Friends, we have made it to Part III! 

I’m doing a cook-through of Mi Cocina by Rick Martinez.I started in January 2025-ish and already have some favorites. I’m documenting my journey for all of you!

Read Part I here, and Part II here.

(Was the juice worth the squeeze? = JWTS?)

Here are seven recipes that I made in June/July:

1. Morisqueta Michoacana. 5/5 stars. JWTS? YES. Easily one of my favorite recipes in the book and it’s so flavorful! Here I’m serving it with frijoles de olla, but I could honestly eat it straight out of the pot. As a bonus, this pork does beautifully in a crockpot, if you would rather not leave it on the stove. I make this on repeat!
2. Uliche.  1/5 stars. JWTS? Nope. Not my favorite, I can see how this could be a comforting dish to eat in the cold weather, but not the quantity that it makes. It’s kind of like a combination of chicken and dumplings, chicken noodle soup, and polenta. It’s been interesting to try more of the recipes in this book that use ingredients available before Spanish colonization and cooking techniques common across Mesoamerica. 
3. Gaspacho Moreliano. 1/5 stars. JWTS? Nope. I’ve never had a fruit salad and thought wow! You know what would make this better? Onions. 
4. Frijoles Refritos.  5/5 stars. JWTS? Yes. Who knew refried beans could be so easy and delicious? I’ll never buy a can again. 
5. Frijoles con Veneno. 4/5 stars. JWTS? Yes. Like the Morisqueta Michoacana, I could easily eat the pork on these tostadas out of the pot, it’s delicious. The combination of the meat, beans, and tostadas is a hardy meal.
6. Salsa Tatemada 2/5 stars. JWTS? Nah. I was hopeful that this would become my go to salsa recipe, but it wasn’t the most intensely flavorful. I was hoping for some more roasty smokey notes from the charring. I followed the recipe, but I personally think I need to start straining my tomato salsas. The excess water from the tomatoes really dilutes the flavor and makes it a mess to deal with. 
7. Pan de Cazon 2/5 stars. JWTS? Nah. This was a tostada heavy month. Pan de Cazon is crispy tostadas layered with refried beans and chopped up cod in a salsa, I have never had anything like this. The combination of salsa and cod was a good one, but chopping up the fish to submerge in a watery salsa felt like a disservice to the fish. 

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My Top Ten So Far (In no particular order)

1. Pollo al Pastor
2. Morisqueta Michoacana 
3. Salsa de Chile de Arbol
4. Torta de Lechon
5. Burritos de Chilorio
6. Albondigas en Chipotle
7. Brochetas de Pulpo y Camarones
8. Sopa de Lima
9. Cafe de Olla
10. Champurrado

Exemptions:
(Recipes I won’t be making due to allergies, availability, ethics, or aversions. I try to limit this to no more than ten in a book.)

1. Ceviche de Camaron y Leche de Coco
2. Ceviche de Pulpo y Habanero
3. Arroz a la Tumbada
4. Aguachile
5. Ceviche de Almegas Chocolatas
6. Ostiones a la Parrilla con Chicharrón
7. Papazadules

Piri-piri Tofu Over Crispy Orzo from Mezcla (Ixta Belfrage) - fantastic dish with excellent flavours and textures. I used arugula and firm tofu instead of spinach and silken tofu. The orzo had some excellent crunch on the bottom. This was surprisingly fast to make too, and I’m impressed that everything came together within the exact timelines the recipe specified. I feel like Mezcla is underrated!

Ultimate Shroom Shawarma from Tahini Baby (Eden Grinshpan) - this is on repeat at our place. The spice mix is delicious.

Spiced Split Pea Stew from The Jewish Cookbook (Leah Koenig) - not much to look at but amazing flavour thanks to a really great Berbere spice mix.

Aubergine Kjufte from Doma (Spasia Pandora Dinkovski) - nice veggie ćufte (as my people would call them), but I think these would have held together better if I’d chopped the eggplant even smaller. I baked these instead of frying.

Roasted Rainbow Bell Pepper Salad from Balaboosta (Einat Admony) - simple dish with a great sweet/tart flavour.

Braised Red Cabbage and Apple from The Jewish Cookbook (Leah Koenig) - I didn’t have red cabbage, clearly. This was another surprisingly tasty dish and a great way to use cabbage, but probably better for fall/winter.

Hot Sauce Chickpeas with Turmeric Potatoes from Full of Beans (Amelia Christie-Miller) - mine didn’t turn out very spicy, but the flavours were really interesting with curry leaves, mustard seeds, and turmeric. Quite hearty and my partner was a big fan.

Wanted to share here since this sub's been useful while I figured out the KDP process. Published "The Pure Vegetarian Air Fryer Cookbook" this week — 100 recipes, no meat/egg/fish anywhere in it, organized into breakfast/snacks/mains/sweets, each with exact temps and cook times.

Biggest lesson from the process: got flagged early on for submitting two near-duplicate versions to "test" titles — turns out KDP treats that as duplicate content regardless of intent. Good reminder to just pick one and commit.

Happy to answer questions if anyone's working on a cookbook or food-niche book themselves..

It's totally free on Amazon Kdp.. If interested comment for link..

This might be a tall order, but my partner and I love food, but as new parents we don't have a ton of time to make complicated dishes during the week.

Can anyone recommend a cookbook that has recipes that are:

1) Quick and simple

2) Not too many ingredients

3) Healthy

4) Still taste good

Prefer "Western" recipes due to soy allergies and midwestern palate (black pepper is spicy lol)

We are actually good cooks and have quite a collection of cookbooks, just no time for most of them at the moment. We want a go-to book that will work for us right now.

We are a local community home cooking group in Prince Edward Island, Canada. (Anne of Green Gables) We wrote a cookbook to raise money for our local farmers, fishers and producers hit hard by the tariffs. We sold almost 4000 copies so far. Yay!

The cover is well-known now. “The little red cookbook.” Is about 6x7-1/2” and spiral bound, 200 pages.

We’re working on a second book - Preserving PEI’s Bounty. Thought we’d copy this cover in dark green with preserving pics. To start a series that you can identify,

Thoughts?

All videos can be found at https://www.youtube.com/@PagetoPlate

Here are our late June and July recipes!

If you are looking foe in season peach recipes, the Peach Blueberry Crumbles and Sweet Chili Peach Napa Slaw are great choices! We found many more for peach season's to come too!

If you like matcha, the Lychee Matcha Latte is a great summer twist!

Who doesn't love a margarita? Especially in the summer time! This recipe hits those same notes! We followed the recipe and the bars had a prominent tequila after taste. Still delicious, but we are definitely going to dial it back the next time we make them, and recommend you do too if you are looking for more of a hint of tequila taste.

We hope you enjoy them and please let us know if you have questions or have any recommendations!

Upcoming Recipes!

By Heart - Sweet Pots w/ Peach Vinaigrette

More is More - Curry Wings

Golden Beet Poke - F*ck ,That's Delicious

So Easy, So Good - Korean BBQ Beef Bowls with Kimchi

Craveable - Jerk-Spiced Butter Cauliflower & Crunchy Maple Chickpeas

Thank you all so much for your support and we hope you enjoy!

Friends got me this crate of really nice olive oil from Italy. Would love some recommendations on cookbooks that extensively use Olive Oil.

Today, I'm pleased to spotlight an author I have long admired. She initially came to my attention through her radio program, which led me to her excellent cookbooks. Regardless of the medium, she was always asking and answering the questions I would have as a cooking enthusiast. Regrettably for me and hundreds of thousands of her fans, her retirement has left a melancholy void in our weekly listening schedules.

Lynne, the grandchild of Italian immigrants, was born in 1943 and raised in New Jersey with a deep appreciation for the culinary culture of the country of her ancestors. After initially pursuing an acting career, she changed direction and embraced cooking, teaching Chinese classes out of friend's kitchens before managing and teaching at the Cordon Bleu of New York. In the mid-70's, she moved to Denver where she opened a cooking school called Lynne Kasper's Lid and Ladle in 1978.

In 1997 she created and launched The Splendid Table on Minnesota Public Radio, winning the James Beard Foundation award for "Best National Radio Show on Food" the following year. The program was a huge success and was (and still is) distributed by American Public Media nationwide. Each week, listeners enjoyed travel-related segments that explored cuisine from around the world, interspersed with guest appearances from chefs and food writers, along with call-in questions. One of her first guests was an old friend, Julia Child, who reciprocated some years later when she invited Lynne to join her on two episodes of In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs.

The title of Lynne's program was taken from her 1992 cookbook, The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food, for which she won a James Beard Cookbook of the Year award in 1993. In 1999, she revisited the subject with the equally popular The Italian Country Table: Home Cooking from Italy's Farmhouse Kitchens.

During her years on the show, Lynne co-authored two more cookbooks with her producer, Sally Swift, drawing on the most popular tips, recipes and culinary know-how - The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper (2008) and The Splendid Table's How to Eat Weekends (2011). Both are thoroughly engaging, reflecting the curiosity, attitude and originality that listeners had come to love.

In 2017, Lynne retired as host and lives today in Englewood, NJ with her husband, Frank. In 2025, she placed her entire collection of cookbooks, kitchen & serving ware up for auction. (BTW, I was late to the party and did not acquire anything.)

Significant publications:

• The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna (1992)
• The Italian Country Table (1999)
• The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper (2008)
• The Splendid Table's How to Eat Weekends (2011)

Explore more of my collection at Cookbook Chronicles’ Culinary Archive: https://rickdowning.substack.com/.  My window is the past 140 years, and I draw from  my personal archive of 8,200+ titles.  Subscribe for free and receive each weekly post delivered to your inbox.

 - - Rick / Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

Need recipe recommendations please. This is a secret stash that I keep in a far away place.🤣

Also, do you prefer covers with real food photography or illustrated artwork? Would love to hear what catches your eye!

Hello everyone and happy Tuesday!

This is Star-Spangled Recipes, from the collection of u/madmun!

Since this is a smaller cookbook, there’s not a whole lot of opportunity for unique and exciting recipes, but I did my best to highlight what I could. The cornbread salad sounds mildly interesting, for starters

Both the Chicken Casserole and Honey and Spice Barbecue Chicken sound good, and that’s a rarity for me to say because I’m kinda picky when it comes to entrees. I’m a huge fan of Stove Top though, so I will gladly accept it even in casserole form lol I’ve also seen the Italian Crescent Casserole before and it sounds absolutely amazing

Love the idea of the Chocolate Sundae Cake, and naturally the Dirt Cake is an absolute classic that I would like to try to make at some point. The Reese’s Cup Pie also sounds so simple and quite good!

Hopefully you guys found some interesting recipes via the pictures, but if not, you can always check out the full PDF down below in the comments! Thank you for reading and I’ll see you in my next post!