Urban Pantry: Tips and Recipes for a Thrifty, Sustainable and Seasonal Kitchen [Paperback]

Amy Pennington (Author), Della Chen (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2010

Urban Pantry is a smart, concise guide to creating a full and delicious larder in your own home. It covers kitchen essentials, like what basics to keep on hand for quick, tasty meals without a trip to the store, and features recipes that adapt old-fashioned pantry cooking for a modern audience. Avid chef and gardener Amy Pennington demystifies canning and pickling for the urban kitchen and provides tips for growing a practical food garden in even the smallest of spaces. Her more than sixty creative recipes blend both gourmet and classic flavors while keeping economy in mind.

Urban Pantry holds sustainability at its center: Take advantage of local ingredients, eliminate wasteful kitchen practices, and make the most out of the food you buy or grow.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Urban Pantry is a practical guide for country and city folk who want to make better use of their kitchen, garden, and time. Amy Pennington offers great tips on shopping, food storage, canning, and gardening, along with creative recipes and lots of helpful explanations of ingredients and technique. This book is a must for young people who are just setting up house, or anybody who has vowed to start cooking. With a well-stocked pantry and a good recipe anyone can prepare a memorable meal. --Jeanne Kelley, contributing editor, Bon Appetit, and author, Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatos: Recipes From a Modern Kitchen Garden

"Urban Pantry (is) full of clever recipes for using your kitchen to the max." - Gwenyth Paltrow, GOOP

"I’ve recommended Pennington’s book plenty of times myself: Pennington is kitchen-smart and garden-savvy, the sort of economical, creative cook everyone would love as a housemate." - Rebekah Denn,  Christian Science Monitor

"There hasn't been nearly enough written about the pantry -- most people treat theirs like it's merely shelving or storage, but it's actually the war chest of the kitchen." - Amanda Hesser, Food52

Accolades:

One of Huffington Posts best cookbooks of 2010
Listed as #6 on Amazon's Top Ten Cookbooks of 2010

About the Author

AMY PENNINGTON is an organic gardener and all around food enthusiast. She worked for renowned chef Tom Douglas as a marketing manager and radio producer for several years before launching two businesses of her own: Go Go Green Garden, an edible gardening business that creates and maintains sustainable gardens for urbanites, and Urban Garden Share, a service connecting gardeners without dirt to neighbors willing to share their yards. A regular contributor to Edible Seattle, Amy lives in Seattle, Washington.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Skipstone Press (April 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594853460
• ISBN-13: 978-1594853463
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 7.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #86,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Food enthusiast Amy Pennington is the creator and owner of GoGo Green Garden, and edible garden business wherein she builds, plants and tends edible gardens for city folk in their backyards. In March of 2009, Amy launched UrbanGardenShare.org, a garden website that pairs city gardeners with unused garden space via an online matching site.

Amy has been featured on Whole Living Martha Stewart Sirius Radio and in national and international publications including Woman's Day Magazine and the Toronto Star. Amy is a regular contributing writer to Edible Seattle, a bi-monthly food focused magazine highlighting the culinary bounty of the Puget Sound region, Crosscut.com, Food52 and SIP Northwest. Amy has taught both gardening and preserving as an adjunct professor at both Seattle Central Community College and Bastyr University. Her first book, Urban Pantry, was published in spring of 2010 and was chosen as one of Amazon.coms Best Cookbooks Of The Year. She lives in Seattle. Her most recent book was published in April of 2011, Apartment Gardening - Plants Projects and Recipes for Growing Food in Your Urban Home. Visit www.amy-pennington.com to learn more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 86 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A great addition to my Cookbook Library May 7, 2010

By Cookbook Connisseur

Format:Paperback

I have a huge bookshelf full of cookbooks. In fact, I will not allow myself to purchase cookbooks anymore, because I do not have any room to store them. That being said, 'Urban Pantry', which I just acquired, is so worth the small amount of space it takes up! Every single recipe is one that I will try, which is saying a lot--usually I take only 1 or 2 recipes away from a cookbook this size. The author writes in a voice that makes you feel like she's right there in the kitchen with you--and her words are practical and fun.
So far, I've tried the berry syrup, cracker recipe (best!), and am working on the ginger beer. I have been cooking for a long time, and still learned a lot from this book. I have pretty much every ingredient the recipes call for in my pantry, which make the recipes extremely accessible. The pictures are beautiful, and overall the entire reading experience inspiring. You too, can preserve in small batches, make your own crackers and sodapop at home, all without spending a million years and a million dollars doing it!
Highly recommended!

61 of 61 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars My New BFF July 28, 2010

By Ellie

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

When I first saw the title I knew I had to have it. Urban Pantry, Thrifty, Sustainable, Seasonal? Amy's words spoke right to me.

I am a new stay at home mom and we are on a real tight budget, $200.00 every other week for a family of five. I decided to base our grocery list this pay day off of her recipes mainly for two weeks. We spent 190.00 total at Costco for the basics, PCC for a few extras, and our family sized box from our CSA that we receive weekly. We've been eating like kings, and organic none the less! The recipes are so simple yet have that little extra something special. I just made the perfect roast chicken tonight and my husband asked me to marry him...again! Maybe that recipe should be renamed "love bird" or "proposal chicken", no kidding.

I am looking forward to trying EVERY recipe and taking up canning for the first time, and next spring planting a back porch garden all with my new BFF. This book has been so inspirational. I also live in Seattle and my front porch view is dumpsters and a parking lot. I used to think I couldn't wait to have a real yard, but now I can see there's no reason to wait to plant a garden. I used to think my "two butt" kitchen wasn't big enough for canning but, now I can't wait for small batch preserving.

Amy makes the most daunting tasks simple and savvy. Her words are inviting and friendly. Her tips and advice are smart and timely.

I own MANY cook books and just this one speaks to my soul.

I just subscribed to edibleSEATTLE because I heard she's a contributer because, I as well can't wait for her next book.

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Only 5 dozen? May 7, 2010

By S. Jones

Format:Paperback

What a great cookbook! I knew from the cover of this book, that it was going to be a good one. I know, I know, "don't judge a book by it's cover." Glass jars of polenta and beet greens, these are a few of my favorite things. And I'm now planning to add open shelves in my kitchen.

Beyond the cover, I thought the author did a great job of keeping it personal with great suggestions, stories and few ingredient recipes. The recipes seem classic, but with a twist to keep the recipe, economical, local, and beautiful. I started out with the cracker recipe, and I HIGHLY recommend that one. I'm no baker, and these turned out so delicious, I want to share them with everyone I know. Next I tried the super easy Carrot-Coconut Milk Soup. So, simple, so delicious, and so easy!