Whether you garden with the intent of feeding your family or love to purchase fresh produce at local farm stores or markets, the Amish Friends 4 Seasons Cookbook will be an invaluable resource for your kitchen. I love how this cookbook is divided by seasons, allowing the chef in his/her kitchen to bring the freshest of dishes to the family table. Summer is in full swing and there is plenty of zucchini here in the sunny South. I chose to use some of the abundance to make Zucchini Chocolate Coffee Cake. This very chocolate-y cake turned out super moist, and the slight hint of coffee in the frosting gave it just the right note to balance the sweetness. There are plenty of other zucchini recipes plus hundreds more featuring seasonal garden vegetables for appetizers, side dishes, main courses, and desserts. There are also recipes for preserving your garden bounty for future meals. I’m looking forward to exploring all the seasonal goodies in this well-organized and easy to use cookbook.
Recommended!
(Thanks to Barbour Publishing for a complimentary copy. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)
Fresh Recipes for Each Season of the Year
Do you strive to eat what local, fresh, and in season? Then this is the cookbook for you. Organized by the winter, spring, summer, and fall seasons, there are a bounty of recipes for various ways to use up seasonal fruits and vegetables. Sprinkled with tips for growing and harvesting, too, the well-organized book boasts contributions from Amish and Mennonites from across the United States who are fans of author of Amish fiction, Wanda E. Brunstetter. Encased in a lay-flat binding and presented in full color, it is a must-have cookbook for anyone who gardens, participates in a CSA, or enjoys farmers’ markets.
Taste the goodness of Amish life.
Not only do the foods featured in The Essential Amish Cookbook look good, they taste good too. In fact the ones I tried were delicious and begged for second helpings. Lovina Eicher’s book includes recipes that are family and community tested, so you know your family will love them too. The book is a feast for the eyes with beautiful photographs not only of the food, but the Amish countryside as well. Recipes are grouped as you would expect — Breakfast Foods, Vegetables and Sides, Desserts and Candies, etc. — with many ending in a personal note by the author. But as a special added bonus,the author features Amish Church Meals and Amish Wedding Meals with extensive background on both.
I made two recipes (so far) — Breakfast Casserole and Peanut Butter Dream Bars. Both were big hits. The instructions were easy to follow and the ingredients, many of which were in my pantry, easy to acquire. I made the Breakfast Casserole at our small cabin in the mountains. This make-ahead dish was easy to accomplish in my tiny kitchen, and it made a great pre-church meal.
Overloaded with garden produce, CSA shares, or farmers’ market finds? Now you’ll know what the Amish do with these seasonal fruits and vegetables and how they preserve some of them for future use. Bring the wisdom of Amish gardeners and cooks into your own home with dozens of recipes and tips from the heart of Amish country in Wanda E. Brunstetter’s Amish Friends Harvest Cookbook. This well-organized book is sure to become a treasured resource.
Wanda Brunstetter is an award-winning romance novelist who has led millions of readers to lose their heart in the Amish life. She is the author of nearly 70 books with more than 9 million copies sold. Many of her books have landed on the top bestseller lists, including the New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, USA Today, CBA, ECPA, and CBD. Wanda is considered one of the founders of the Amish fiction genre, and her work has been covered by national publications, including Time Magazine, USA Today, Newsweek, Good Housekeeping, and Country Woman. Wanda’s books have been translated into four foreign languages.
Rebecca Germany is the senior editor of fiction Barbour Publishing who has been with the company for 15 years. In 2004, she was honored as the Golden Scroll fiction editor of the year by ASWA. Over 100 novels and story collections go through her department yearly, but she has found time to have five of her own novellas, numerous small gift books, and a cookbook series published in the Barbour Books line.
loves good food. It also contains advice from Amish gardeners who are experts on getting the most out of their gardens. I loved the recipes for planting, fertilizing and dealing with pests. These tips will come in handy next year when we plant our garden. There are also great recipes for preserving when you have an overabundance of fruit and veggies. Recipes were compiled from real-life cooks in the Amish and Mennonite communities, too. This year we had a bumper crop of blueberries, so I made Blueberry Cream Pie from the Dessert section. Quick and easy, this pie was a big hit with my husband and daughter — 2 slices a piece! (Excuse the crust; it is hot and humid here in Georgia and it didn’t want to cooperate. My problem, not the cookbook’s!) With its crumb topping and delicious filling, it reminded us of lemon squares, but with bursting-blueberry flavor instead.
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