I have a lot of cookbooks, and by a lot, I mean, it will probably take a good while to cook through them all, like a couple of years. With a cookbook collection that is so expansive, it’s hard to make sure that they all get used! I want to introduce a new weekly feature here at Wining Wife: A Cookbook a Week. Normally, I’ll start this post on a Sunday, and with the exception of this first book, I’ll make recipes from one cookbook for a week. After the new baby comes, I’ll add in my wine suggestions. For now, I’m relegated to unsweetened and non-alcoholic beverages. All of the cookbooks I’ll use are ones that are already in my collection. I’ve picked them up at garage sales, library book sales, and thrift stores. There are a few I bought new, but not very many. I will link to them online for purchase if they are available for your convenience; should you choose to make a purchase based upon that link, I will receive compensation.

The cookbook: Cooking Light: Way to Cook

The first cookbook I’ll focus on is Cooking Light’s Way To Cook (affiliate link).   This cookbook is a great visual introduction to healthy cooking for everyday living. There are five parts to this cookbook. They are:

• the Cooking Light way to cook – this has all sorts of information from buying healthy fats to choosing cuts of meat to stocking a pantry. I’ll definitely be reading through this section carefully.
• fresh & fast – this section focuses on easy to make dishes from those one can just assemble together without cooking to those that are stir-fried or broiled in an oven.
• flavorful & slow – these are dishes that take longer to cook; so dishes from here would be more appropriate for a Saturday evening or Sunday evening dinner. 
• fire & smoke – I love grilled food, but we don’t currently have a grill. I’ll take a look through this section to see what I can adapt to my oven’s broiler. Also, Williams Sonoma has a really cool grilling pan that can be used on the stovetop or in the oven…I need to get one of those. 
• oven & griddle – these are those baked goodies that we all love to eat. 

There are also appendices focusing on nutrition, seasonal produce, metric equivalents, and ingredient substitutions. It’s a nice little resource for those who are just learning how to cook and want to focus on recipes that are easy as well as healthy. 

The plan from the cookbook:

Since we just moved, and that means that most of our pantry did not come with us, I’ll need to focus on restocking our pantry in the coming weeks. The great thing about this book is that there are suggestions for a “beginners,” “intermediate,” and “advanced” pantry. Since we have limited space, I’ll focus only on the beginner’s pantry at the moment, leaving more stocking to happen later on as we get more settled and purchase a couple items that will help us to expand our rental kitchen’s usable space. 

We also have a few different farmer’s markets here in Wichita. We’re pretty well stocked until Saturday of this week, when we’ll make it down to the Saturday morning market in Old Town (there’s a guy who has amazing kettle corn there, and another vender with outstanding barbeque sauce made from all natural ingredients – without liquid smoke!) Since I’m starting on a Wednesday (I’ll be making tacos from my own recipe for dinner tonight), I’ll be working from this cookbook from now until Saturday 8/15. I’ll post my menu plan for this week through Saturday, and then I’ll post a second menu plan for the following week next Sunday. 

This week’s meal plan

• Wednesday: Classic roast chicken with gravy, oven-fried okra, herbed brown rice (switching it up from basmati rice)
• Thursday: Black bean pork and zucchini (using ground pork rather than pork tenderloin)
• Friday: Speedy chicken and cheese enchiladas (using leftover roast chicken), arugula, grape, and sunflower seed salad
• Saturday:  New England Clam Chowder with wheat French bread

There’s a slight chance that the meal plan may get thrown off this weekend, but this is what I’m planning to do with the ingredients we have on hand. Also, I’m planning on making an eggplant curry to serve as our lunches for this week. 

I’ll check back in when it comes time to do so, and I’ll write about my thoughts on each recipe, notes about adjustments I made, and of course, I’ll share pictures.