This week’s Top 10 Tuesday challenge — This Book Is Making Me Hungry! — is one I love to write on. I love when I come across a book that includes food references that make me google the recipes. The last book that did that was The Lacemaker by Laura Frantz. The main characters were always nibbling on Bara Brith, a welsh tea bread. You can find that recipe and other reading-inspired treats HERE.
Besides fiction, I sometimes review cookbooks. Here are a few that were winners!
For more food-inspired posts, check out That Artsy Reader Girl.
Top Cookbooks
Amish Friends Christmas Cookbook
I made two of the recipes — Pumpkin Cheese Bread and Chicken Pockets — for a couple of church activities. They were a hit!
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Amish Friends Harvest Cookbook
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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Berenstain Bears Holiday Cookbook
The Berenstain Bears’ Holiday Cookbook proved to provide fun, good food and grandparent bonding time for my friend Laurie and her two granddaughters. I loaned her my copy to do some taste-testing of a couple of the recipes. She and her grands rated it a sure-fire winner! They had lots of fun creating food and memories.
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The Essential Amish Cookbook
I made two recipes — 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
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Favorite Flavors of Ireland
While the recipes take center stage in most cookbooks, Favorite Flavors of Ireland also has beautiful photographs and interesting information on Irish culture, food and festivals.
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Gather Around The Amish Table
Beautiful photographs and stories of family and friends gathered around a table make this cookbook something special. And the recipes are for food you can actually serve to your family.
Be part of the fun and join Mama, Papa, Brother, Sister, and Honey Bear as they cook up holiday favorites and some unique eats for friends and family with the all-new The Berenstain Bears Holiday Cookbook. Filled with traditional holiday favorites like Frosted Sugar Cookies, Pumpkin Pie, Hot Apple Cider Punch, Cranberry Stuffing, and some unique and fun recipes like Papa Bear’s Paw-Licking Good Chicken Wings, this kid-friendly cookbook will help Bear Country families, and families and friends everywhere, have the most wonderful year of eating ever!
Favorite Flavors of Ireland invites readers, cooks, and armchair travelers alike on a nostalgic tour of one of Europe’s most beloved destinations. From her first visit in 1984, Margaret Johnson has forged an indelible bond with Ireland and Irish food, and she shares this unique relationship with you in her eleventh cookbook. You’ll find recipes that have become her favorites along with a few recent discoveries that are sure to please. The book brings home all the classics — Shepherd’s Pie, Bacon and Cabbage, Seafood Chowder, Bread and Butter Pudding — and provides an insightful look into the seasonal ingredients that shape the country’s cooking. With over 100 recipes and evocative photos that transport you to the Irish countryside, this colorful collection will awaken your senses to the delicious food of this warm and welcoming land and keep those Irish eyes smilin’ all through the year.
Margaret M. Johnson has been writing professionally since 1992 when Mustang (Memphis, TN) published her first book, Festival Europe: Fairs and Celebrations Throughout Europe. She later devoted her travel and writing efforts exclusively to her ancestral home, Ireland, and followed with two cookbooks published in Dublin — Ireland: Grand Places, Glorious Food (1992) and Cooking With Irish Spirits (1995; 1998) — and five published by Chronicle Books, San Francisco — The Irish Heritage Cookbook (1998), The New Irish Table (2003), Irish Puddings, Tarts, Crumbles and Fools (2004), The Irish Pub Cookbook (2006), and The Irish Spirit (2006), named as one of 20 noteworthy cookbooks for the holidays by nytimes.com (December 3, 2006). Tea & Crumpets, an afternoon tea cookbook, was published in May 2009, and Flavors of Ireland was released in February 2012, by Ambassador International.
time in the kitchen as well as appreciative nods from my family. I made two traditional soda breads — Spotted Dog with the delicious flavors of caraway seed and raisins and Kinsale Brown Soda Bread, a dense whole wheat bread made extra special with the addition of some local honey. Monday night’s dinner was accompanied by Spinach with Walnuts, a family favorite dish made a bit more special and Dauphinoise Potatoes, a diet-busting concoction of heavy cream and cheese that was worth every last 
calorie. Later today I am making Croissant Blueberry Bread Pudding for my book club. I’ll give an update tomorrow.
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