Eva's Kitchen: Cooking with Love for Family and Friends
224Eva's Kitchen: Cooking with Love for Family and Friends
224Hardcover
-
SHIP THIS ITEMTemporarily Out of Stock Online
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
The recipes in Eva’s Kitchen trace her life story, taking readers on her culinary journey—from the food she was brought up on to the recipes inspired by her travels abroad to the dishes she serves during casual nights at home. Eva believes that good cooking relies on local, fresh, easy-to-find ingredients. Offering 100 of her favorite dishes—many of which are family recipes collected over the years—all fused with her passion for cooking, Eva teaches readers essential cooking skills and she sprinkles in the histories and traditions behind her favorite dishes, including personal stories and anecdotes that capture the warmth, humor, and joy of her most memorable meals.
Inspired by her heritage, Eva highlights the essentials of great Mexican cooking, Texas style—with her family’s recipes and techniques for making the world’s best tamales, homemade tortillas, Spanish rice, and Pan de Polvo (Mexican pastry), to name a few. She also offers dishes from a variety of international cuisines, from Latin American to Italian and French, inspired by her globe-trotting travels. A taste of Lemon Dover Sole whisks Eva to a tiny hotel-restaurant she once visited on a trip to Normandy; the recipe for Cannellini Beans with Crushed Red Pepper was a souvenir from a trip to Florence; kimchi adds a kick to her Spicy Roasted Brussels Sprouts, a Thanksgiving staple; and Yellow Squash Soup with Lemon brings her full circle, back to her family’s vegetable garden in Corpus Christi.
With full-color food photographs, intimate portraits of her family and friends, and a glimpse into Eva’s home and her lesser-known domestic side (family first, acting second, she says), Eva’s debut cookbook will entice her loyal fans and inspire home cooks to broaden their culinary horizons and create memorable meals for the people they love.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780307719331 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale |
Publication date: | 04/05/2011 |
Pages: | 224 |
Product dimensions: | 7.80(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
My love affair with cooking started long ago, but I remember it so clearly. When I was about six years old, my mom was leaving for work early one morning and I told her I was hungry. “So cook something!” she answered. I vividly remember pulling up a chair to the stove and turning it on with a match. (I know—dangerous, but it was a different time!) I selected the smallest frying pan I could fi nd because I wanted to cook one egg. Not eggs, just one egg. I cracked the egg on the edge of the pan, as I’d seen my mom do effortlessly many times before, and emptied it into the frying pan.
Of course, the pan was full of eggshell. I didn’t use any butter or oil, so the egg stuck everywhere. I can’t even remember now what it tasted like, but I can recall the feeling of accomplishment I had after cooking that egg. I found it empowering and energizing. I was hooked from that day forward.
I wanted to learn everything! I wanted my little EASY-BAKE Oven to make casseroles like my mom’s. I wanted my lemonade stand to have more flavor options than just lemon. And for Christmas I wanted my own hand mixer! I eventually graduated from cooking an egg to making my own spaghetti sauce.
I have my family to thank for my cooking skills and the inspiration they gave me to begin my own culinary journey. My dad was a big believer in never eating fast food, so we were not allowed to have it. And nothing ever went to waste. I grew up on a ranch outside of Corpus Christi, Texas, and throughout my childhood my family grew our own vegetables and raised our own chickens. Every day my mom cooked with garden-fresh calabasa (squash), carrots, and beans, and freshly laid eggs. Every last bit of that garden’s harvest was always used, and any trimmings went right to the compost pile. She worked full-time as a special education teacher; took care of my oldest sister, who is developmentally disabled; and had three other daughters to drive all over town to cheerleading, band practice, work, and everywhere else busy teenage girls need to go. But in spite of it all, she always managed to have dinner on the table every night at 6P.M. for my dad. This was such an important lesson in my life. The fact that my mother clearly reveled in taking care of her family in addition to having a career inspired me to be the same way. I cannot count the number of times that I’ve found myself in a Gucci dress and heels—with full hair and makeup, about to run out to an event—pulling a roasted chicken out of the oven in order to make sure that my family is fed before leaving the house to face a hundred photographers on a red carpet.
Recipe
mint lemonadeWe had lemon trees and mint all over our ranch when I was a kid. I don't remember when I tasted the two together for the first time, but since then I've never liked lemonade any other way. For kids or anyone not drinking alcohol, it's a fabulously festive and beautiful nonalcoholic treat. Or add a shot of rum or vodka to each glass and make a cocktail out of it!
Makes 3 cups; about 4 servings
For the lemonade
½ cup sugar
¼ cup hot water
½ cup fresh lemon juice (from 4 lemons)
For mint lemonade
(2 servings)
About 12 (3½ cups) ice cubes
1½ cups lemonade, plus more if needed
6 to 7 sprigs of fresh mint, plus more for garnish
1. To prepare the lemonade, place the sugar and hot water in a 2quart
container. Close tightly and shake until the sugar is dissolved. Add
the lemon juice and enough cold water to make 3 cups total. Shake
until well combined.
2. To make 2 servings of mint lemonade, place the ice in a blender—it
should fill the blender about halfway. Pour over the lemonade. Pull
the leaves off the mint and add to the blender. Puree until well
blended and slushy. If too liquidy, add more ice and puree; if too
slushy, add a little more lemonade and puree until well blended.
3. Pour into two 12ounce glasses. Garnish each with a mint sprig and