Weekend Cooking: Home Made in the Oven by Yvette Van Boven

You might remember that one of my favorite cookbooks from last year was Home Made Christmas by Yvette Van Boven. Well, one of my favorite cookbooks from this year is her Home Made in the Oven (Abrams, Oct. 15), which I received as part of the Abrams Dinner Party Program.

Home Made in the Oven was one of the cookbooks I took to Maine, and I ended up making two things from this book before we lost power (see posts from this week for more on that). I have bunches more recipes to try, and I will be sure to share photos of the finished dishes over on Instagram.

I love the layout of Van Boven's new book, which contains but three recipe chapters: vegetables, fish and meat, and baking. Of course, you'll also find an introduction, in which Van Boven provides tips about using and oven and buying the ingredients.

Before I even got to the recipes, I fell in love with the matte pages and photographs of the finished dishes. Each recipe is accompanied by cute drawings, some of which outline the recipe directions and others are more whimsical (see the cover and the scan). I also noticed that each recipe is presented with a month label, which indicates the best time of year to make that dish: sometimes because of seasonal ingredients and other times because we usually like something lighter in the summer and heartier in the winter.

Don't miss the recipe blurbs (aka introductions), because they contain personal stories, good information about the ingredients called for, and/or some history. For example, the introduction to the recipe I'm sharing today talks about quinoa: what it tastes like, whether it's ethically okay to eat it, and its nutritional value.

As I expect from Van Boven, the recipes in Home Made in the Oven are flavorful, easy to make, use basic ingredients, and will quickly become family favorites. Some of the vegetable recipes I have marked to try are Roasted Beet Salad with Fresh Spring Herbs (for April), Mushroom Flammkuchen (a kind of pizza for November), and Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes (for October).

Meat recipes include Comforting Meatballs (I made these and we loved them, for January), Chicken Gyro Wraps (for July, but I'm not waiting), and Salmon, Fennel, & Lemon with Spinach Miso-Mayo (for February). I love cookbooks that rely on fruit desserts, and Home Made in the Oven doesn't disappoint. I'm trying to decide between three different apple cakes, but the Clementine Yogurt Cake and Ginger-Orange Pantry-Clearing Cake also look really good.

The subtitle to Yvette Van Boven's Home Made in the Oven is "Truly Easy, Comforting Recipes for Baking, Broiling, and Roasting." I can fully attest to the easy and comforting, and I'd like to add "yummy." Vegetarians will find plenty of dishes to satisfy them, and the recipes are in fact easy enough for almost every home cook. I fully recommend Home Made in the Oven--you might want to add this to your holiday gift list. Here's a spread from the book: both dishes are vegetarian and both are on my try list (click image to enlarge):

I made the following broccoli dish and served it with a simple pan-sauteed meat, but this is hearty enough to be the main course. The leftovers heated up beautifully in the microwave, and we had it for a nice warming lunch. The house we were staying in didn't have the right baking dish, but the recipe came out perfectly. The only change I made was to use cashews instead of walnuts, only because that's what we had on hand up in Maine.

Quinoa & Broccoli from the Oven
Serves 4

• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (150 g) quinoa (any color)
• Scant 2 cups (450 ml) vegetable stock or water (I used chicken stock)
• 1 pound 7 ounces (650 g) broccoli florets (2 heads)
• 4 tablespoons (60 ml) olive oil, plus extra for greasing the baking dish
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Pinch of red pepper flakes
• 1 garlic clove, pressed
• 1 1/2 cups (150 g) shredded cheese, such as Cheddar or Gouda (I used white Cheddar)
• About 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon (250 ml) vegetable stock or milk (I used chicken stock)
• Handful of shelled walnuts (I used pecans)

Preheat the oven to 400F (200C).

Cook the quinoa for 20 minutes in the scant 2 cups of stock until all the liquid has been absorbed. Remove from the heat and let evaporate for 10 minutes.

Combine the broccoli with the 2 tablespoons of oil, and salt and pepper to taste, arrange on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Roast for 20 minutes.

Toast the nuts in a dry skillet until crunchy; break into pieces.

Lower the oven temperature to 350F (180C). Mix the cooked quinoa with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic, two-thirds of the cheese, and the remaining stock until thoroughly combined.

Fold in the broccoli until they're entirely coated. Scoop this into a greased baking dish [I suggest  9 by 13 inch] and sprinkle with the remaining cheese and the nuts. Bake the dish for 25 minutes.

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