Homegrown pure and simple: great healthy food from garden to table

234 Pages·2005·271.54 MB·English

by  Goodbody, Mary;Cushner, Susie;Nischan, Michel

homegrown
pure and simple

homegrown
pure and simple
great healthy food from garden to table
by Michel Nischan
With Mary Goodbody
photographs by susie cushner

contents
main
courses
61
salads
my garden 21
and
grew
how it
13 soups
39
INTRODUCTION 9
1 2 3 4
extending
the
harvest
143
desserts
199
breakfast
side
dishes
breads
121 and
183
GLOSSARY 219
SOURCES 221
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 222
INDEX 227
TABLE OF EQUIVALENTS 232
5 6 7 8

INTRODUCTION
homage to my mom
Feeling the love and a little bit of good ol’ country
IF SOMEONE HAD TOLD ME TEN YEARS AGO THAT ONE DAY I WOULD RETURN TO THE COUNTRY
I wouldn’t have believed them. At the time, I had refocused
COOKING OF MY CHILDHOOD,
my cooking on health and well-being and was extremely excited about my new
direction. I thought I would never look back, but that is exactly what has happened.
I am absorbed by memories of my mother’s country cooking.
Like my mom, I have a large vegetable garden, and like my mom, I cook simple,
healthful meals for my family. The difference is that she knew only Southern country
cooking—the cooking of her childhood. As a professional chef with white-tablecloth
training, I have learned a lot about various cultures and sophisticated cooking methods.
I cooked my way around the world without ever leaving my kitchen. Yet something
inside me kept pulling at me to return “home.” I have spent a decade silently struggling
to reconcile my culinary heritage, which is down-home American country, with my
desire to cook healthfully and to take good advantage of my excellent training. With
this book, I have come to terms with all three elements.
You won’t find recipes for fried chicken, ham and This book is all about my mother and the way she
eggs, buttermilk biscuits, or coconut cake in these pages, cooked. It’s also about how she influenced me so that I
but you will find homey dishes like TWO-SKILLET HERB- found my path and became a chef. The life I have now
ROASTED CHICKEN WITH YUKON GOLD HOME FRIES (page is one I couldn’t imagine when I was growing up in Des
) and ANGEL FOOD CAKE (page ). In the spirit Plaines, Illinois. Then my universe was my family, my
of my first book, Taste: Pure and Simple, you will find school, and my friends. Now my universe embraces all
an abundance of wholesome dishes for chicken, pork, the wonders of the world. I am blessed with a loving
beef, and fish. I pair these with farm-fresh vegetables wife and five children, I have traveled the country and
and vibrant herbs and spices, so that the ingredients much of the globe, I have worked in some of the best
practically shout with pure, full-bodied flavor. restaurant kitchens in New York City and elsewhere,
{9} introduction