Cooking Up the Good Life: Creative Recipes for the Family Table

Roasted figs with gorgonzola. Lemon miso soup. Harvest lasagna, lentil walnut burgers, and ginger molasses cookies. Veteran Minneapolis chef Jenny Breen knows that cooking at home can be a joyful, rewarding, and healthy experience for the whole family. In Cooking Up the Good Life, Jenny Breen—along with local writer and photographer Susan Thurston—presents a scrumptious journey through the seasonal ingredients of the upper Midwest with an enticing variety of her most-loved recipes for the family table.


Written with both beginner and experienced cooks in mind, each section in Cooking Up the Good Life—from starters and sauces to soups, salads, main courses, and sweets—is organized by season to help bring our daily meals into harmony with local harvests. Recipes include imaginative “Family Kitchen” segments that suggest safe, fun ways to get kids involved. An advocate for inviting children into the kitchen, Breen has found that they are more apt to eat what they are connected to, whether by growing the vegetables, feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs, or helping prepare the food.


Cooking at home is also an opportunity to discover more about the ingredients we use and the people who bring them to our grocery stores, our farmers markets, and ultimately to our tables. Featuring refreshingly simple, creative, and unfussy recipes, Cooking Up the Good Life’s relaxed and encouraging style helps you cook with ease and serve with confidence wholesome dishes that highlight the natural beauty and elegance of Midwestern seasonal ingredients. Oh, yes—and they’re absolutely delicious. But don’t just take our word for it.

Jenny Breen is a chef, food educator, and co-owner of Good Life Catering in Minneapolis. She is the resident chef for all Heartland Food events at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, and she and her recipes have been featured in numerous publications including, the Minneapolis–St. Paul Star Tribune.Susan Thurston is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in many journals and publications, including the Minneapolis–St. Paul Star Tribune, Minnesota Monthly, Fox Cry Review, and Icon. She is the author of the chapbook Wild Bone Season, and the recipient of many awards.