The chill is in the air and our gardens are full. The previous months of planning, planting and tending crops are now beginning to show their bounty. Apples hang heavy on trees, blackberries demand to be foraged and pears show off their golden hue.
With all this delicious fruit craving attention, sometimes it's hard to come up with creative ways to ensure our garden's offering goes un-wasted. Here are a few inspirational books to help fill your kitchens with sweet aromas:
A trip to the farmer's market on a sunny late summer morning can be a lot of fun but what to do with all the great local ingredients you buy? Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source with more than 200 Recipes for a Healthy and Sustainable You by Terry Walters is the answer. This cookbook is a great resource for creating dishes with fresh produce and wholesome, minimally processed foods. It has many flavourful, nutritious recipes and includes foods that can be found close to your home. For a twist on an old classic, you can try the Tofu Pumpkin Pie with Gingersnap Crust.
If you are new to baking or just need a refresher, Bake! Essential Techniques for Perfect Baking by Nick Malgieri is a good place to start. His book has instructions with illustrations of how to create perfect baking basics, including crispy pie crusts and soft, tender dough for buttery brioche. This book immediately caught my eye, and I couldn't help but flip through it. The photographs are mouth-watering and it's difficult to decide which recipe to try first.
Farming and eating go hand-in-hand - you cannot have one without the other. Chefs Jeff Crump and Bettina Schormann, co-authors of Earth to Table: Seasonal Recipes From an Organic Farm, share with their readers just how important working with farmers and artisans is when it comes to cooking good food. The authors tell the story of how they worked with their local farmers, and on their farms, to gain a better understanding of where their produce comes from. Along with its delicious recipes, this cookbook offers unique insight into the intricacies of farming.
If you thought living with a food sensitivity meant you cannot indulge your sweet tooth, think again. Whether you have a gluten sensitivity, are vegan, allergic to dairy, diabetic or just want a sweet treat without all the consequences, Babycakes by Erin McKenna is the book for you. McKenna opened a bakery in New York several years ago and since has become so well known that people have travelled across the country to visit it. Most of her recipes are refined sugar-free, gluten-free and vegan. The best part is that you would never know the difference between one of Erin's to-die-for desserts and the "real thing."
A list of cookbooks is not complete without one by Martha Stewart. Her book Pies and Tarts: 150 Recipes for Old-Fashioned and Modern Favorites is a must-have for any baker. Her book offers up a wide range of choices, from easy and rustic to layered and decadent. I like this cookbook because it has recipes for many fruits that are in season during harvest time.
Last year, I found myself with more peaches than I knew what to do with. I found the perfect recipe in Simply in Season: 12 months of Wine Country Cooking. This is a book that you will want to own. Author Tony De Luca, a chef in the Niagara area, shares his seasonal recipes that were inspired by the southern Ontario wine region. The book is organized month by month, making it an easy-to-use resource to have on hand. The Peach Tarte Tatins recipe is now a part of my permanent collection.
A Good Read is a column by Tri-City librarians that is published every Wednesday. Anna Chabada works at Terry Fox Library in Port Coquitlam.
