it as an accompaniment to a pulled-together meal of egg frittata and some leftover brown rice, my tummy is happy and I feel quite pleased with myself! I'm looking forward to picking out some of her recipes for using this interesting combination of fresh and at-hand ingredients before I try the next "hero". Hey, I'm looking forward to all of the adventures ahead, and to the pleasure of her cheerful and entertaining writing style. So happy for that surprise yesterday and for the fun and good cooking ahead!
G**Y
Great Vivian Howard cookbook
Very good book. Bought used. Arrived sooner than the stated time. HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS PRODUCT.
G**L
This Will Make It Taste Good
This was given to family member and have no complaints. The only comment was that book was in like new condition.
M**N
Simple fun ways to make your cooking taste great!
I like this book so much that I ordered one for a daughter. Also Vivian Howard has a sense of humor and these recipes are fun!
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