The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making: A Cookbook

My husband and I both have been cooking/baking for a few decades. We are not a fast food family. There are some things we already make from scratch, but there are many recipes I've found in this book that we have never made from scratch, and love trying. We are having a lot of fun with this book. I think that someone just starting out in the kitchen, or others with years of experience, such as ourselves, will be quite pleased with this book. I'm a very frugal person, and if I can borrow a book from the library and make copies of recipes I like, I will do that over buying a book. My library did not have this book, so I purchased it; no regrets. I knew nothing of making yogurt, but purchased a yogurt maker the same time I ordered this book. Perfect timing, because she has a recipe for maple syrup flavored yogurt that is the best yogurt my family has ever eaten. After picking over 60 lbs of fresh strawberries and canning & freezing etc. I was thrilled to try her fruit roll ups because it required drying the fruit, a way to store fruit we had never tried. Delicious and fun! Another reviewer complained about how long the list of ingredients were for her veggie burger recipe. It is long, but it is fabulous, makes 20 burgers, and has careful instructions on how to store in the fridge and freezer, and how long they will keep. They make purchased veggie burgers look and taste like cardboard! It does take time to make things from scratch, but the taste alone (never mind no preservatives, additives, less $, etc) will always be superior than store bought. I did not try her hamburger bun recipe however, because I already have an awesome whole grain recipe that can't be beat. After seeing her recipe for maple popcorn, I had to buy an air popper. Fabulous, what a hit! The children really loved the whole process of making that particular recipe. It's none too healthy, so we measure out our serving portions (one needs tremendous will power) and we really love creating fun family memories with the kids in the kitchen. THE BOTTOM LINE: WARNING!!! This cook book makes real food. You will be creating fabulous real food for your family. It is an expression of love and it takes TIME. You will either think these recipes are worth the investment in your time, or... not.

I bought The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making by Alana Chernila on a whim. I think I saw it mentioned on someone's blog. When it arrived I quickly glanced through it, realized that I probably already had these recipes in other cookbooks and laid it aside, thinking I'd made a bad decision. About a week later, seeing it laying beside my chair, I picked it up and gave it closer look. I am so glad I did. I am now on page 200 of it. Yes, I am reading it like a novel. It's that good. Before each and every recipe is a page with a little story, a little introduction. They are all interesting and entertaining and relate in some way to the recipe. Before her recipe for yellow cake the story opens with this paragraph: "On days when I cannot follow rule #1 of sane parenting (never take more than one child to the supermarket at a time!), my girls and I inevitably spend 20 minutes in that zone between buckets of carnations and the "freshly baked muffins!" studying the Dora sheet cakes, the upright Disney princesses with their chiffon cake gowns, and the Thomas roll cakes. The miserable teenager in the fake chef's hat ignores us as the girls press their noses against the glass case. They can almost taste that hard blue frosting, and in their minds it is ambrosia. Birthdays are far off, but they try on the cakes for size, imaging their own names scripted in lovely red #5 gel." She then goes on to write a little more about the events actually leading up to the birthdays, and then concludes with the recipe, which she says is adapted from the 1-2-3-4 cake from Alice Waters. All that makes me love her even more. The story is cute and relatable and I love that for a lot of the recipes she notes that they adaptations from other recipes. Because really unless you're some crazy inventive new age chef, most recipes are riffs off of others. The other thing about this book is that it is amazing quality. The pictures are gorgeous and the pages are heavy paper. It is probably one of the nicest quality cookbooks that I own. Allright, so I've covered the cute stories and the quality of the book, what about the contents? Amazing. This book covers everything. Everything. The chapters are called aisles (cute!): Aisle 1 dairy Aisle 2 cereals and snacks Aisle 3 canned fruits, vegetables, and beans Aisle 4 condiments, spices and spreads Aisle 5 soups Aisle 6 baking needs and mixes Aisle 7 frozen foods Aisle 8 pasta and sauce Aisle 9 breads and crackers Aisle 10 drinks Aisle 11 candy and sweet treats Everything from how to make ricotta cheese, maple popcorn, beef jerky, ketchup, pancake mix, beef stew, ice cream, pasta - dough and sauce, syrups, teas...really the list goes on an on. I hate to even list anything because I can not do it justice. I have made her hummus, and it was fantastic. What I especially loved about it was that it used a whole pound of chickpeas and gives directions for freezing. If you are going to go through the steps of making hummus, you might as well make enough to last. So, now I have all these lovely single serving jars of hummus in my freezer, perfect for lunch! Not all of the recipes make such large amounts, but the ones that you might want to make in big batches all do. The instant oatmeal (which is just genius) makes 12 to 15 servings and gives storage options for pantry, fridge and freezer. It is the most complete basic pantry cookbook that I have. And even calling it a basic pantry cookbook is a misnomer, because how many basic pantry cookbooks have rhubarb ginger syrup for soda or the recipe for coffee liqueur? I can not say enough good things about this cookbook!

I like to read some of a book before I buy it and cookbooks are no different. I first read the sample available on Amazon and then found my library had an ebook version of it I could borrow. I actually am reading the book like a novel and I am enjoying it so much. I got to the chapter on frozen foods and I went to the Amazon Kindle store and purchased the book, returned the library copy. I always read reviews prior to most any purchase and reviews of books are helpful but I always take 1 star reviews and 5 star reviews with a dose of scepticism. Sometimes people give 1 or 5 stars out of laziness, I liked it, 5 stars, or I didn't like it, 1 star. For me, a 3 or 4 star review of a book is good and solid but I chose to give this one a 5 star review because of some of the 1 star reviews I saw. I thought some of the 1 star reviews were mean and petty! I want to judge the book on the usefulness of it and if you truly did not find it useful, OK, give it 1 star but to give 1 star based on a swear word or 2? You can't watch TV or a movie or read almost any fiction book that doesn't contain profanity these days. It has made its way into every day causal conversation and I can't believe the people who said they were offended by the mild use of a few swear words. I can see marking it down for a mistake in a recipe (like the one where it called for tablespoons of salt rather than teaspoons) but some mistakes are not going to be caught by the spell checker and if the proof reader was not also making the recipes, they probably would not have caught it. I really like the book, I am excited to try my hand at making mozzarella. In fact, I am going to make the pasta, into ravioli, make the ricotta, the mozzarella, the sauce from scratch, and the bread to go with the meal. I have made ricotta before, and paneer (fresh Indian cheese), I make bread all the time, I have made pasta once many years ago, and I used to make pasta sauce from fresh tomatoes when I was younger so some will be new and some will be just going back to the way I used to cook when my kids were little and I had more time. I can't wait to make some of the snacks and crackers with my granddaughters! I very much enjoy the book and am excited to try the recipes. I am a vegetarian so some of the recipes I will have to adapt to fit my needs but I have a granddaughter with allergies to artificial food coloring and being able to make some snacks she couldn't otherwise have is a huge plus for me.

This is a really lovely book with a perfectly timed concept - how to go about making basics (and not so basic) yourself, better than what you can get at the store. Has a wide variety of recipes : from making your own frozen fish sticks to chai tea and even mixing up your own version of instant oatmeal. Put together well, with great photos and clear directions, this is going to be something I reach for time and time again. That being said, there is one thing that is preventing this book from getting 5 stars. It is, without a doubt, one of the most UNpleasant books I have ever had to hold. For reasons known only to the publishing gods, they decided to create a cover that is normal on the top half, but the bottom have of the front and back feels like high grit sandpaper. Letting your hand run over it creates a sound rather like nails on chalkboard (and I'll let you imagine just how lovely that is to FEEL let alone HEAR - shudder - ) which is a serious shame. This isn't a book to just grab, bang out a single recipe and toss back onto the shelf - the contents are pulled together in a way that makes you want to curl up on the couch and leisurely read through, marking things to try as you go. While the photos on the cover are nice, the only way I'm going to be able to give this book the time and effort it deserves is to either cover the whole shebang in contact paper or put some cumbersome paperjacket over the lot. Which is too bad, and seems to be a serious disservice to a really wonderful book!

My wife and I are always looking for ways to reduce our dependence on packaged and processed foods - we find them to typically be expensive and of little nutritional value for their calories. But we still need convenience - we're a busy family, so we need simple solutions that don't have us spending hours in the kitchen. This cookbook delivers! A review in our local paper led me to this cookbook, and I am so glad that it did! The recipes are great - simple and delicious. The book is really well organized, with excellent cross-references between recipes and a complete index. I especially like the notes that the author included with the recipes about things that may go wrong - they help to keep me from getting discouraged if something isn't going right. She also includes some nice anecdotes about the recipes and her own journey to reduce her dependence on packaged goods (and reduce her grocery bill) - it is reassuring to see the parallels between her family and ours. I recommned this book to anyone who enjoys cooking, is looking for simple, wholesome, and easy recipes, and who is looking to save money and improve their health.

This book is exactly the weapon to choose when you are fighting against boxes, cans, and bags in your homemade cooking. It offers a means to both increase the quality of your food and decrease its cost by removing the costs of shipment, packaging, and middlemen. It teaches you to make things at home that you never thought were possible. Cheese, ketchup without HFCS, pesto, mustard, mayo, crackers...and so on. Many of these things we just take as a given that we should buy them in cans or bags from the grocery store when this is not true. The recipes are from real base ingredients and spices with little store bought materials. This book is also an excellent tool for those of us who are looking to eliminate certain ingredients from our food (HFCS, salt, etc.) This book will teach you how to utilize multiple means to store your food. It contains specific guidance on preparation of food for the freezer. It contains a beginner's guide to canning as a means of food preservation. It contains multiple recipes involving fermentation as a means of improving the quality of our food (sauerkraut, yogurt, buttermilk). The book is a tool which will ultimately give you absolute power over what you choose to put on your plate and that of your family. It comes highly recommended. This book embodies what I think of when I say "cooking from scratch".

I am a cookbook junkie - I have lots of them. Some get lots of use and others are more for perusing. I’ve had The Homemade Pantry since 2016, and it’s a high mileage book, in several ways. It is well-bound, with a sturdy cover and pages. Recipes are illustrated in color. There are lots of pictures of her family, which I consider a plus. The little girls (who ALWAYS have clean hands and feet in the pictures) are precious. Even if they were dirty, they would still be precious, and the reviewer who says otherwise has a serious problem. The most specialized piece of equipment required is a food processor, which I don’t have and really haven’t needed. I use this cookbook frequently. It has pride of place next to both of my More With Less cookbooks (the original and the recent edition). All three have basic -and delicious - recipes that will feed you and your family well and for far less money than buying boxed stuff (can’t really call it food) or eating out. While I love all the recipes I’ve tried (and tweaked, which the author encourages you to do), my favorites are the waffle recipe (best waffles ever!) and the toaster pastries on the cover, which was my reason for buying the book in the first place! I won’t buy the boxed ones and my daughter really wanted to try them. Yummy! I also enjoy her stories, some of which are laugh-out-loud funny. I enjoy the warmth and love that exudes from them. I highly recommend this book!

I was really excited when I learned about this book. I am an experienced (and have also been called talented) home cook, but have never made my own pantry staples or dairy products. Between my desire to use as great a proportion of local and pesticide-free ingredients in what I feed my family, my hope to find new ways to waste less (packaging, etc.), and the fact that it can be kind of a pain to find some ingredients without breaking the bank (e.g. organic fresh mozzarella made with vegetarian rennet), this book inspired me to take a break from the frou-frou recipe trend I had been on awhile and get back to basics. I find Alana's blog to be incredibly charming and informative, although I have to admit that I hadn't actually used any of her recipes until buying this cookbook. For me, the pro of having gotten this book was the inspiration that doing some of this stuff was not only possible, but really not all that complicated and - in the end - gives me a lot more control over ingredients. (Although the point the author continually makes is about saving money and not using as many packaged things that will generate trash.) I can't find organic ricotta in any store that's remotely convenient to get to, but I *can* buy local organic milk and pick (toxin-free) lemons off my own tree and make my own. The homemade ricotta worked like a charm and inspired me to try more. Unfortunately, the more recipes I try, the more disappointed I am in the purchase. For example, the fresh mozzarella I attempted (following the recipe to the letter) was a total flop and I assumed it was me and that cheesemaking really was too hard for regular people, since the troubleshooting she offered (too-pasteurized milk) didn't apply to me. After a little looking around though, I found other recipes that - while not identical - had a lot in common and they were all quite different than the recipe in this book... I picked one and it worked perfectly. And so on with several other recipes until I recently decided to not use up good ingredients on what increasingly feel like experiments ("will this one work?"). I do like the spirit and message of the book and am glad to have received the inspiration to learn some "lost art" basics in favor of convenience items. I will use much of it as a checklist as I continue my search for recipes that work better for me.

Rispetto al titolo, il libro è decisamente deludente. In gran parte contiene ricette di piatti elaborati e non ricette di ingredienti base. Inoltre risente molto della mentalità culinaria americana. Non adatto al pubblico italiano e decisamente sconsigliato a chi ha già cominciato a muovere i primi passi verso l'autoproduzione.

This is a worthwhile book! Good recipes, fun, helpful commentary (not too much) and covers a wide range of foods you can make at home. It's always better to know what, exactly, you're eating!

lovely book and some brilliant recipe ideas plus a lot of information i never would have thought of or be possible. i am pleased i bought the book :)

I gave this book 5 stars because it was a warm, family, comfort food book. The author took you into her home and her life and shared her personal real food recipes and stories to go with them. I am tired of books that are all about healthy food that is boring or all about unhealthy food with ridiculus amounts of fat and sugar. This book meets these two extremes in the middle. The recipes inspire you to make foods from scratch, I was excited to make my own yogurt, homemade instant oatmeal and even brown sugar certainly different than your usual same old cookbooks. I will be looking forward to any new books this author and cook writes. I would definitely recommend this book to beginning cooks and older ones like myself who thought there was nothing ever new out there in cookbooks to interest me.

This book was really interesting to me for the purpose of yogurt making. The book arrived but all of the yogurt making sections of the book were missing. There is a serious misprint in this book. The pages go as follows pages 1-16 No pages 17-32 33-48 Again! 33-48 49-287 I feel bad that this publisher is not doing write by the author, and putting misprints out into the world for sale.