Seven Years of Plenty: a cookbook review

A great friend of mine, Linda Olsson, put together and published this cookbook "Seven Years of Plenty: The Best of the World's Basics" and she was generous enough to send me a copy to review. I was so excited! :)

A lot of us understand the importance of storing basic foods to provide sustenance in the case of an emergency, but then comes the common dilemma of "what do I do with all this stuff I've stored?"

To quote from the back cover of the book:

"Inspired by the limitless variety found in international cooking, Seven Years of Plenty brings together some of the best recipes made with commonly stored ingredients.

Eat what you store.

Enjoy what you eat.

Over half the world's population eats rice daily; beans are the main source of protein for most of the world; and bread is represented in nearly every culture around the globe"

I was so impressed and excited by all the different things I could try with just basic ingredients that I haven't tried before. I have 16 pages marked with recipes I want to try next!

For the purposes of this review though, I started with just a couple recipes.

First, French Bread. yummm. We have fallen prey to the temptation of picking up loaves of french bread from the grocery store bakery to have with dinner occasionally. Now, I think we have a recipe to replace that temptation! Homemade! Fresh! Easy! Delicious! What could be better? I have to admit I did cheat slightly and I used my bread machine on the manual setting to mix and knead the dough but then I shaped the loaves and followed her directions on rising, etc.

The bread was sooo good. mmmm, I loooove bread.

Next, I tried Baked Oatmeal. I've never made baked oatmeal before, but it sounded really good one morning, so I gave it a try.

I have to say, I've gotten used to eating my normal morning oatmeal without any sugar or sweetening (just fruit) so this seemed really sweet to me when I ate it for breakfast. But then my husband tried some and thought it was perfect as it was, so it must just be me. I still think it'd be delicious as a dessert with some vanilla ice cream! yummy.

Anyway - this is a terrific resource if you're looking to add variety to use some of the basic ingredients in your house. She also includes an "In A Pinch" section after each chapter for even simpler recipes for those situations when you're out of even basic basics (like eggs, for example).
So helpful!

Be sure to go check out more about it here!

{Bonus! Some samples of her recipes, including these, can be found here.}

And take a visit to her food storage blog by clicking on this cute button:

Stop by and say hello, she's friendly I promise!

(and as a side note, we think it's funny that Linda is from UT and now lives in VA. And I'm from VA and now live in UT. Who would have thought?! ;))