“After twenty years of cooking at The New Delhi Sandwich Shop in Pinole, California, chef Jennifer Cote reveals how different flavors, textures, and techniques combine to produce memorable meals efficiently. From the Land of Milk and Honey contains recipes for every occasion, plus: Spiritual nourishment, with bite-sized insights about Christian living, gardening, diet, raising a family, and homemaking” (from the book's back cover).
I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I didn’t.
Reading this cookbook felt good. It was refreshingly good. I loved the scriptures and short devotional on almost every page. This book contains much wisdom.
The recipes included are lots of classics like homemade stock, salad dressings, salsa, pesto, tomato sauce, as well as new recipes with a twist such as recipes for the much less common proteins, duck and shrimp.
I found most of the recipes to be what I consider “healthy." The healthiest way to eat, to begin with, is to cook your food yourself, so right off the bat, this book is ahead of the game. I found almost no use for the dessert chapter as I don’t encourage the eating of sweets, and these recipes had not been tweaked to make them healthier. Since they come from a chef, I’m sure they taste great for the occasional treat. (The trick would be to make sure it is truly only occasional — as in an occasion, like a birthday or holiday.)
There were a couple of recipes in particular that I was very happy to see and that I am going to make good use of. Recently I’ve been unhappy and discouraged with the selection of cream soups and barbecue sauces in my local supermarket. The cream soups have flour and MSG. All the barbecue sauces have high fructose corn syrup in them. I didn’t want to pay triple the price to get them from the health food section. Now, I don’t need to!
There is a wonderful recipe for cream soup made without flour (or MSG) made with real cream. Imagine that! There’s also one for homemade barbecue sauce that I plan on trying.
If you are a Christian who likes to cook or likes to collect cookbooks, or if you are new to cooking your own food, then you will enjoy this devotional cookbook.
Go here to get your own copy of this book. Also check out author Jennifer Cote’s website.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author herself. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commision’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”