Hello!  This is my books page -- All the books I have written.  Yes, it is a large number, but not all of them are still in print and some  recipes were recombined into other books.  Early on in my career, a cookbook editor suggested I focus my writing on what I want to eat and feed to my family.  That led to a focus on vegetables and dinner most nights when my kids were growing up was a recipe test. Right now I am relaxing by cooking by instinct, not with recipes.  That is actually what the Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How is all about -- acquiring the skills to cook by instinct -- with handy how-tos and charts for all the preserving you might do.

I'm not set up for taking book orders online.  But all of my books are available at the usual online stores and all can be ordered from your local bookstore.  Visit Indiebound.org to find an independent bookstore near you.  Or visit Powells.com, the largest independent bookseller for online ordering.

The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How: Field-to-Table Cooking Skills shows you how to bridge the gap between field and table, whether it's from your own homestead or local agriculture. It covers everything from curing meats and making sausage to canning fruits and vegetables, milling flour, working with sourdough, baking no-knead breads, making braises and stews that can be adapted to different cuts of meat, rendering lard and tallow, pickling, making butter and cheese, making yogurt, blanching vegetables for the freezer, making jams and jellies, drying produce, and much more.

You’ll learn all the techniques you need to get the most from fresh foods, along with dozens of simple and delicious recipes, most of which can be easily adapted to use whatever you have available.

The Pickled Pantry: From Apples to Zucchini, 150 Recipes for Pickles, Relishes, Chutneys & More contains more than 150 recipes for pickles, relishes, chutneys, salsas, sauerkraut and kimchi. I got addicted to kimchi in the process of testing recipes for this book.  And I hope you will, too!

This is a book for beginners and experienced picklers alike.  It includes both fresh-pack and fermented pickle recipes - and recipes for large and small quantities.  A whole chapter of single-jar recipes enables you to customize the recipe to the size of your harvest.  And once your pantry is fully stocked, you'll find recipes for delicious ways to use your pickles in prepared dishes.

Recipes from the Root Cellar: 250 Fresh Ways to Enjoy Winter Vegetables

Nothing tastes better than the seasonal bounty of local farms, including the hearty, long-lasting bounty of the autumn garden. Whether these vegetables are eaten straight from the garden, out of a well-tended root cellar, or straight from the market, their flavors reward the home cook, and their nutritional benefits pack a powerful punch.

Sweet winter squashes, robust hardy greens, jewel-toned root vegetables, and potatoes of every variety are the staples that make eating locally so delicious and satisfying during the cold months of late autumn and winter.

These cold-weather treasures work wonderfully well in soups (Celery Root Bisque, Creamy Leek and Root Vegetable Soup, Portuguese Kale Soup) and baked entrees (White Lasagna with Winter Squash, Chicken Pot Pie with Root Vegetables, Winter Vegetable Pot Roast), but they also shine in winter salads. Warm Goat Cheese and Beet Salad; Endive, Pear, and Walnut Salad; and Thai Cabbage Salad can be the centerpieces of light winter dinners or delicious preludes to the main event.

With this collection of more than 250 recipes, locavores in all parts of North America can eat seasonal produce year-round. Whether they’re eaten in soups or salads, side dishes or entrees, root-cellar vegetables can be a delicious part of every cooks winter kitchen.

250 Treasured Country Desserts:Mouthwatering, Time-honored, Handed-down, Soul-satisfying Sweet Comforts

Warm-from-the-oven classic desserts make everyone feel good. Here are more than 250 mouth-watering recipes for homemade desserts. Whatever the occasion, the perfect treat is described with clear, easy-to-follow instructions and guaranteed to yield delicious results. (My co-author, Fran Raboff, is a meticulous recipe tester! AC)

These are the cakes that children request for their birthdays, the whoopee pies and blondies that are the first things to go at bake sales, the shortcake that celebrates strawberry season, and the pies and cobblers that accompany the apple harvest. When a friend needs cheering, a dense, not-too-sweet gingerbread or a marbled brownie lifts the spirits. Rough week at work? Creamy, raisiny rice pudding soothes jangled nerves.

With 40 cookie creations, 42 pretty pies, 36 fruity crisps and cobblers, and puddings, meringues, squares, slumps, bombs, and buckles galore, the possibilities for sweet satisfaction are endless. Bakers will also find just-right recipes for the crusts, frostings, toppings, and accompaniments that add so much to dessert classics. Little-known food anecdotes and historical tidbits drawn from three centuries of cookery books round out this addictive dessert collection. It's just the thing for every baker.

Written with co-author Fran Raboff, this collection is an expanded version of Mom’s Best Desserts, with 140 new recipes.

The New Vegetarian Grill: 250 Flame-Kissed Recipes for Fresh, Inspired Meals

The James Beard Award-nominated guide to preparing delicious vegetarian recipes on the grill is back, featuring contemporary flavors and ingredients and the very latest in modern grilling trends. The New Vegetarian Grill, a revised and updated edition of the classic book by Andrea Chesman, presents 250 healthy, flavorful recipes—50 of which are brand new—for vegetarians and grill aficionados alike. The New Vegetarian Grill is filled with an incredible variety of vegetarian dishes designed for the grill, including appetizers and soups, fresh salads, sandwiches and burgers, tasty wraps, pizza and flatbreads, flame-kissed pasta, juicy kabobs, and grilled desserts.

With Andrea’s vegetable-grilling expertise, both newcomers to grilling and dedicated grill hands can create fast, easy vegetarian meals, from simple recipes for vegetables that do well on the grill to more elaborate fare suitable for any occasion. All are ideal for gas grills, charcoal grills, or even an open campfire.

James Beard Award nominee, first edition

Serving Up the Harvest: 175 Simple Recipes Celebrating the Goodness of Fresh Vegetables

What to do with those mystery vegetables that arrive with your CSA order? How to prepare an armload of summer squash? Where to turn for new sweet corn preparations? How do you cook unfamiliar root vegetables? These are the questions vegetable-lovers grapple with as they pick fresh-from-the-garden produce in their own backyards or from the ever-expanding farmers’ markets. Garden-fresh vegetables are so beautiful, yet their freshness so fleeting.

Andrea Chesman is a cook and gardener who knows what it’s like to be staring down pounds of vegetables and panicking about how to use them all before it’s too late. Simple. Delicious. Planned to fit the season.

The vegetables are organized seasonally by crop-readiness, with attention paid to combining vegetables that ripen together. All the favorites — spring salad greens, asparagus, broccoli, carrots, peas, potatoes, and more — are included, along with the more unusual — artichokes, endive, rutabagas, and edamame, to name a few. Popular techniques such as roasting and grilling accentuate the flavor in recipes such as Grilled Chicken and Asparagus Salad, Soy-Sesame Grilled Eggplant, and Maple Roasted Carrots. There are many vegetarian options, but even when combined with meat, vegetables get top billing. From Egg Rolls to Borscht, Caponata to Sweet Potato Pie, Serving Up the Harvest has dishes destined to please every palate.

To address those nights when the mounds of vegetables are just too overwhelming to try a whole new recipe, Chesman includes fourteen master recipes for simple preparation techniques that can accommodate whatever is in the vegetable basket. Readers need only to learn the basics of preparing a creamy quiche, a bubbly gratin, a basic stir-fry, or a zesty lo mein, and then it’s easy to create new meals every month around the freshest assortments of seasonal vegetables.

Mom's Best Crowd-Pleasers: 101 No-Fuss Recipes for Family Gatherings, Casual Get-Togethers & Surprise Company

This book is fun, relaxed, and informal. So forget the stressful dinner party for twelve. How many home cooks really drag out the china, silver, and linen these days? From a hungry group of the kids’ friends looking for afternoon munchies to a potluck office farewell party to a 4th of July barbecue for the neighborhood, today’s typical gatherings are casual occasions to share hearty, homemade food.

Mom’s Best Crowd-Pleasers is full of recipes that reflect the way Mom really cooks today, simply tailored to feed eight or more people. Green Chile Quesadillas, Keftedhes, and Guacamole with chips are all simple finger foods perfect for after-work get-togethers, book club meetings, and informal baby showers. Cold Sesame Noodles, Jerk Chicken, Greek-Style Lamb Burgers with Tzatziki are imaginative and unexpected at backyard cookouts, tailgate parties, and summer pool parties. And Cheesy Noodle Bake, Cuban Black Beans, and Pulled Chicken Barbecue will attract happy fans whenever the potluck gathering calls for a hearty hot dish.

Most recipes are designed to feed eight hungry people, but author (and home cook) Andrea Chesman provides advice throughout on expanding recipes, stretching dishes when the dinner seating unexpectedly grows from eight to eleven people, using clever shortcuts that make cooking for a crowd no more difficult than cooking for four, and generally maintaining a degree of sanity as more people come flooding through the front door.

As always, Chesman’s primary accomplishment is to provide homey, hearty tastes that satisfy modern palates, yet still bear the unmistakable stamp of Mom’s Best. (Many of my family’s favorite recipes, including Braised Chicken Provencale, Braised Lamb Shanks with Vegetables, Pastitsio, and All-American Potato Salad are in this collection.

Mom's Best One-Dish Suppers: 101 Easy Homemade Favorites, As Comforting Now As They Were Then

Comfort food is an essential part of the way we eat. Even the busiest among us have to slow down occasionally, and when we do there's nothing quite as satisfying as a bowl of Chicken Noodle or Potato Leek Soup.

Mom’s Best One-Dish Suppers is designed to help today’s home cooks pare everything down, liven things up, and entice the whole family to the dinner table while minimizing fuss and cleanup. New England Seafood Chowder, Chicken & Dumplings, and Beef Stew get ladled straight from the soup pot to main-course bowls on chilly nights. The simple skillet is every cook’s friend and can be used to produce delicious dinners as diverse as Curried Chicken & Broccoli Pilaf and Stovetop Mac ‘n Cheese with Ham and Peas. Add family-pleasing ideas for Oven-Baked Meals and Salad Suppers—Mexican Lasagna, Chicken Tetrazzini, Oven-Baked Pot Roast with Vegetables, Shrimp & Avocado Salad, Tuscan Tuna Salad with White Beans, Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad—and the busiest cook is armed with 101 favorites for every season. (My son took this book with him to college. Italian Wedding Soup, Jambalaya, Seafood Paella. Who could live without them? AC)

The Roasted Vegetable: How to Roast Everything from Artichokes to Zucchini for Big, Bold Flavors in Pasta, Pizza, Risotto, Side Dishes, Couscous, Salsa, Dips, Sandwiches, and Salads

The best way to highlight the flavors of vegetables is by roasting, and this book provides everything you know to both roast vegetables and combine them with pasta, stuff them in to sandwiches, include them in salads, scatter them on pizzas. In addition to 150 mouth-watering vegetarian recipes, the book includes a thorough chart listing vegetables and their roasting times, as well as any special methods required (e.g., wrapping beets in foil). Side dishes are exceedingly simple: World's Best Green Beans are tossed with olive oil and salt, then roasted; Quick Roasted Corn receives much the same treatment. More complicated recipes combine various roasted components, such as an Indian Summer Pepper Relish with scallions and basil, and Cranberry-Nut Wild Rice Salad with a sherry vinegar and Dijon mustard vinaigrette. With recipes from simply sensational sides like Mixed Roasted Mushrooms in a Soy Vinaigrette to satisfying main dishes like Baked Orzo with Roasted Fennel and Red Peppers, vegetable lovers and vegetable haters alike will find here tasty, tempting dishes that don’t require a lot of fuss. (You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted roasted green beans. AC)

The Classic Zucchini Cookbook: 225 Recipes for All Kinds of Squash

Nancy C. Ralson, Marynor Jordan, and Andrea Chesman

Members of the squash family are readily available for year-round eating — from summer’s bounty of zucchini and summer squash to the fall and winter sweetness of the acorn and butternut varieties. Here are 225 delicious recipes that bring all kinds of healthful squash to today’s tables. (Garden Way's Zucchini Cookbook was first published in 1990. I revised and updated this 1990 classic, adding about 90 of my own recipes, including Zapple Pie with a Struesel Topping and Squoconut Custard Pie, and reworking some of the older ones. There’s a lot less cream of mushroom soup and Jell-o than in the original! 

366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans, and Grains

Andrea Chesman presents 366 creative and flavorful "natural gourmet" recipes using a wide variety of beans and grains, like basmati and jasmine rice, adzuki beans, amaranth, and quinoa. Organized by course and main ingredient, these dishes range from light and lively starters to hearty and soul-satisfying foods that stick to your ribs but not to your waistline. American favorites are well represented here, but adventurous cooks will be pleased to find ethnic cuisines dominating this mouthwatering collection, including such recipes as Spicy Vegetable Couscous, Pesto Pasta with Cranberry Beans, Smoky Black Bean Burritos, and Jamaican-Style Rice and Peas

This wonderful addition to our 366 Ways series features foods that are among the most versatile and healthful in the human diet, not to mention absolutely delicious. Recipes are high in flavor, low in fat. Each recipe includes a detailed nutritional analysis, which counts calories, fat, percentage of calories from fat, protein, fiber, sodium, and calcium.

Vegetarian dishes dominate the collection, but healthful variations include salmon, shrimp, and chicken.

Andrea Chesman's Out of Print Titles:

All-American Dessert Cookbook

Pasta Salads

Pickles and Relishes: 150 Recipes from Apples to Zucchini

Salad Suppers

Salsas!

Skillet Suppers

Summer in a Jar

Sun-Dried Tomatoes