• Eat Your Books

  2000 James Beard Award Winner, International Association of Culinary Professionals Award Winner

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Buttermilk biscuits with country ham and red-eye gravy

  • nutrica6 on March 28, 2026

    This biscuit recipe is one of the best I’ve made. The biscuits are so moist and well risen. I think I cooked the gravy down too much because it ended up being pretty concentrated. Next time I wouldn’t worry about thickening it up too much and just let it be thin.

• Classic backyard burger

  • nutrica6 on March 29, 2026

    Classic, not fancy, just really good!

• Chesapeake Bay blue crab cakes

  • nutrica6 on April 02, 2026

    These tasted great but did fall apart on me. I may have needed to grind the crackers into finer crumbs to help them stay together. They also progressively fell apart more as they came to room temp, so next time I would keep them in the fridge in between frying batches. Taste great with cocktail sauce!

• Salmon poached in hard cider

  • Yildiz100 on March 06, 2017

    I used three 5.3 ounce filets in place of whole salmon, and I reduced the other ingredients to 1/3 of the original. This was better than plain baked salmon with lemon and butter, but I am not completely convinced that it is worth the extra effort. That said, I would make it one more time with two modifications to see if they make a difference. I would try a different brand of apple cider (my husband picked up Angry Orchard, which had an unpleasant artificial apple smell) and I would try leaving a little of the bacon in the cooking liquid with the salmon to achieve a smokier flavor. Poaching is a great technique for salmon-it really helped the flavors permeate the fish.

• Stuffed pork chops

  • Shelmar on September 06, 2019

    Wow! Remember to have corn bread for crumbs.

• Pan-fried rib eye

  • Shelmar on September 06, 2019

    Doable, but inferior to grill.

• Glazed corned beef

  • kateiscoooking on February 18, 2018

    This is a nice change to the normal corned beef in the crock pot!

• A bowl of red

  • billcranecos on October 31, 2020

    This recipe makes an exceptional bowl of chili. A household favorite.

• Green beans with country ham and peanuts

  • nutrica6 on March 29, 2026

    The combination of green beans and peanuts was perfect. I liked the boiling then sauté method because it kept the green beans crisp. So good!

• Skillet asparagus

  • jenmacgregor18 on June 03, 2015

    very simple; but that's how I prefer my asparagus.

• Broccoli-rice casserole

  • Yildiz100 on October 10, 2014

    I thought this was very little rice relative to the broccoli. Additionally, I dind't like the idea of steaming the onions instead of sauteeing them. I ended up with something yummy in the end, but I made so many small changes that I think I'll just use a different recipe next time.

• Hash browns

  • nutrica6 on March 29, 2026

    These are more like home fries with the chopped potatoes. I liked the way you bake the potatoes then fry them in the pan because it meant you could focus on making them crispy instead of worrying about the potatoes not cooking enough. I actually cooked the potatoes in the pan for closer to 25 minutes to crisp them more.

• Pennsylvania dutch noodles with corn and tomatoes

  • Yildiz100 on December 04, 2025

    Four cups of broth is not enough to cook three quarters pound of noodles. I decreased the noodles to what would easily fit in the liquid and still had to add some more liquid along the way. Was just okay , but would probably be great with homemade noodles. I would also reduce the corn by half next time. It seemed too much for the noodles even though I only reduced the noodles slightly.

• Bourbon-and-butter pecan pie

  • jenmacgregor18 on June 02, 2015

    Best-ever-pecan pie! I used whisky instead of bourbon. But this is the only pecan pie I've tried that isn't sickeningly sweet. I think the molasses flavor of the cane syrup and dark brown sugar along with whisky balance out nicely. I took it to a potluck and people actually hunted me down. "Who brought that pecan pie?! and "What's in it?" They were impressed. I think this is going to be my go to pecan pie. I ordered Steen's cane syrup online and a bottle of their molasses too. It was recommended by writer Laurie Colwin (Home Cooking; and More Home Cooking). I need to try her ginger bread recipe too.

• Apple crisp

  • jenmacgregor18 on October 25, 2017

    Straightforward and simple. I added a little spiced rum. very good.

• Carrot cake

  • nutrica6 on March 29, 2026

    Wow this is one of the best carrot cakes I’ve ever had. I was skeptical of not putting the icing in between the layers but it worked really nicely and was way easier to make that way. The glaze is everything in terms of adding flavor and moisture!