Van Boven: Home Made Winter

Yvette Van Boven - and pasta

Get ready for winter with Yvette Van Boven. Home Made Winter (Abrams 2012) follows on her first book, Home Made (see Super Chef review) with plenty of robust, comforting and sweetly tempting food to see you through even the harshest of winters.

Home Made Winter by Yvette Van BovenThe first three chapters are on breakfast and brunch, cakes and sweet things for tea and finally drinks. But if you are having some friends over for dinner, turn to the chapter called “to start” and learn how to make Ossenworst (cured beef sausage) from Yvette’s cousin and partner (and expert sausage man) Joris. It’s not hard to do, though you do need help. Yvette writes that you eat the sausage raw and “it’s a bit like steak tartare.”

Yvette is fond of goat cheese. You’ll find it in Mini Goat Cheese Fondue (p. 109) a recipe in a drawing that is simple and easy to follow. It makes a great dip in its little ramekins. You could also try Butternut Crème with Goat Cheese Cream & Sage (p. 111) in which the deeply hued soup is topped with goat cheese and cream cheese in glasses, and then topped with fried sage leaves.

Yvette doesn’t shy away from the hearty such as s Whole Organic Chicken Stuffed with Pork, Veal & Sale Sausage (p. 168) that could stand in for turkey at Thanksgiving or Oxtail Stew & Beluga Lentils served over polenta (p. 189). Don’t miss her amazing desserts that include an unusual Sticky Chocolate Cake in Your Coffee Mug in 3 Minutes (p. 204) cooked in the microwave and yet tasting unusually rich and good.

As with Home Made, the book is filled with fun photographs by Oof Verschuren. It’s an exuberant book, and Super Chef hopes there are more Home Made books to come!

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