Happily Homemade:Cooking with Love {A Book Review}

**Book received for review. All thoughts are 100% my own.

When talking about the early days of my marriage, I often share the story of our nightly dinners. And well, let's just say, we ate a LOT of rice! The truth was, at 19-20 years old, I really didn't know how to cook anything else. I could bake... but cooking? No, that was a new territory for me. But my husband never complained so...rice, it was!

Then he left the country and finally admitted to me, 'I really don't like rice'.

It was at that point that I came to the decision that I really needed to learn to cook. And so I set out on that mission. When my husband came home from that deployment, every day was yet another new recipe from the many cookbooks I'd collected. Most of them turned out great, but a few were just a little out of my league. But still, I cooked on. These says I'm a fairly good cook--- or so I'm told, but I still love a good cookbook to help me along.

Like the one I wanted to share with you today, Happily Homemade: Cooking with Love-

Does the question “What’s for dinner?” fill you with dread? Is the thought of looking for something to cook every day overwhelming? Popular food blogger and Pinterest celebrity Rachel Schultz has you covered in Happily Homemade, with 100 tasty recipes even a beginner can serve with pride.

Reinvigorating familiar dishes with interesting and unexpected flavor combinations, Rachel shares her go-to creations that always get rave reviews. Even with so much variety, Rachel’s approachable recipes include only ingredients you can find at your local grocery store. This gorgeous cookbook includes a photo of every recipe, plus essays and tips from Rachel (and her friends) on hospitality and making life easier in the kitchen.

Happily Homemade is all about celebrating food and joyfully loving others through cooking. Let Rachel show you how easy it can be to bring warmth and delight to everyone at your table by serving something happily homemade.

When I first opened up this cookbook, I couldn't help but wish that I had had this cookbook back in those early days of learning to cook. You see, this book doesn't just jump into the recipes as many do, but helps with those beginner tips that other cookbooks assume you already know- what temperature should meat be cooked to? what measurement does this equal too? how do I cut this recipe in half? what can I substitute this ingredient with? how long is this good for? These are questions that I know I have personally asked time and time again, and I loved being able to find them all in one place.

Then we get into the recipes themselves. Yum! Looking through there were so many I wanted to try. What I loved was these were not your typical beginner meals, but are more simple meals taken to the next level. Still, the recipes themselves were easy to follow and I know that these were recipes I could have personally created even in those post rice, just learning to cook days. I'm also a very visual person, so I really loved and appreciated the gorgeous full size photos next to each recipe. From entrees to snacks, desserts and even DIY seasoning mixes, this certainly is a cookbook that every cook, new and old would love to add to their collection.

Happily Homemade is available to purchase now.