The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook: 100 Delicious Heritage Recipes from the Farm and Garden

by Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Sandy Gluck, Brent Ridge

When Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge abandoned the big city for a goat farm, what started as a personal inquiry into natural living and reconnecting with the earth exploded into a wildly successful enterprise, Beekman 1802, named after their historic home. World-renowned for its handcrafted goat’s milk soaps and artisanal Blaak cheese, the organic lifestyle brand now has taken over the Beekman gardens as well. The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook is a delectable yearlong trip through the Beekman vegetable bounty and is packed with simple, delicious, and seasonal vegetable-forward recipes that will have readers counting down the months to green shoots every year.

Readers will find a stunning package featuring tomato jam and refrigerator dilly beans; salt-roasted new potatoes and corn cake stacks with arugula and Cheddar; marinated hangar steak and lima bean salad and grilled beets with ricotta, watercress, and almonds; and much more. With more than 90,000 Facebook fans and almost 20,000 Twitter followers who follow their every move, the Beekmans are fast becoming a household name that immediately conjures up on-trend images of vintage country, upscale Americana. The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook is fresh, informal, and vegetable-forward rather than vegetarian: omnivores welcome, and suitable for everyone.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction, Food

288 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2014

About the author

Josh Kilmer-Purcell is the New York Times best-selling author of I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir (Harper Perennial 2006), The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers (Harper 2010), and the novel Candy Everybody Wants (Harper Perennial 2008). He and his partner, Brent Ridge, are also the stars of Planet Green's The Fabulous Beekman Boys. Kilmer-Purcell writes a monthly column for OUT magazine, and contributes to NPR and numerous other publications. He and his partner divide their time between Manhattan and their goat farm in upstate New York, Beekman 1802.

Reviews

[megHan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. No other consideration was offered, expected or received.

If you ask me what I want to eat, more often than not I will tell you some sort of vegetables. Even when I was young, I would eat the things that most kids didn’t eat – and loved every bit of it. I was a vegetarian for several years and, even though I may occasionally eat some poultry or seafood now, I still would pick veggies first any day.

This is an amazing cookbook for all of you vegetable lovers out there as well as people who would like to find new ways to cook veggies. For those of you that don’t like your vegetables: try some recipes from this book and you will quickly change your mind.

Amazing pictures, lots of information, organized in a realistic way, and delicious sounding recipes that I can’t wait to try – these are the things that I love about cookbooks – and what this cookbook has. :)

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is worth looking at if only for the beautiful photos and illustrations. It made me want to visit the actual farm and see it all in person! There weren't as many recipes I wanted to try as I thought there would be. A lot of the recipes were just not my taste, but there were definitely a few I plan to try. I really like the other Beekman 1802 cookbooks because they all explore heirloom vegetables and recipes which I think are important to keep. If nothing else you can just enjoy all the beautiful pictures!

[Rachael K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I thought

This book wasn’t a cookbook in the sense that I can just pop out to Aldis, buy the ingredients, and cook up any of the recipes. Most of them seem to be catered more to the farm life. Maybe just their particular farm. I loved the pictures and quotes. It’s truly a charming book and I learned a lot from reading the tips, but in my current living situation, I just don’t have access to all the fresh herbs and interesting vegetables. Maybe someday!

[Sandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has some of the most beautiful photographs of vegetables and love the recipes too. It has good quotes as well. My fav is: "Tickle the earth with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest." by Douglas Jerrold.

[KC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Love these guys.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

a lot of interesting uses of vegetables but many of the recipies have very seasonal ingredients which may require farmers markets or specialty stores for those of us who are urban dwellers.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful pictures but there are only a few recipes that are my taste.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book as an e-book free to review from Netgalley. I would love to have a paper copy of it because - well, I prefer hard copies of cookbooks and it is so beautiful and useful. The book has recipes arranged by seasons and is beautifully adorned with photographs of vegetables growing in gardens, freshly picked, and cooked in recipes. On the bottom of each recipe page is an area to write your own notes. The recipes are often unique - like fried lemons and bacon popped popcorn, contain lots of butter and heavy cream and have good cooking tips. I learned that you can put lettuce in soup, and that if you soak potato wedges in ice water for 30 minutes before baking them, they come out crispy without being deep fried. I would have liked to see more photographs of the actual recipes themselves because I could not figure out how the summer squash lasagna rolls would work - does squash hang out the ends? I think this is a lovely cookbook that contains delicious recipes and I highly recommend it.

[Becki Iverson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was introduced to the Beekman 1802 via the "Bucolic Plague," which I adored, so naturally when I learned that Josh had written cookbooks, I had to follow up. I'm glad I did - this is a gorgeous book, some of which is intuitive, but some of which is extremely creative (beet chocolate cake, anyone? how about green veggies held in savory gelatin, or sweet fennel and deep fried lemons as a seafood side?).

This would be an awesome book for people who are unsure how to start eating/preparing/liking vegetables. Recipes range from the simplest (literally dump in a blender, hit pulse, and pour) to somewhat complex (roasting and grating roots to blend into a custard pie filling with homemade crusts), but the flavors are highly approachable, unique, and a great, creative way to process excess produce. I plan on copying out several before I send this back to the library - check it out for sure!

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh... A few interesting recipes; very little I would make. Good-looking, but certainly not the best-looking cookbook in your arsenal by any means. Just... meh.

And it's just a pet peeve, but it drives me insane when cookbooks waste space by putting blank pages in for you to write down your "family recipes", like their cookbook is the only cookbook you'll ever need to use for the rest of your life.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have access to a good farmer's market, you'll find a lot to try in this book. Nevertheless there were some really nice gems of recipes that got me putting them into my meal plan. It's a pretty cookbook with plenty of space for your own notes and additions to make it into a cookbook that you can use regularly.

[Kristal Stidham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully photographed, imaginative twists on old-fashioned comfort foods. I bought this directly from the Beekman Boys and am proud to support their enterprises. One caution about this cookbook though -- the boys use the word "heirloom" as a synonym for "classic". Don't expect to find specific recipes for your Cherokee Purple Tomatoes or Rattlesnake Beans.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The photography is fantastic, as is the layout and "look" of the book. It is visually interesting, that's for sure. Haven't tried any of the recipes, but several have piqued my interest. Would make a great gift for foodie friends.

[lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vegetables cheddar muffins.
Lots of recipes to keep in mind when I feel like I'm not eating enough vegetables, or cooking them the same way over and over.

[SilverReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always beautiful pictures. Would have liked to see more recipes but those that were there were inspiring.