Home Made Basics: Simple Recipes, Made from Scratch

We’ve previously featured other titles from Yvette Van Boven’s ‘Home Made’ series and have always enjoyed them. This one has a focus on simple, easy preparation while not sacrificing flavor. Fittingly, the book is free of any extraneous material and contains only five chapters - ‘Morning’, ‘Afternoon’, ‘Dinnertime’, ‘Dessert’ and, our favorite, ‘For Your Pets’. The book contains adorable illustrations throughout, photography by husband Oof Verschuren and over 400(!) recipes - resulting in a book whose weight will give readers a serious workout every time they page through it! Here are the dishes we made:• Brussels Sprouts-Apple Salad with Parmesan - Looking for #meatlessmonday inspiration? We got you! We used a small handheld mandolin to shave the Brussels sprouts (please be careful and use the guard!) before massaging with the shallot / garlic / mustard vinaigrette - which tenderizes them a bit. Then, toss in some thinly sliced lettuce, apple, Parmesan and some toasted sesame seeds. Hit everything with a bit of lemon juice and dinner (or lunch) is served!• Red Lentil Soup - The recipe offers several options to customize the soup based on your personal preferences and / or what you have on hand. In place of the chorizo, we grabbed some bacon we had in the fridge. A useful tip we’ve adopted is to buy cans of whole peeled tomatoes rather than diced or crushed. They pack more flavor and can be crushed by hand over the pan - which is strangely satisfying. Look for San Marzano, in particular. This is pretty straightforward - onions, carrots and cumin are sautéed before adding garlic, paprika, honey and a splash of red wine vinegar. Then, lentils and your hand-crushed tomatoes are added before simmering everything for long enough to watch an episode of your favorite sitcom. Finally, the soup is blended before topping with yogurt and chorizo (or bacon). Comfort food for uncomfortable times!• Little Chicken Bones - No, these aren’t ACTUAL chicken bones - just adorable chicken bone biscuits made from poached chicken breast, brown rice and stock. Our plan is to give these to our dog-owner friends for Christmas - unless Olive (pictured) eats them all herself.• Bean Salad with Crunchy Halloumi Chips & Red Jalapeño Dressing - We continue to preach the greatness of halloumi to anyone that will listen. This recipe offered a new technique to us - slicing it razor thin before frying it in a pan. The resulting “chips” add a pleasant, salty punch of flavor to this salad. The addition of orzo to the roster of beans (favas, peas and beans) makes this substantial enough to enjoy as a light and healthy dinner. The jalapeño dressing adds a touch of heat, while mint and lemon zest lend brightness to the plate.• Appetizer Wreath with Brie, Dried Fruits & Nuts - This adorable appetizer-sized portion is the perfect solution when you just want a light snack. Our junior high geometry skills were put to use while assembling the wreath - requiring us to cut a larger circle from our puff pastry sheet, then marking (but not cutting) a smaller circle before cutting eight “flaps” that are folded over the assembled ingredients. Math! The filling consisted of mango chutney, brie, pistachios, dried figs and apricots. You can really let your imagination run wild with potential filling ingredients.