Cookbook Review: Valerie's Home Cooking by Valerie Bertinelli

Title: Valerie's Home Cooking: More than 100 Delicious Recipes to Share with Friends and Family
Author: Valerie Bertinelli
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: October 10th 2017
Source: Publisher


Book Description:

As the current star of her Food Network show, Valerie's Home Cooking, and co-host of the network's Kids Baking Championship, as well as having spent years acting on television, Valerie Bertinelli has made a name for herself in households across America. But to really know Valerie, is to spend time in her kitchen.

Inspired by her family's cooking legacy, Valerie specializes in showing fans how to make dishes their own families will love that are for the heart and soul. As she often says, there's a story behind every recipe and Valerie shares them in this gorgeous cookbook, where home cooks will find more than 100 recipes that are easy to make and innovative--they're just as fresh, vibrant and down to earth as Valerie herself. Many of these classic comforting recipes have an original twist like Bloody Mary Tea Sandwiches, Lobster BLTs, Quick Rotisserie Chicken Gumbo, and S'mores Popcorn. These mouthwatering dishes will become your go-tos, whether you're having breakfast or lunch on your own, friends are joining for last-minute cocktails and small bites, or the whole family is coming together for a hearty dinner and dessert.

Review:

★★★★

Honestly, my interest in this book stems from seeing Valerie Bertinelli on various shows on the Food Network channel. Overall, I think this is a pretty good cookbook that's bound to have a recipe for everyone to enjoy.

The recipes in this book are organized by meal/course, making it pretty easy to navigate. The chapters include Rise and Shine, Getting Through the Day, Happy Hour, Around the Table, A Side Note, and Finishing Sweet.

Most of the recipes have photos with them, which is helpful. Some of them could have been a little better quality, but that's nitpicking a bit. This book seems really good for a beginner. The steps are numbered, and the language is very conversational like "hey, see this carrot, cut it" which makes it easy to follow. Part of the home cook appeal to this book, at least to me, is that some stuff is not scratch made. That is, things like caramel sauce in a jar, frozen blueberries, jarred giardiniera and other "normal people" ingredients are used throughout. It's easier and more likely that I'll cook with this little cheats included.

I appreciate the little personal stories, and that there's photos of Valerie cooking some of these dishes throughout the course of the book.

Some of the dishes that sound the best to me include Bloody Mary Tea Sandwiches, Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Shrimp with Cherry Cola BBQ Sauce, and Savory Horseradish Panna Cotta.

All in all, I think this is a really approachable cookbook that has a lot of yummy sounding dishes in it. The instructions are clear, the photos are pretty good, and there's a good amount of variety.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.