Review: Famous Dutch Kitchen Restaurant Cookbook

I wrote this review in 2006 and thought I would share it here now. Hope you enjoy.

Famous Dutch Kitchen Restaurant Cookbook
Family-Style Diner Delights from the Heart of Pennsylvania, A Road
Food Cookbook
Jane and Michael Stern with recipes by Tom and Jennifer Levkulic
2004 ISBN 1-4016-0138-3 Hard back
Rutledge Hill Press, Nashville, TN
B&W photos and inset 8 pages color photos

Contents:
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Breakfast
Breads and Muffins
Dressings, Sauces and Spreads
Salad Bar Specials
Soups
Side Dishes
Lunch
Dinner
Sweets

Jane and Michael Stern have written a number of road food books and
are experts on regional food. According to the inside back flap they
have published more tan 30 books on food and popular culture. This is the
first one I've had the pleasure of holding and reading. I checked it out
a the library recently when it caught my eye in the new to the library
section.

I have enjoyed their very popular roadfood.com web site, which was
named site of the year by yahoo and top 100 site by PC Magazine. I also
enjoyed Risa's review in our yahoo cookbook group of The Loveless Cafe Cookbook last year after her family ate there and she picked up the book on their vacation. I think
Loveless Cafe is another road food book.

Tom and Jennifer Levkulic own and run The Dutch Kitchen in PA. In the
foreword Jennifer says; "Not everyone can make it to the Dutch Kitchen
Restaurant to enjoy Pennsylvania Dutch cooking and Frachville
hospitality, but now we can come to you though these photographs, stories, and
recipes, which we are glad to share. ....."

Any one who has enjoyed eating at a diner knows they have killer
desserts and from the recipes in the sweets section The Dutch Kitchen looks
like no exception. I was enjoying this book after Sarita and I got back
from the library and realized we had all the ingredients for the
Chocolate Fudge Cake and The Creamy Peanut Butter Icing, it suggests to go on
top. Since PB and chocolate are favorites of everyone in this house
execpt Dexter, who doesn't care much for chocolate and I did make him a
Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing last week, I knew wanted to try this recipe.
It got killer reviews from Harold, Andrew, Sarita and me too! It was a very easy cake to make as well. It also suggests you try the PB icing on the Banana Cake on page 187 and I
actually had all the ingredients for that except the all important bananas,
but may try that next time we're craving something sweet since even
Dexter would enjoy that one I'm sure.

We love Pierogies around here but have never tried making our own,
since there's a great sounding Cheese and Potato Pierogie recipe in this
book I may have to try it. I'd actually never heard of Pierogies until
a few years ago one of Harold's former business associate and friend
who is of Polish heritage introduced them to us and it was love at first
bite as they say. We often get them in the frozen section of the
supermarket now.

I enjoy trying new regional foods and also learning about them. I was
delighted to learn something new from this book. For instance: one
recipe is for Turkey Pot Pie with Noodles, under the recipe it says
"First-time visitors to this part of PA often are confused over the term pot
pie. Somehow, the rest of the nation thinks of pot pie as a pie with a
crust that pockets chicken or turkey and vegetables. Here, pot pie is a
kind of stew featuring thick, soft noodles."

I love pickles, relishes, chow-chows, jams and jellies and enjoyed
reading about seven sweets and seven sours in this book. According to one
chapter Penn Dutch tables are known for a culinary tradition of setting
out a wonderful dinner spread and including 7 Sweets and 7 Sours,
sometimes more, to show off the hostesses skills of canning, pickling and
curing. They also tell of an interesting festival held the 3rd weekend in
Sept in Kitchen Kettle Village in Intercourse, PA, called the 7 Sweet
and 7 Sour Festival. It was started over a quarter century ago as a way
to celebrate the harvest and show off cooks skills at making local
vegetables into condiments and relishes. If you go you can taste
traditional chow-chows, red beet eggs, three bean salads, 4 berry jelly, hot
pepper jam, pickled portobellos and peanut butter schmier among other
things. I found out PB schmier is a chocolate peanut butter spread.

I know some of you don't care for colored ink in your cookbooks and
this one has ingredients written in red ink, the rest of the text is in
black. I have one complaint about this book. I noticed this in a few of
the recipes. Not sure if it's a practice they do in all the road food
books or not. An example is on page 12 in the Sticky Buns from Scratch
recipe: for sugar it says 6 plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar. I
though 6 cups would be too much but 6 tablespoons didn't sound like enough.
I couldn't figure it out until I read the directions and it was indeed
6 T. Same recipe for butter: 4 plus 3 plus 1 tablespoon butter,
softened (1 stick total). This one was a little easier since I know a stick
of butter is 8 T. Maybe it's just me but I found this a confusing way to
list amounts of ingredients. Thank goodness it was only in a few
recipes.

If you enjoy eating at diners and or reading about them, just want
some good regional recipes or are planning a road trip to PA, then this
would be a good book to check out.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup cocoa
1 cup milk
1 cup coffee (it notes that it's cold prepared coffee and not coffee
grounds)
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs
Creamy Peanut butter icing

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix together all execpt the icing. Pour into 2
greased and floured 9 inch round cake pans. Bake 30 minutes. Once Cool,
spread icing between layers and over top and sides. 12 servings

Creamy Peanut Butter Icing

5 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a mixing bowl beat all ingredients with a mixer until smooth and
creamy.
Makes 7 cups