{Featured Partner}
Domestic Chic: A Fashionably Fabulous Guide to Cooking & Entertaining by the Seasons
Publisher: Waldorf Publishing
Publication Date: September 2015
Featured Recipe: Sollenne Family Rice Balls
Rising culinary star Chef Kristin Sollenne has been making headlines for her contemporary food philosophy, approachable cooking tips, and reimagined healthy dishes. Rather than the usual, sometimes overwhelming cookbook approach, in Domestic Chic Kristin provides the ultimate go-to guide for cooking and entertaining by the seasons. With 16 pre-planned menus and over 100 recipes with innovative décor tips to coincide with holidays and celebrations during each season, this is your “one-stop-shop” for hosting a fashionably fabulous affair! Plus, as a certified nutritionist, Kristin focuses on fresh in-season produce to guide your palette. Passionate about healthy, flavorful dishes, she demonstrates a modern, farm-to-table approach to traditional Italian-style cooking.
Cooks&Books&Recipes Editors {Dee}:
Just as the subtitle suggests, I found this cookbook to be fabulous — for several reasons. First is its organization. I love to discover recipes, but putting them all together into a menu for a party or even just for a dinner at home can be tricky. In Domestic Chic: A Fashionably Fabulous Guide to Cooking & Entertaining by the Seasons, Kristin Sollenne does it for me. The cookbook sections are seasonal: Winter Wonderland, Splendid Spring, Summer Sizzle, and Harvesting. Within each section are menus, for example Football Mania, St. Paddy’s Picnic, All About the D-A-D, Rock-toberfest. And each menu includes the recipes. Fabulous!
Second, Sollenne doesn’t stop with the recipes and menus. She also provides entertaining and decor tips. For Football Mania, she suggests the easy and affordable idea of wrapping your tables with Astroturf using double-stick, heavy-duty tape. “You can add to your buffet table by using colorful sports flags on toothpicks or straws to create a field.” Finally, use football-shaped plates, found at any party supply store. Fabulous!
Third, Sollenne focuses on Italian food (one of my favorites), but she does so by modernizing her family recipes that have been passed down through the generations. After her father had a heart attack, the self-taught chef wanted to create meals that were nutritious yet still satisfying. She centers most of her menus on farm-fresh vegetables and herbs, lean proteins, whole grains, and heart-healthy olive oil while limiting the amount of butter and cream. She explains: “You can still cook satisfying, great-tasting dishes on the lighter side when you use fresh, in-season products. Or I’ll make pasta with whole wheat, or spinach spaghetti, so it’s not just all about heavy starches.” Fabulous!
My fourth reason? The aprons. Sprinkled throughout the book are photos of the chef wearing the cutest aprons. These are from her own line of kitchen-couture designer aprons, which can be ordered from her CELLINI website. I can’t decide on my favorite, but I’ve narrowed the choice down to two: the color block with red or the one with black-and-white stripes (see the photo of Sollenne below). Fashionably Fabulous!
Domestic Chic: The Cookbook Basics
Hardcover (7 x 10 inches)
284 pages, color photos, 100+ recipes
My next-to-try recipes: Lemon Pancakes; Grilled Angus Sirloin Steak with Barolo Reduction Sauce; Asparagus Oreganata; Avocado Vinaigrette; California Almond Fudge Pie; and the full New Year’s Bash menu.
Kristin Sollenne
About the author: As a rising culinary star and Food Network Judge, Kristin Sollenne has a contemporary food philosophy for lightened-up Italian fare with approachable cooking tips. She makes regular appearances on WCBS’s Morning News and WLNY’s Live from the Couch and has been featured on NBC’s Today Show, Fox5 Good Day New York, Fox Business The Willis Report, FOX Friday Night Live, Arise 360 Entertainment, and the Food Network as a guest judge on Beat Bobby Flay and Kitchen Casino. In 2014, she was featured on season ten of Food Network Star as a mentor to finalist Luca Della Casa.You can find Kristin Sollenne on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Cookbook Giveaway
Thanks to Waldorf Publishing, we’re giving away a copy of Domestic Chic: A Fashionably Fabulous Guide to Cooking & Entertaining by the Seasons to one lucky Cooks&Books&Recipes reader. Enter below.
Giveaway Notes:
There are six ways to enter the giveaway, but it’s not necessary to do all six entries. Choose whichever one(s) you like, and you’ll be entered in the giveaway. The winner, to be randomly selected and notified by e-mail, must claim the cookbook within 10 days. Giveaway ends on Sunday, October 4, 2015.
Disclosure: We receive cookbooks for possible inclusion on Cooks&Books&Recipes, though we make no promise that all books received will be posted on the site. We highlight only those cookbooks that we feel will interest our readers. We also choose which cookbooks to include in our Featured Partner program. All opinions are our own. For this giveaway, the publisher is providing one copy of the book.
Domestic Chic
This book looks amazing!
Looks like something fresh and new. I need some new ideas for the holidays.
I would love to win a copy of Domestic Chic: A Fashionably Fabulous Guide to Cooking & Entertaining by the Seasons. I do a lotof entertaining and this would be well used.
looks like an interesting one
Always looking for new recipes!
Sounds like my kinda book amazing!~
I would love to read this book.
Love this! I’d be so excited if I won! I’d love to have some fresh new recipes for our new house!
I would love to have more recipes for entertaining.
This looks like a great book, thanks!
Always looking to try healthy new recipes.
Everyone in the family except for me love to cook. I would love this for a gift.
I love books like this. They give me great ideas for shaking up my routine.
Now that I am home more, I really want to be able to make better fancier treats for formal get togethers. Thank you
I’m getting so excited for the holidays I love entertaining, this book looks very handy.
ooh! just in time for the holidays!
I received my book. Thank you so much!!
Dee, Cooks&Books&Recipes replied: — November 14th, 2015 @ 12:04 pm
Thanks for letting me know. And happy cookbook reading! ~Dee