The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making [Paperback]

Alana Chernila (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 3, 2012

“This is my kitchen. Come on in, but be prepared—it might not be quite what you expect. There is flour on the counter, oats that overflowed onto the floor, chocolate-encrusted spoons in the sink. There is Joey, the husband, exhausted by the thirty-five preschoolers who were hanging on him all day, and he is stuffing granola into his mouth to ease his five o’clock starvation. There are two little girls trying to show me cartwheels in that miniscule space between the refrigerator and the counter where I really need to be.”
 
In her debut cookbook, Alana Chernila inspires you to step inside your kitchen, take a look around, and change the way you relate to food. The Homemade Pantry was born of a tight budget, Alana’s love for sharing recipes with her farmers’ market customers, and a desire to enjoy a happy cooking and eating life with her young family. On a mission to kick their packaged-food habit, she learned that with a little determination, anything she could buy at the store could be made in her kitchen, and her homemade versions were more satisfying, easier to make than she expected, and tastier. 
           
Here are her very approachable recipes for 101 everyday staples, organized by supermarket aisle—from crackers to cheese, pesto to sauerkraut, and mayonnaise to toaster pastries. The Homemade Pantry is a celebration of food made by hand—warm mozzarella that is stretched, thick lasagna noodles rolled from flour and egg, fresh tomato sauce that bubbles on the stove. Whether you are trying a recipe for butter, potato chips, spice mixes, or ketchup, you will discover the magic and thrill that comes with the homemade pantry.
           
Alana captures the humor and messiness of everyday family life, too. A true friend to the home cook, she shares her “tense moments” to help you get through your own. With stories offering patient, humble advice, tips for storing the homemade foods, and rich four-color photography throughout, The Homemade Pantry will quickly become the go-to source for how to make delicious staples in your home kitchen.
  

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Featured Recipe: Chai

Makes 6 cups

• 5 cups water
• 1/4 cup roughly chopped unpeeled fresh ginger
• Three 4-inch cinnamon sticks
• 3 whole cloves
• 4 cardamom pods
• 3 black peppercorns
• One 1-inch circular slice unpeeled orange
• 4 black tea bags, regular or decaffeinated
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup honey, to taste
• 1-1/2 to 2 cups milk (low-fat or whole), to taste

Combine the water, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, peppercorns, and orange slice in a medium pot. Partially cover the pot, bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 15 minutes.

Take the pot off the heat, add the tea bags, cover, and steep for 5 minutes. Put a strainer over the bowl and strain the liquid. Add the honey to taste. To store the chai in the refrigerator or freezer without milk, do so now. Otherwise, return the tea to the pot, add the milk, and reheat.

Chai will keep in a covered container for five days with milk and for two weeks without milk. To freeze, omit milk and freeze in a freezer-safe container for up to six months. Thaw in refrigerator and heat with milk on the stove.

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Review

“Alana is the real deal: A practically minded, thoroughly modern yet authentically old school homesteader. Ingeniously opting for quality over quantity, she strives for excellence, taste, and nutrition, and inspires her readers to do the same. She shows us the functional beauty in a frugal kind of cooking that’s nevertheless alive with luxury and abundance. Believe her and practice what she preaches.”
—LUCINDA SCALA QUINN, host of Mad Hungry with Lucinda Scala Quinn and author of Mad Hungry

“Alana Chernila’s food is the sort of honest, natural, and down-to-earth cooking that I crave. On the top of my can’t-wait-to-make list are the toaster pastries, which I’m sure my own daughter will adore, and the cucumber pickles, which are right up my DIY-alley. Plus, Alana’s stories are engaging and fun to read. But what I really love about this book is Alana’s passionate approach to homemade kitchen staples, which I hope will get people to rethink the questionable goods that we all keep in our pantries. We can do better, and she shows us how. I would feel confident cooking any of her recipes for my friends and family, and that means a lot.”
—MELISSA CLARK, New York Times food columnist and author of Cook This Now
 
“You can work culinary magic on a whim when you keep a well-stocked, mindfully edited pantry. Alana’s beautiful book shows you the way with an impressive range of homemade go-tos. She covers all the useful day-to-day staples here with understated style. Pancake and waffle mixes, granola, tomato sauce, and salad dressings bump up against recipes for crackers, soda syrups, sauerkraut, and spice blends. It’s the sort of book that makes you want to head straight for your kitchen.”
—HEIDI SWANSON, bestselling author of Super Natural Every Day
 
“Alana Chernila has given us something incredibly special: a book both practical and inspiring, authoritative, and down to earth. Reading THE HOMEMADE PANTRY, I feel as though I’m in the kitchen with her and her family, and that together, there’s nothing that we can’t do. Why not make my own hot sauce, mozzarella, or graham crackers? From now on, I know I will.”
—MOLLY WIZENBERG, bestselling author of A Homemade Life
 
“Alana Chernila not only understands the power of food, she understands the power of food and family. She understands the comfort and security a bowl of creamy soup brings on a winter day; she understands that a lasagna from scratch can bond a family in ways that the boxed kind can’t; and perhaps most importantly, she understands that a warm homemade toaster pastry will go a long way in easing any brand of maternal guilt. I think that recipe in particular is going to be a keeper in my house.”
—JENNY ROSENSTRACH, creator of DinnerALoveStory.com 

“The Homemade Pantry is an important, beautiful work that can change the way people approach their food lives.”
—MOLLIE KATZEN, author of The Moosewood Cookbook

“A gorgeous collection of recipes for making fresh, healthier versions of store-bought packaged foods like Pop Tarts, pizza, and more. Good for your waistline, your wallet, and the environment.”  
- SCHOLASTIC PARENT & CHILD

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; 1 edition (April 3, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030788726X
• ISBN-13: 978-0307887269
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.1 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (169 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #634 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Natural Foods
  • #12 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > U.S. Regional

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

367 of 386 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars "Make what you like, and use what you have." April 4, 2012

By J. Jackson

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

UPDATED 12 JUNE 2012
When I first bought this book, I was absolutely giddy about trying everything.
Now that I've worked my way through, I'm slightly concerned.
On the one hand, the book covers many, many things. Major plus.
On the other hand, some of the recipes are either badly written, untested or just plain bombs. After the salt issue in the bread recipe*, I found another: when using instant yeast aka rapid rise as called for, a one hour first rise will completely deflate your dough. The whole purpose of rapid raise is to eliminate a lengthy first rise; it only needs 10 minutes, not an hour. {I use Fleischmann's and their website quite clearly states that RapidRise yeast needs only 10 minutes of rest after kneading.} After random failings of the recipe, I went to King Arthur Flour (from whom the White Bread recipe was adapted) and ended up using the Oatmeal Bread as my standard.
The yogurt recipe calls for a comparatively large amount of starter (1/2C per quart). I've switched back to my old Mireille Guiliano 1-2Tbsp/quart recipe.
Following the Yellow Cake recipe to the letter still results in a dry end product. But it smells really good.
The Buttermilk recipe is not really a recipe, more like instructions on how to use pre-purchased buttermilk culture, although that can be said for most of the Dairy chapter.
Since I bought the book, I haven't turned to it nearly as much as I anticipated. The hit-and-miss nature of the recipes doesn't make me eager to try most of them.
At least the information on canning is solid.

*The author has acknowledged an error in the White Bread recipe (p214): 2.5 teaspoons of salt, NOT tablespoons.

153 of 162 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Homemade PopTarts (that's right!) jams, condiments and more April 21, 2012

By Joanna Daneman #1 HALL OF FAMETOP 10 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I have no doubt that if you are perhaps older than 40, you've noticed a change in store-bought foods, especially snack foods. The taste somehow has changed over the year. Also, not a few of us have become aware of additives in food we really don't want to eat. Or, we have allergies and so do our kids. In any case, wouldn't it be GREAT if you could have the same treats and snacks in your biscuit tin, pantry or cookie jar that your kids love but you are ashamed to even be seen buying? I certainly think so and that is why I got a copy of this book.

I am going to say right out of the gate, I am not one of those people who only eats organic, or vegan or really takes tremendous care, but I buy very few packaged baked goods or crackers. (Which is why most coupons are useless for my buying habits.) And I have never EVER eaten a Pop Tart(tm). My mom when we grew up, simply refused to buy that kind of thing. But if your kids would like a treat and clamor for toaster pastry, here is a recipe for absolutely delicious-looking flat tarts that you could serve with your head held high (even to guests, with a cup of coffee.) If you can roll out pastry dough (and to the author's credit, she gives a pie dough recipe rather than "buy a package of refrigerated pie dough") you can make these and they are cute as can be. And the author tells you how to freeze them effectively (on parchment paper, flat, so they can be stacked into a container) so you could simply pull them out on a weekend or even weekday, heat them up in the oven and serve them up for breakfast.

Some of the other recipes are jerky, homemade yogurt (which I do frequently), mixed nuts, granola bars, and crackers. Now, I was really interested in the crackers because crackers and cheese happens to be my snack of choice (I'd rather have that than a cookie.) But I have found most crackers to be very salty, or starchy and the flavor doesn't seem to be there. Here we have a recipe for wheat crackers using spelt, wheat, flax seed and are they ever good! And the author gives gluten free variations using brown rice flour.

Staples like pancake mix, ketchup (no hfcs) and even mustard are covered. The ketchup is good--I tried it, but it will not taste like (you know who) because that recipe is difficult to duplicate. Mine was more tomato-ey, spicier, but I liked it.

The downside to this book is that it takes some planning and preparation (a weekend canning, mixing, boxing, freezing) but if you do plan ahead, you could have a pantry of American favorites in a convenient form but lacking additives, corn syrup, even wheat, which sneaks into many mixes as wheat starch, so if you are concerned about such additives or if you or a family member has an allergy, this is a welcome book and the pictures make the most ordinary foods look very tempting indeed.

I'm off to make more crackers...

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is WICKED good! May 26, 2012

By Bull Creek

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this book less than a week ago, and it's already a favorite. I've made the mozzarella cheese (which I've made before but her recipe and instructions were superior)and made the granola bars twice (my middle school son took them to school for a PARTY, that's how good they were!), and made the nut butter (for the granola) and I can't believe how easy THAT was. I cook from scratch almost every night, and I'm amazed at how excited I am to try the other recipes in this book (ok, especially the pop tarts...). Given how delicious and easy the first few recipes were, I know this book will be creased, noted in, and dirty in no time. In "my" kitchen, those are the signs of a great cookbook.