Recipes

Joy of Cooking at Home: Tips for Quarantine Cooking

23 April 2020

by John Becker and Megan Scott, author of Joy of Cooking

With stay-at-home orders in place around the country (and around the world) to flatten the curve, if there’s one thing we have all been doing more of during the pandemic, it’s cooking. And while that can be a chance to hone our culinary skills, it can also be stressful for those who don’t normally spend quite so much time in the kitchen, or who are balancing remote work and parenting. Luckily, the co-authors of the new edition of JOY OF COOKING, John Becker and Megan Scott, have been keeping us well stocked with handy tips, tricks, and recipes. For help making the most of what’s in your pantry with the least amount of effort, check out this roundup of their handy advice. —Tips on Life & Love Staff

Is your grocery unable to keep bread on the shelves? Here’s a step-by-step guide for how to make your own sourdough or levain starter.
Limiting grocery runs means needing your perishables to stay fresh. Don’t miss these tips for storing vegetables so they last as long as possible, inspired by John and Megan’s local grocery store, where they encountered a ransacked produce department.
Meal planning is more important than ever now that we’re eating all our meals at home—discover ways to conserve effort and resources with Streamlined Cooking tips from the new edition of JOY.
Learn how, if you start collecting flavorful kitchen scraps in a freezer bag now, you can make your own stock when it fills up.
Here’s everything you need to know about dried beans, a reliable source of vegetable protein that can sit in your pantry for a good long time.

John and Megan have also been sharing the dishes they have been cooking during the crisis in the JOY OF COOKING newsletter, which you can sign up to receive here.

Want more? Pick up a copy of JOY OF COOKING to discover why it’s a trusted kitchen classic beloved by everyone, including Joanna Gaines, Samin Nosrat, and the editors of Food & Wine.

Joy of Cooking
by Irma S. Rombauer

“Cooking shouldn’t just be about making a delicious dish—owning the process and enjoying the experience ought to be just as important as the meal itself. The new Joy of Cooking is a reminder that nothing can compare to gathering around the table for a home cooked meal with the people who matter most.” —Joanna Gaines, author of The Magnolia Table

“Generation after generation, Joy has been a warm, encouraging presence in American kitchens, teaching us to cook with grace and humor. This luminous new edition continues on that important tradition while seamlessly weaving in modern touches, making it all the more indispensable for generations to come.” —Samin Nosrat, author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

In the nearly ninety years since Irma S. Rombauer self-published the first three thousand copies of Joy of Cooking in 1931, it has become the kitchen bible, with more than 20 million copies in print. This new edition of Joy has been thoroughly revised and expanded by Irma’s great-grandson John Becker and his wife, Megan Scott.

John and Megan developed more than six hundred new recipes for this edition, tested and tweaked thousands of classic recipes, and updated every section of every chapter to reflect the latest ingredients and techniques available to today’s home cooks. Their strategy for revising this edition was the same one Irma and Marion employed: Vet, research, and improve Joy’s coverage of legacy recipes while introducing new dishes, modern cooking techniques, and comprehensive information on ingredients now available at farmers’ markets and grocery stores.

You will find tried-and-true favorites like Banana Bread Cockaigne, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Southern Corn Bread—all retested and faithfully improved—as well as new favorites like Chana Masala, Beef Rendang, Megan’s Seeded Olive Oil Granola, and Smoked Pork Shoulder. In addition to a thoroughly modernized vegetable chapter, there are many more vegan and vegetarian recipes, including Caramelized Tamarind Tempeh, Crispy Pan-Fried Tofu, Spicy Chickpea Soup, and Roasted Mushroom Burgers. Joy’s baking chapters now include gram weights for accuracy, along with a refreshed lineup of baked goods like Cannelés de Bordeaux, Rustic No-Knead Sourdough, Ciabatta, Chocolate-Walnut Babka, and Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza, as well as gluten-free recipes for pizza dough and yeast breads.

A new chapter on streamlined cooking explains how to economize time, money, and ingredients and avoid waste. You will learn how to use a diverse array of ingredients, from amaranth to za’atar. New techniques include low-temperature and sous vide cooking, fermentation, and cooking with both traditional and electric pressure cookers. Barbecuing, smoking, and other outdoor cooking methods are covered in even greater detail.

This new edition of Joy is the perfect combination of classic recipes, new dishes, and indispensable reference information for today’s home cooks. Whether it is the only cookbook on your shelf or one of many, Joy is and has been the essential and trusted guide for home cooks for almost a century. This new edition continues that legacy.

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