Book Review: The Urban Pantry: Tips and Recipes for a Thrifty, Sustainable & Seasonal Kitchen

You can check out the book here!

A few months ago I acquired Amy Pennington’s book on sustainable pantries in a concrete jungle.  OK, to be fair, it fell into my hands at a local nature center gift shop and refused to leave me alone until I had purchased it and brought it home.  The book focuses on maintaining a frugal, simple, and delicious pantry with top-notch ingredients, all while living in a tiny city apartment.

As soon as I invested in this book I began to feel a twinge of buyers remorse.  Really… what would I ever use this book for?  It was all about using whole grains, preserving vegetables, and handling chicken carcasses (yuck!).  Over the last few months, however, this book has continually jumped off the bookshelf and into my hands.  For example, when I accidentally left the bread uncovered for a whole weekend, Urban Pantry told me to turn it into breadcrumbs!

One of my favorite parts of the book is the discussion surrounding stock.  I had heard of it before, usually it involves a TV chef shouting something loud and startling, and then discussing the special stock they spent hours making the night before.  This book is different.  The vegetable stock recipe Amy provides is simple, flexible and frugal.  She even recommends reusing scraps from your recent frugal cooking adventures (by scraps I mean, bits of carrot, celery, other vegetables otherwise destined for the compost bin).  No new messes, yelling, or grocery store runs involved.

The book is divided into chapters that discuss different cooking topics.  Some chapters include “Stocking the Pantry” and “Kitchen Economy,” while others are more food-group-specific such as “Cooking with Eggs,” or, simply, “Nuts”.

The bottom line:  I love, love, LOVE her willingness to simplify otherwise complicated and intense cooking practices.  She devotes an entire chapter to small batch canning, for those times when you really want to make some jam, but don’t have the time/money/space to create 25 jars of it.  All in all, this is a book that appeals to those of us who want simple, delicious food, while maintaining a frugal environmentally friendly kitchen.