Skip to main content

Member Reviews

This is a wonderful book, the recipes are really different with some unusual pairings to make up a dish. This book is advocates purely organic, non gmo and seasonal foods, it leaves the choice and alternatives to the cook, and gives suggestions for allergy free substitutes.
The book grew from the Puget Consumer Co-op (PCC) markets and is beautifully presented, with chatty introductions to each recipes as well as drink suggestions. The recipes are easy to make, tasty and ingredients easily source - all organic, non gmo and seasonal - as it should be if one wants to eat well.
I really recommend this book to anyone that loves and appreciates food.

Was this review helpful?

I like to cook from scratch, I think tastes better and you can change things around if you don't like it. That is what drew me to this book. It starts with telling you how to use this book like pairings, glossary and freezer storage to name a bit. It then goes into the recipes Breakfast with its Heavenly Scones, Soups and Stews with Tarragon Corn Chowder, Salads with Citrus-Beet Salad, Main Course with Sesame-Ginger London Broil, Side Dishes with Summertime Fritters, Easy Weeknight Meals with Burrito Bowls, Snack and Appetizers with Homemade Energy Bars, Drinks with Honeydew=Lemongrass Agua Fresca, and Desserts with Plum Hand Pies. There are alot more recipes in this book each with full instructions, ingredients, calories, fats and other nutritional information. I found quite a few I would like to try and some of the photos will make your mouth water. I recommend it to the cook from scratch cook.

Was this review helpful?

I think everybody can agree that there is no cook book that has all the recipes you love and are going to make.
With that said, I do have to say that the pictures were very appetizing and the recipes looked easy to follow.
It’s nicely divided in meal categories and starts with nutritious Breakfast and ends with yummy Desserts! I can’t wait to Make some of these dishes.

I received this ebook copy from the publisher and NetGalley for an honest review.

Was this review helpful?

Cooking from Scratch by PCC Community Markets is focused on cooking with seasonal ingredients. The dishes are simple, and I marked several to try. One of the ones I look forward to making is the Finnish Buttermilk Cake since I often have buttermilk that needs to be used up. Many of the recipes include ingredients that I could never talk my family into trying. An adventurous vegetable eater would make this cookbook more useful. If you love all types of vegetables and are interested in finding new recipes, this cookbook has great potential.

Was this review helpful?

Everyone loves cooking with fresh ingredients but sometimes you need some new ideas. This cookbook includes 120 great recipes to inspire you on those days you want to make something new. We don't all have access to Seattle's local markets, but even small town roadside stands will give you the ingredients to make many of these tasty, healthy dishes. I've been cooking for many years and still learned a couple of new tips and tricks from this book. When you have your choice of the many new cookbooks out this year, make sure to include Cooking from Scratch, you will not regret it. My newly wed niece is getting it for her birthday!

Was this review helpful?

I am inclined to believe that if you want to cook from scratch, you don't need this cookbook, necessarily, but it is helpful, if you are just starting out to learn how to cook with the seasons, and shop at farmers market, and use the stuff you bought, rather than having it rot in your fridge while you order takeout for the sixth time this week.

This is basically food porn, which isn't a bad thing. Just look at this spread, and this is just telling you about what staples you need to have in the house. (which I agree with some of them, but not all. Frozen blueberries? Please).

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-19-at-8.29.42-AM.png">

The book is divided by meals, with suggestions of how to create things for yourself, such as chowder, where it says to build your base, add broth, add milk and potatoes, blend and eat.

The only problem I have with cook books that claim to be seasonal is that seasonal means different things to different areas of the country, and the world. This book is based out of the Pacific Northwest (Portand, Or). The food that is available there is different from where you may be living in.

For example, blueberries are available, locally, in May, where I live. Nectarines are more a summer crop, that come in June. Rarely would I have access to both at the same time to make this blueberry and nectarine dish pictured here.

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-19-at-9.19.55-AM.png">

For example, for me, the best book I have found that is close to the foods found in my part of the San Francisco Bay Area is <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/One-Block-Feast-Adventure-Food-Table/dp/158008527X" target="_blank">One Block Feast</a>

This is not to say that this book would not be a good choice for those who have just started trying to cook from scratch, and going to the local farmer's markets around. There is even an index in the back so that you can see what dishes can be made when with local ingredients.

Despite my negativity, it is a gorgeous food porn book, and wouldn't do any harm to pick up, as it has some very good looking recipes, and helpful advice. Your milage may vary.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

Was this review helpful?

Potato and egg baskets! What?! How have I not come across this simple recipe before? I really enjoyed Cooking from Scratch and have so many recipes queued up. The layout is simple, the photos beautiful, and recipes both interesting and easy to follow (although I'd like numbers for steps -- I need that kind of hand holding). I also am grateful the authors included the nutrition labels for those who are focused on certain daily nutrient intake. How could I not try the Berry Cobbler Overnight Oatmeal (especially since my breakfast complaint is - ugh nothing easy to grab!). The Tarragon Corn Chowder is among my top five recipes to try - I especially like that the ingredients are simple and easy to find at normal grocery stores.

Was this review helpful?

This is a mouth-watering book of natural food recipes with elegant, simple appetizers and side dishes, healthy snacks and main courses, sweet and savory breakfast options, lots of salads and soups with bright flavors, and a section any home cook will appreciate on "easy weeknight meals." This cookbook is for everyone who likes to eat or cook with farmer's market style ingredients. There are flavor combinations you know and love, peppered with exciting ones you'd never think to put together, and vegetarian options listed as well (and how to turn the recipes vegan or adjust for any food allergies), plus nutritional facts for each recipe. Ideal for those on a whole 30 diet. A perfect recipe book for those tired of the same old recipes and looking for a little adventure in a fresh, healthy kitchen.

Was this review helpful?

My review has been posted to my blog & Goodreads.

Review has also been tweeted as usual.

Thank you! :c)

Was this review helpful?

Cooking from Scratch
120 Recipes for Colorful, Seasonal Food from PCC Community Markets
by PCC Community Markets

Mouthwatering…that is definitely the word that popped into my mind when I closed the last page of this book. With wholesome locally found fresh ingredients that are organic, non-GMO and sustainably sourced I wished I lived where this co-op provides food for customers to buy. That said, living in Lebanon there were a number of recipes that have ingredients I can find locally and that I want to use in the recipes I read today.

The Table of Contents includes:
Breakfast
Soups & Stews
Salads
Main Courses
Side Dishes
Easy Weeknight Meals
Snacks & Apps
Drinks
Desserts

The photographs made me salivate – I felt I could reach out and grab a bite. Included in the beginning were tips for vegans, adaptations that can be made, pairings and make it a meal ideas are mentioned throughout, what to and not to freeze is mentioned, nutritional analysis guide basis and other information. Each recipe has nutritional information.

If/when I find a copy of this book I definitely plan to buy it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Sasquatch Books for the ARC – this is my honest review.

5 Stars

Was this review helpful?

Delicious-looking photos, inventive recipes, and information on sustainable eating. Sure to be popular with Pacific Northwest cooks.

Was this review helpful?

This was a nice, simple, straightforward cookbook full of recipes using fresh and natural ingredients. Not too complicated, not too fussy, not too intimidating. I look forward to trying some of these very soon, with my next garden harvest.

Was this review helpful?

Cooking from Scratch is a gorgeous new cookbook that came at just the right time for me. This book has so many cool features that it will prove handy to both beginners and seasoned cooks. The cookbook is broken down into pretty standard sections like breakfast, sides, and main dishes focusing on seasonal fresh vegetables and fruits. There are fantastic drink pairings and menu ideas for most of the dishes as well. However, unique to this book are the subheadings within each section called Flavor in Five. These are fantastic little nuggets of info and they give the cook a framework to build on. These two-page spreads lay out 5 steps to create things from vinaigrette to breakfast hash to stir fry, and then different ingredient/flavor lists are given so one can alter the base recipe. There is even a guide in the back to show which meals are appropriate based on seasonally available ingredients. I’ve tried five different recipes so far and have been very satisfied with each. SWIPE to see my messier version of the Potato and Egg Baskets.
.
If you are looking for a good cookbook that incorporates lots of fresh vegetables and fruits with easy to follow, uncomplicated recipes, then I highly suggest you give this one a try.

Was this review helpful?

It's important to know from the start that this book is written by a community market in Seattle, so the focus is on the types of foods that you'd get there -- organic seasonal produce, grass fed beef and the occasional more exotic ingredient like hibiscus flowers. It's also written for that type of customer -- rather affluent and looking to cook sophisticated meals with foods that are on trend, so to speak.

I've been cooking from scratch for 30 years and I definitely cook by the season here, but there were not many recipes that I bookmarked to try myself. I cook for a large family and frequently for friends who happen to be here at supper time, and I tend towards frugal, healthy, kid-friendly, and simple (but pretty huge spreads). I also cook vegetarian and gluten free, and while there were a fair amount of recipes that could be easily made gluten free (or were already), this is not really a cookbook for vegetarians and definitely isn't for vegans. Tossing in a few token vegan recipes between recipes for leg of lamb and prime rib doesn't really cater to the vegan audience -- though it does work well for a standard omnivore who wants to have a couple of vegan recipes to cook for others.

There were lots of gorgeous color photos (maybe one for every third recipe?) but I sometimes found them a bit misleading for the purpose of food styling. For instance, the roasted cherry tomatoes are shown in a pool of olive oil with herbs sprinkled on them, even though the actual recipe calls for only a tablespoon of oil and no herbs. It did make the dish look fabulous, but doesn't necessarily represent what the finished dish will actually look like -- especially for an inexperienced cook.

The book is health conscious, in the most fashionable ways at the moment. Dietary advice is constantly changing (eggs are bad, fat is bad, carbs are bad, soy is bad, wheat is bad, low-fat is bad... eat more eggs, coconut oil and butter will save you... eat lots of grains, all grains are bad, eat whole grains...) and it definitely represents the "in" nutritional advice of our time (choose grass fed beef, whole dairy, more exotic grains, non-GMO foods, herbs like turmeric, etc.). For the record, I agree with most of this advice, but I also know that every decade sees pretty different changes when it comes to what everybody decides is healthy and cookbooks with dietary advice never age as well as we think they will at the time.

There were some sections I liked in the book, especially the basic "formula" for how to make things like energy bars and marinades (first use this kind of ingredient, then some of this kind of ingredient...).

I also appreciated that it included nutritional information for each recipe. They are a little sneaky in this, though -- they recommend whole fat dairy in the book itself but they say in the nutritional section that it's calculated with reduced fat dairy ingredients. So if you cook with whole fat dairy the way they suggest, the calorie and fat counts will be higher than they say.

Many cookbooks provide some sort of symbol on recipes that are gluten free, quick, vegan, etc. This one does not, so you'll need to skim each recipe to see if it meets any dietary needs your family has.

Overall, this is a gorgeous book and will be good for a wide audience, but it isn't my type of cooking from scratch. I cook simple things from scratch -- buns, mashed potatoes, soups, curries, veggie burgers, etc. In our family we grind our own gluten free grains and cook things like pasta from scratch, with a combination of healthy grains and starches. We do more hard core cooking from scratch too, doing things like processing acorns into acorn flour and canning elderberry juice for elderberry lemonade and elderberry meringue pie. We tend to use what we can find in our own garden or in the wild, not what we can buy in an upscale urban food co-op. I thought by "cooking from scratch" would mean more in terms of making basic foods (breads, buns, mayo, salad dressing, cake, sauces, spice mixes, etc.) but this is mainly just recipes for specific dishes from scratch where you go to the market with an ingredient list in hand. So while it's a beautiful book that will please many folks, it wasn't particularly inspiring for me personally.

RECIPE EXAMPLES: Stir fried cabbage with fried eggs, warm grapefruit with honey and ginger, tiger mountain turkey chili, asparagus vichyssoise, grilled corn salad with goat cheese, preserved lemon with anchovies and fennel, fennel and basil lasagne, roasted leg of lamb stuffed with roasted herbs and garlic, grass-fed prime rib with fresh herbs, halibut with ginger-rhubarb sauce, sherried leek and chanterelle gravy, oven roasted caponata, emmer farro with tangerines and persimmons, spicy tofu and spelt, quinoa enchilada bake, grilled plum and nectarine salsa, mango and avocado fresh rolls, lentil and walnut pate, hibiscus tea concentrate, cold brewed coffee, mango lassi, kimchi bloody mary, avocado brownies, plum hand pies and cherry balsamic upside down cake.

The book will be available in Kindle or paperback, and is set to be released September 18, 2018.

I was able to read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

Was this review helpful?

Thank you for the advanced reader copy of this book.

This book had interesting looking recipes that I cannot wait to try. The ingredients were normal and they were readily available. The photos were enticing! This cookbook would be a good one for any cookbook collector’s shelf. It would also make a wonderful gift for a friend that loves to cook or bake.

Was this review helpful?

I received an Advanced Reader Copy from Sasquatch Books for my unbiased opinion of the book. What a great cookbook! I loved the great photos, adaptation guide, pairings, and suggestions. I tried potato and egg baskets, spicy pork and sweet potato stew, spicy chicken thighs, sesame-ginger london broil, garlicky green beans and shrimp, plum hand pies, and vegan gingersnaps. I loved them all. The recipes were easy to read and follow. I look forward to working my way through this book.

Was this review helpful?

A ton of new recipes for me to try. I loved that they are all fresh ingredients and in my case most recipes called for ingredients that I normally do not try. I was happy to give it a go.

Was this review helpful?

There is something for every eater in this cookbook - from healthy to delightfully indulgent! Some recipes mix unique flavor combinations - such as eggs with cabbage, rice vinegar, ginger and garlic to Berry Cobbler Overnight Oatmeal with oatmeal, yogurt, chia seeds, raspberries and blueberries. There are carrot cake waffles with whole wheat flour, spelt flour, sugar, eggs, buttermilk, shredded carrots and coconut that look delicious!
The pea soup is a work of art with fresh peas, basil, parsley and tarragon, heavy cream, and shallots with a herb oil and crouton recipe to accompany it.
The recipe for fennel - basil lasagna contains fontina, ricotta and lemon zest cheese mixture, along with the fennel, leek, garlic, and spinach pesto are easily put together along with being fragrant and flavorful with only 440 calories with plenty of carbs and protein!
There are recipes for prime rib, leg of lamb, London Broil and chicken that are very thorough, use fresh garlic and herbs, and can make a beginning cook feel like an expert chef!
Enjoy these flavorful, hearty recipes that are easy to put together and will encourage you to put different flavor combinations together - enjoy

Was this review helpful?

A useful and educational cookbook that can be used by different types of cookers: from newbies to pro. A healthy way to create delicious recipes 24 hours/365 days. I loved the easy to follow steps and a lower quantity of ingredients without losing the flavor. Excellent inspiration to create great gourmet dishes.

Was this review helpful?

A really nice collection of recipes that are doable for the average home cook. Cooking from scratch doesn't have to be complicated, it just has to be delicious.

Was this review helpful?