Many people are like me, and I have dozens of recipes saved to a Pinterest board. Smitten Kitchen is a website that I have so many saved from. I actually have a tab open currently for this website for these salted brown butter crispy treats, and that was a complete coincidence. So when I saw that they put a cookbook together with all their “keepers,” I figured I should try it out. Let’s dive into the review of Smitten Kitchen Keepers.
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Background of the Book & Author
Smitten Kitchen was a food blog started in a tiny kitchen in NYC. Each time a recipe was perfected, she shared it with her followers. Deb Perelman says in the intro that she has read every one of the 350,000 comments on her recipes since 2006 and absorbed them. This book is her collection of keeper recipes. It’s a collection of 100 recipes, including breakfasts, salads, soups and stews, vegetables, meat, and one perfect plate of shrimp, snacks, and sweets. She calls them “new classics for your forever files.”
What Grabbed My Attention
As I mentioned above, I’m a fan of Smitten Kitchen’s website. I love the idea of using all the data to compile the favorites from the website and package them in a book. Whenever a cookbook author calls a book their favorite, it feels like they’re picking their favorite child, but it intrigues me a bit more.
Overall Smitten Kitchen Keepers Cookbook Rating
Ease of recipes – 6/10
Knowledge of methods & ingredients – 7/10
Fits the theme – 5/10
Taste overall of test recipes – 6/10
Quantity of recipes that generated excitement – 6/10
Overall rating – 6/10
Feedback from a lazy cook who hates a dish pile up and making dinner decisions:
The intro says that she worked to remove any unnecessary hurdles from the recipes, but some of them still felt like they required a lot of steps. I’m sure that she has so much knowledge that I don’t, but I avoided quite a few recipes because they had so many steps and ingredients for something that seemed simple.
Feedback from an aspiring cook who wants to impress herself and learn how to do more:
This cookbook would provide all kinds of new tricks. She shares her favorite way to prep certain vegetables, so if it wasn’t spring and the weather was getting nicer, I might be more inclined to hang out inside and cook.
Recipes I Cooked from the Cookbook:
Dish 1 – Creamy Coconut Rice with Chili-Lime Vegetables
This was an easy dish to make in my special way (see “changes made”). The coconut rice was so good and paired perfectly with sweet potatoes. This would be an easy way to use any vegetables I have left over from other recipes. Because we can change up the vegetables all the time, I think this is the perfect way to have a comfy meal without always having pasta.
Changes made – I made a million. I used frozen jasmine rice and mixed the risotto up on top of the stove instead of in the oven. I also made the mistake of buying a small red sweet pepper instead of a chili pepper.
Suggestions for next time – I might just keep making it in my lazy way because it took way less time and was still delicious.
Dish 2 – Zucchini and Pesto Lasagna
We love lasagna in this house. Our standard recipe has a lot of shredded zucchini mixed into the ricotta with eggs and seasoning. This one involves thinly sliced zucchini cooked a bit before adding them to the lasagna. Honestly, we’ve been adding zucchini to our lasagna forever, but we usually shred it on a cheese grater. With all the butter and milk, this was a little too rich. Also, the picture and my final product did not match, and I promise it tasted better than it was.
Changes made – none
Suggestions for next time – none
Dish 3 – Slow-simmered Lentils with Kale and Goat Cheese
Bread is my favorite food group, so I was excited to try this recipe that is served on toasted pieces of sourdough or country bread. It was easy to prep and served up a big bunch of kale. I usually have to chop kale up so small to eat it because it’s not my favorite, but it was wonderful in this recipe.
Changes made – no kale stalks were used because I bought a bag of chopped kale, and it was mostly leaves.
Suggestions for next time – none
Lessons Learned
- Coconut milk and rice might be the most comforting pairings for roasted veggies of any type. That recipe called for rice, coconut milk, ginger, garlic, and turmeric, and it was an absolute delight.
- Lentils are underused in this household.
- No-boil lasagna noodles are the way to go. I don’t think they taste any different, but they save a ton of headaches. Boiling noodles and then handling them to build the lasagna was insanely annoying.
- Easier recipes will be better for the summer because it’s hard to spend too much time in the kitchen.
Who Should Buy This Cookbook
This cookbook would be a great gift for anyone who has a thousand Pinterest recipes saved but you don’t think they’ve actually made any. Cooking from a phone or an iPad can be easy for some people, but others hate it. This book might be just the trick to help them get inspired in the kitchen.
Pick up your copy here or on Amazon here.
Final Thoughts on the Smitten Kitchen Keepers Cookbook
This book has a great variety of recipes. Maybe I have just picked too many similar books, but the recipes are starting to seem very similar when I’m picking out three. We really liked two of the meals we made and will be adding them to our own “keepers” file. I think I want to try this book again in the cooler months of the year. Let me know if you’ve tried it.
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