Jack Bishop is my New Hero!

After my shopping for all of my fresh produce last weekend, I was looking forward to making some delicious meals with my new ingredients. I knew they would taste wonderful because they were fresh, but beyond that, I really had little idea of what I should do with them. I imagined I would be spending every evening, on the computer, or my iPhone, searching frantically on recipezaar.com for the perfect vegetable recipe. I further imagined that through these searches I would find a short list of pleasing recipes that were simple enough to use over and over again.

My new Veggie-Bible!

On Tuesday night, however, something wonderful happened - I ended up in Barnes & Noble. I decided to mosey over to the cookbook section to see if I could glean any veggie knowledge from a quick perusal of some cookbooks in stock. After about two minutes, I was sitting on the floor, cross-legged, with a small pile of vegetable cookbooks in front of me and Vegetables Every Day by Jack Bishop opened in my lap. I was in instant "book-love." I knew I wouldn't need to look at any of the other books in the pile in front of me and I knew I would not be searching the internet for my veggie recipes!

Jack Bishop put together an alphabetical listing of all types of vegetables, wrote an introduction for each and followed each up with a number of recipes that are both simple and enticing. My mouth was watering as I read each recipe. I felt like I should be taking notes as I read each introduction. I wondered if people would judge me if they saw me in the supermarket or at the farmer's market carrying around my new cookbook to reference it as I attempted to pick out the freshest and tastiest vegetables. I wanted to go home and cook all of the vegetables in my kitchen even though we had already eaten dinner and it was well past nine pm!

I brought the book with me to work the next day to show everyone I could. I felt that everyone needed to have their own copy of Bishop's book. On Wednesday afternoon, I started cooking right away when I entered the house - I wanted to try Bishop's Roasted Asparagus and his Roasted Potatoes with Garlic and Rosemary. Both recipes were simple, they did not require a ton of ingredients, and they were DELICIOUS. My husband and I were blown away by the amazing flavors and became instant super-fans of Jack Bishop!

I am looking forward to my next shopping trip, so I can finally feel free to buy nearly any vegetable I see with the confidence that I will have something to do with it when I get home. I am taking notes in my cookbook to try to see how many of the recipes I can try. I am excited by the entire adventure and owe Jack Bishop a huge THANK YOU!!