KITCHEN GARDEN COOK FRESH AND SIMPLE MEALS FROM YOUR OWN HANDS

There are few things more rewarding than sitting down to enjoy a delicious meal made with fruits, vegetables, eggs, or honey harvested right outside your back door. This gorgeous kitchen gardening cookbook is filled with simple and inspiring recipes as well as practical, useful information for anyone interested in growing the foods they love to eat.

Little can match the pleasure of sitting down for a meal at a table laden with fruits, vegetables, or herbs from your own garden, along with eggs and honey from hand-raised chickens and bees. Whether you are an avid gardener with raised beds and a flock of chickens; grow a few herbs in pots on the kitchen windowsill; or purchase your seasonal ingredients from local farmers’ markets, you’ll find fresh ideas for cooking and gardening inside these pages.

With a focus on the “greatest hits” of a classic edible plot—tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, and berries, to name a few—author Jeanne Kelley guides you through the seasons of the garden and shows you how to plan and plant more than 40 different types of herbs, vegetables, and fruits, and to ensure that they thrive. For the more ambitious, Jeanne also gives tips and advice on raising chickens and keeping bees in your own backyard.

But this book is about much more than planting a kitchen garden and cultivating wholesome food at home. More than 100 easy-to-prepare recipes make use of this bounty, from fresh peach ice cream to shaved zucchini salad with almonds; cherry tomato and thyme frittata to honey-drizzled baked feta with anise and mint. Jeanne’s collection of irresistible dishes showcases the natural flavors of just-picked ingredients and provides plenty of inspiration for making the most of any homegrown harvest.

The Kitchen Garden Cookbook also features lavish photography and charming illustrations that take you on a tour of Jeanne’s garden and urban homestead and bring to life many of the beautiful dishes you can create from your produce. For home cooks and vegetable gardeners alike, this book is the go-to guide for anyone looking to connect the virtues of the homegrown and homemade to your everyday table.

Jeanne Kelley is a cookbook author, recipe developer, food stylist and contributor for such publications as Bon Appetit and Cooking Light. Her most recent cookbook, Salad for Dinner, was recently published in March 2012. She is also the author of the acclaimed Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes: Recipes from a Modern Kitchen Garden and Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library Holiday Baking. She and her husband, Martin, a landscape designer, live in Los Angeles along with a flock of chickens, a goat, two dogs, eight fruit trees, and a large plot in the community garden down the street.

Ray Kachatorian is a Los Angeles–based photographer who specializes in food, still life, fashion, and travel. His work has appeared in numerous Williams-Sonoma cookbooks, among them Good Food to Share, Grill Master, The Pasta Book, and Family Meals, winner of an IACP cookbook award. His photographs have graced the pages of many magazines, including Country Living, Better Homes and Gardens, and Coastal Living.