The Farmer's Kitchen Handbook: More Than 200 Recipes for Making Cheese, Curing Meat, Preserving, Fermenting, and More (Handbook Series)

Wow! Just like the food my mother used to make. Great home cooking.

This book is amazing in term of the layout, the pictures of the food, and even has background stories to many of the recipes. The New England bent to the book is also something I like because I consider New England my home although I am not originally from there or live there now. The best and most unique thing I like about the book is that the recipes are broken down into months of the year. This is great because recipes center around the foods common to that month and season. If you are looking for a cool book to read about food, recipes that are pretty easy to follow, and just a good book about food, this one is enjoyable!

Let's start with saying, there are plenty of decent recipes, but the layout is weird. There are thirteen different table of contents (ToC). Yes, thirteen. The main ToC separates the contents by month, but if you buy the eBook, it doesn't open on this page, so I missed it the first time I opened the book (and it would have affected the review negatively had I not gone back and looked, which leads to the weird layout note). I suppose being a farmer's kitchen, having it written by month would make sense considering you eat what is in season at that time. Each month has it's own ToC, and there is an Index. The author has a short paragraph preceding each recipe. Some are informative, others..... Well, not so much. They are more like blog-style quaint little "this is nice" that just leads into it. By all accounts, I feel like the author of this book drew a lot of inspiration from Ree Drummond.As with most good books, the introduction starts out with tips and food safety warnings. I do not agree with the pasteurizing milk information. Pasteurized milk is not healthy for the body, and if you can find good, quality raw milk from a reputable source, pasteurizing is not recommended. The author lost a star because of this because it is a subject I am very passionate about. Pasteurizing does kill the bad bacteria, but it kills off all the good bacteria. I could write a book about it, but there are already plenty out there to read. (wink) Moving on! As previously stated in another review, the title is very misleading. Where it gives the sense of "live off the land" or homestead vibe for preserving foods, this book just is not that (knock two more stars). It's more of a quaint book full of recipes for family dinners. I am impressed there are couple of dairy recipes, but there are better books out there if that's what you're looking for (might I suggest Milk Cow Kitchen by Mary Jane Butters).I can tell you, this person is not a farmer, though there are a lot of farming aspects associated in the formatting of the book, along with a lot of good recipes I plan on trying. SOPAPILLAS! For a free book? Definitely worth it. I would not buy a physical copy as the formatting does not suit it (IMO).

During the pandemic I, like many others, took to cooking as a way to spend the time. I also grew up on a farm and while I was present to make cheese and pickle or can what we grew in the garden; I was too young to really understand the process or recipe. This book brought that knowledge and much more to our suburban kitchen and is well worth the price. I enjoyed the way the recipes were written and the easy to follow directions. This former farm boy highly recommends this recipe book.

I really wanted to read this higher however there were a few missing pages that made reading it difficult and some of the recipes impossible. I would have rated this much higher if those pages haven't been missing in ITIT is really sad that they were missing in the 1st place.

Besides hundreds of recipes for delicious dishes you will find recipes for soap, shaving soap, silver cleaner, stain removers, clarified suet (fat), and other forgotten nostrums our ancestors used. There are a large number of food preservation methods which were used before we had refrigeration -- which may become important techniques again.Any chef, or cook who loves making great food, will like this book for it recipes and the large number of tips for easing kitchen tasks.

This is a wonderful resource with much handy information. Recipes are set up by month. Pictures are wonderful. It has many directions and recipes not usually included with other cookbooks. With so many shortages and I am told there will be even more food shortages, this book has instructions to make food go further. I love it.

Love the layout of this. Has seasonal produce by the month with recipes you can use it in. About 2-5 recipes per item. Some more for fruit. Wonderful.