My family always gives me a hard time because I have a deep and abiding love for cookbooks. I read them like novels! In fact, when designing our kitchen, I knew that I wanted a bookshelf (floor to ceiling) where I could house all of them. I cook almost every night and I”m constantly trying new things as that helps to feed my creative outlet. The past couple of years, I’ve really focused on finding cookbooks that specifically have recipes for in season fruit and vegetables. Growing so much of our own food, during the growing season, I want to be sure that I have lots of ways to use the abundance of vegetables and fruit and to highlight the season’s flavors. I get great joy in feeding my family with homegrown food!

These are currently my favorite cookbooks to use during our growing season. Time and time again, these are the cookbooks that don’t let me down!

1. Of all of these cookbooks, Root to Leaf is the one I’ve had the longest and can vividly remember reading it cover to cover on a trip down to Charlestown. The author, Steven Satterfield, is a chef in Atlanta and I really appreciate how his book is broken down into season and type of vegetable or fruit. The recipes are fairly simple, highlighting the produce. I like how he introduces each vegetable with a description of how to pick and keep each one. My only complaint is that the spine on my book broke and so now I have loose pages!
2. Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison, is another one that organizes the recipes by vegetable. Again, she gives a ton of useful information about each vegetable, along with recipes for each one.
3. Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden actually breaks the year into 6 seasons instead of 4. His recipes have a lot of flavor, are really inventive and while we’ve really only focused on 3 or 4 of those seasons, they’ve been on regular rotation.
4. The Cook’s Atelier was a gift for my birthday this year. I love the personal stories and anecdotes throughout the book, including those about their local suppliers. Their entire lifestyle is very appealing to me and the gorgeous photos really bring that to life. A truly stunning book!
5. Ruffage: A Practival Guide to Vegetables by Abra Berens is also a new book for me. It’s recipes often seem like they are more of a guide rather than something that needs to be followed exactly. So I think it’s perfect for those that need ideas and an outline. It also has some “obscure” produce (ramps!) that one might not often find recipes for.
6. Cooking in Season by Brigit Binns is the cookbook that I’ve used the most this season. The photos are beautiful and with the exception of one recipe, everything has been really delicious! I highly recommend!

Tell me, what are your favorites? I’m always on the lookout for new ones (but don’t tell my family!).