REVIEW – Home: Recipes to Cook with Family and Friends

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Home: Recipes to Cook with Family and Friends

• Author: Bryan Voltaggio
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (April 7, 2015)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316323888
• ISBN-13: 978-0316323888
• Cover price $35.00

For most of us, cooking at home is an everyday event—but for a restaurant chef, it’s a rare privilege. That’s why home cooking is so dear to Top Chef Masters finalist Bryan Voltaggio—and that’s why he wrote his first solo cookbook, HOME: Recipes to Cook with Family and Friends. When dinner rolls around, he’s usually making it for someone else’s family at one of his restaurants. But the most important meals are those we share with loved ones.

Now, opening the doors to his family kitchen, Voltaggio offers 100 irresistible recipes inspired by the mid-Atlantic food he grew up with and loves. Organized by the special moments he shares with his kids, from weekend brunches to the Feast of the Seven Fishes, HOME elevates the classic and comfort dishes closest to his heart. These meals are straightforward yet bold—mouthwateringly tasty and certain to expand your horizons in the kitchen.

With playful and distinctive takes on classics, such as Cinnamon Roll Biscuits, Soft-Shell Crab Tacos, Butter Lettuce with Blue Cheese and Strawberry Mostarda, Ranch Duchess Potatoes, Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Semifreddo, Skirt Steak Fajitas, and more, HOME is a cookbook meant to be dog-eared and spattered.

Bryan Voltaggio’s HOME invites you to try something new and inspires fresh twists on old favorites, but most of all, it brings taste to tradition.

Chapters in this cookbook include:

• Breakfast
• Soups And Sandwiches
• Salads And Side Dishes
• Sunday Suppers
• Thanksgiving Dinner
• The Feast Of Seven Fishes
• Super Bowl Sunday
• Dessert

Each chapter contains a listing of the recipes within it. I love this, and hope that in a future edition the corresponding page number is also there. This book is full of colorful photos. Almost every single page spread has at least one color photo, a good number of them have more. The instructions are written in paragraph form, and while they are all easy to understand they’re a bit trying to read, particularly those having many detailed steps that need to be taken. Some of the recipes call for a good number of different ingredients. For the most part, ingredients are all things I’ve either used or seen in the store. A number of the recipes call for one type of liquor or another. Prep and cooking time is something I find super helpful when I’m deciding what I want to try. The cooking time for these recipes is not listed by itself, you need to read through the recipe to figure it out for yourself. There are a number of recipes in this cookbook that I’d like to try, including Bryan’s Burger, Baked Applesauce, Pasta Dough, Deviled Ham With Eggs, Moist Chocolate Bundt With Orange Glaze, Red Velvet Cake With Cream Cheese Semifreddo, and Applesauce Apple Pie. I would say that this cookbook would be best for a somewhat experienced cook, as the amount of ingredients and the amount of reading might be a bit intimidating to someone new to cooking.