Let's Stay In

More than 120 Recipes to Nourish the People You Love

Contributors

By Ashley Rodriguez

Formats and Prices

Price

$28.00

Price

$35.00 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Hardcover $28.00 $35.00 CAD
  2. ebook $14.99 $19.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around October 9, 2018. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

A Cozy Take on Meals Will Have You Stoking the Home Fires!

Author Ashley Rodriguez has focused her career on teaching people the importance of a good meal at home, first with Date Night In, a relationship cookbook that brought the romance back to home-cooked meals at home. For her next book, she’s turning the focus outward. Let’s Stay In is all about effortless hospitality, meaningful family meals, and an appreciation for the magic of meals shared with others. Families, neighbors, friends, and loved ones will find a different kind of love around the table together, connecting over memorable meals. The recipes walk you through every meal of the day with delicious breakfasts, easy lunches, inviting dinners, and Ashley’s signature incredible desserts:

  • Breakfasts of Red Lentil and Chickpea Stew with Poached Eggs, Breakfast BLTs, and Spiced Raisin Scones
  • Midday meals of Zucchini, Gruyere & Basil Quesadillas, Ricotta, Speck and Plum Salsa Tartine, and Ivy’s Split Pea Soup
  • Table-groaning dinners of Steak Tacos with Radish and Pickled Onions, Oven Baked Risotto with Squash and Rosemary Candied Walnuts, and Grilled Leg of Lamb with Green Sauce
  • Sweets and drinks like Blood Orange Poppy Seed Upside Down Cake, Guava Coconut Punch, The Easiest Pear Tart, and Cardamom Cream Soda


Ashley is a natural teacher, and the recipes flow off the page as effortlessly as the conversation at a great meal. She practices what she preaches, too, making time to bring her busy family and loved ones together for meals as often as possible. Staying in can become an easy habit to adapt, helping to center each person at an inviting table. It’s the easiest kind of aspirational cooking and gathering, helping home cooks of any level to say “let’s stay in!”

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

THE FOOD

Soft dough rippling under my fingers, the scent of honey and yeast, make me eager for the piece of warm baked bread to come (slathered with a good bit of salted butter, of course). Sharp vinegar tames finely minced shallot as I toss it with blushing cherry tomatoes still warm from the garden. A hefty pour of grassy olive oil unites them and a few flakes of vanilla salt insist you stand up and take notice. Flour and water slowly evolve with a bit of hearty kneading (which I’ll consider my workout for the day) from a shaggy heap into a soft dough that easily yields under my palms to form long, irregularly shaped noodles. After a quick bath in rolling water salted to mimic the sea, they are tossed with caramelized cremini mushrooms and a few ladles of the starchy pasta water until the sauce submits to a cohesive creaminess.

The only thing that comes close to the enjoyment I receive from cooking and eating is talking (or writing) about cooking and eating. I don’t overly fuss with either. The food I enjoy the most is simple and comforting and yet you can tell there’s a passionate cook behind the dish. There’s no question that I derive great pleasure from the kitchen, and since you are reading this, I’ll assume the same of you.

While writing my first book, Date Night In, I thought often of this book, the one you now hold in your hands. I knew even then that I wanted to tell the story of how food happens in our home: our everyday food. The food in Date Night In is special, as it should be: it is date night, after all. Our typical food, however, rarely takes more than forty-five minutes from idea to table, is very reliant on our pantry, and leans heavily on vegetables and comfort. For the last few years I’ve kept a running journal of some favorites, the dishes that get requested most and the ones I turn to again and again. This book tells that story and shares those recipes.

A big part of the story is missing if I only talk about our quick weekday meals, because that’s how we celebrate: with food. Birthdays and holidays call for special menus that have us lingering in the kitchen for hours, filling up a sink with bowls licked clean of chocolate frosting and the table brimming with roasted turkey and billowing mashed potatoes laced with brown butter. Sometimes we create a special day with food. Sometimes I can’t resist a few pints of bright cherry tomatoes at the market and they inspire a tart with a Parmesan crust and creamy goat cheese for dinner, on a Wednesday. Some days are marked by the simple foods that land on our table, reminding us that even in the everyday—especially in the everyday—there is beauty, gratitude, and pleasure.

Food is how I love, it’s how I heal, it’s how I care for others and myself. Don’t misunderstand me, though: I am human, and there are days (many, in fact) where the thought of making dinner sounds very much like the last thing I want to do. I’m lifted once the olive oil starts to dance in the pan and the onions let off their sweet scent. It’s the pleasure I get from turning a few simple ingredients into something that not only nourishes my family but brings us together and connects us.

THE BOOK

I’m writing this book from my kitchen. The computer sits on the ledge above me, far away from the splatters of the sink and the stove, away from the flour and the crumbs. I write as I cook. The kids wander in and out, pleading with me for a snack and my advice on what said snack should be. Eyes roll when I immediately respond with “Vegetables!” They stand there staring at me until I offer other suggestions. “There are Speculaas Graham Crackers (here) in the cookie jar and Vanilla and Cardamom Candied Almonds (here) in the snack cupboard.” They each grab a handful of almonds, gently sweet and crisp with a light perfume of cardamom—enough to know it’s there but not enough to overwhelm the pickier eaters in the family.

Knowing dinnertime is quickly approaching, I grab my jar of rice from the pantry along with a carton of chicken stock. While in this moment I wish I had stock in the freezer, I’m thankful for the store-bought stuff that seems effortlessly present. With the rice and stock simmering in the oven for our Oven-Baked Risotto (here), I reach into the freezer for the peas and open the fridge to find an almost too-far-gone bunch of asparagus I’d picked up at the market earlier in the week. I stir them, gently sautéed and then doused with a bit of white wine, into our creamy rice laced with lacy pungent cheese.

My desire for this book is that it will be stunningly practical. That you will reach for it regularly and that it will provide a glimmer of hope in those frustrating moments when you don’t know what’s for dinner. I’m all too familiar with those moments. This book is filled with recipes that we use over and over in our everyday life, but it is also filled with recipes that we use to celebrate the special days or the regular days that need a bit of uplifting through the enjoyment of special food.

Because of this desire for practicality, which I’ll admit is not always a strength of mine, I’ve organized the chapters by how we eat through our days: starting with breakfast and ending with dessert. Scattered throughout the pages are menus for easy entertaining, holiday planning, birthdays, and days when you feel like lingering in the kitchen to prepare several dishes for your family or friends. The menus are made up of recipes found throughout the book and have a helpful prep schedule and grocery list so you can plan accordingly.

I hope this book will give you freedom. That it will teach you how to use the deep dark crevices of your pantry and to utilize the scraps that you find in the cavernous parts of your refrigerator. My first foray into food was through professional kitchens, where there is no forgiveness for waste. Food is a gift and should be treated as such: using it to its full potential, including all roots, stems, leaves, bones, and so on. Seeing how immensely practical a commercial kitchen can be, I take that knowledge and apply it to my own kitchen. I’m thrilled to be able to share that information in the hopes of taking any drudgery out of the act of cooking every day and putting enjoyment in its rightful place.

My hope is that this book will push you. It might make you feel a little uncomfortable, but where’s the joy in comfort? How do we learn in that? So, I may ask you to stock your pantry with a few ingredients that you aren’t familiar with; I may ask you to use things that you are a little unsure of; I may combine ingredients in a way that leaves you questioning and that’s okay; I may push you to try new techniques; I mean, really, when you master the art of frying, for example, it opens up a whole new world. I want the kitchen for you and for me to be a place of excitement and creativity. And I want ingredients to feel like our painter’s palette, where we can create hundreds and thousands of different meals without being tied to a recipe. We have the freedom to create, to adjust, to invent on a daily basis. Now, that’s exciting.

Along the way I share the sort of thoughts and conversations that would happen around our table. The things I imagine us talking about if we really were sharing a meal together. They are the cobbled-together thoughts that spring up while I’m cooking or the repeated questions I’ve been asked over the years of sharing my life online.

Our kitchen and our table, like yours, I’m sure, are the center of our home. So often it’s a far cry from the picturesque Norman Rockwell paintings, but I don’t expect perfection: I long for relationship. Food brings us to the table and my goal in life is to spend as much time there as possible. And that’s my goal for all of you as well because, for me, nothing in life is more beautiful, healing, and life-giving than time spent at the table.




Meal planning doesn’t work for me. When the kids were little, I tried, I really tried. But I’m just not an organized person, and inevitably the food that I planned on Sunday for dinner on Wednesday was not the food that I wanted to eat when Wednesday arrived. So, I’d get frustrated, loathe the cooking process, and end up wasting quite a bit of food. I’d never leave enough days for leftovers and often failed to take into account the food we already had in the fridge and pantry.

Now, I’m sure there is a good and organized way to properly meal plan—I just couldn’t find it and had to admit to myself that that system was not for me. What was meant to bring ease in the kitchen left me feeling frustrated and took away some of that spontaneous creativity I love when I cook. I love allowing the markets to inspire me, or in the summer, plucking a few things from the garden. Sometimes, when the cupboards are really bare, I pretend I’m on one of those food competition shows where you think the contents in their mystery basket couldn’t possibly come together in a delicious way. And honestly sometimes they don’t, but I love the challenge and the feeling that out of seemingly nothing, a meal can be created.

What I have found that works for me is to keep a well-stocked pantry, a crisper drawer filled with vegetables, or at the very least a few frozen vegetables, such as peas and corn, and always a few good nubs of cheese.

Meal planning may work for you and your family. That’s great! The point is, find what works and go with that. Any way you plan to use this book makes me happy. I hope the pages get splattered, the binding starts to crack at your most beloved recipes, and there are notes in the margins reminding you of the changes made to make the recipe yours. Whether you follow the recipes in the pages ahead exactly as written or you use the recipe titles as your starting point, there’s room for it all.

But before you get started, let’s talk about my pantry: the ingredients that you will find on repeat in the recipes in this book. They are the basis that form many of my family’s everyday meals and the foundation to which I add meat or any bits of vegetables I can find.

Beans, Grains, and Pasta

For quick weeknight cooking, I often start with a foundation of a bean, grain, or pasta. Unless there is a chicken to roast or something destined for the grill or oven, I’ll turn to the pantry and grab one of these shelf-friendly staples, then build from there.

Always on hand: cannellini, black, and pinto beans and chickpeas, sometimes in both canned and dried forms.

Grains often make up the backbone of our weekday cooking. We have lentils in a rainbow of colors, as well as farro, rice (in many shapes and colors), polenta, couscous, quinoa, and oats. There are others we enjoy, but I make a point to keep jars well stocked of these core grains.

For pasta, just keep a good supply of a few varieties of long, slurping noodles and also a few types like penne and orecchiette. If you end up with leftover bits of a few varieties, crumble them up or whack them with a wooden spoon while they’re locked inside a resealable plastic bag and then tip the contents into a roiling pot of soup.

Things in Cans

Tomatoes I cannot begin to tell you how many times a can of tomatoes has saved our weeknight dinners. Most often the tomatoes are diced, but I also like to keep a few large containers of whole or crushed. With a quick sauté of shallot or onion and a large can of tinned tomatoes, we’ve made my eldest son’s, Baron’s, favorite soup: classic tomato. Sometimes there’s a bit of curry, fresh basil, or splash of heavy whipping cream or coconut milk swirled in for good measure. Add a griddled cheese toast and you have the wool sweater of dinners. Or simmer a couple of cans with onion and butter and toss with spaghetti and heaps of Parmesan. With tomatoes in the pantry, it feels like dinner is nearly on the table.

Stock While it is not generally purchased in can form, I’m listing stock here, too. Of course, homemade is lovely but not always on hand, so I keep a few boxes in the pantry. Be sure to taste the stock you buy. I know perhaps that is not worth mentioning, but there was a time when I would just casually pour the stock into whatever it was I was making and assume it was delicious, when in reality it was really quite the opposite. It’s hard to recover a dish from a dull stock. So, taste and find your favorite.

Coconut Milk I’ve come to completely depend on coconut milk: from smoothies to soups and braises, it has found a permanent place in my pantry.

Spices

Buy spices in small quantities in the bulk section for maximum freshness. Buy the seeds and toast and grind them at home for the same reason. As you know, I’m not one to tout my organizational skills, but I recently did a complete overhaul of my spice drawer. I bought all matching jars—the ones with flat edges so they don’t roll around the spice drawer. Each now proudly proclaims its contents with a printed label. This one simple fix in the kitchen has exponentially increased my joy when cooking. In fact, if you are ever in my kitchen, I’ll probably force you to peer into my spice drawer. Prior to this jar-and-label reorganization, I dug through a sack overflowing with bagged bulk spices. So, yes, much improved.

Nuts and Seeds

There are so many occasions for a little crunch—be it in a bowl of yogurt or a batch of granola, capping a soup, tossing with a salad, or sprinkling over toast. If you buy a large quantity of nuts or seeds, their freshness is best preserved in the freezer. Otherwise, I keep a clear plastic bin in the pantry and stash all my nuts, seeds, and dried fruit there.

In the Fridge or Nearby

What lingers in my fridge depends much on the season. There is always whole milk, yogurt, heavy whipping cream, butter, and large eggs. Often, you’ll find buttermilk, sour cream, and cream cheese, too. Have I mentioned that I come from a long line of dairy farmers on both sides of the family? It’s in my bones. Literally.

In the cheese drawer, there is always Parmesan, often a sharp Cheddar, and regularly pecorino. Bacon lingers in there as well.

In the vegetable drawers, there are usually heaps of fresh herbs, scallions, carrots, and celery. Onions—in various colors—shallots, potatoes, and garlic lounge in a bowl just next to the chopping block. Sometimes there are chiles, and often there is something shriveled and very tired looking at the bottom of the bowl. Oh, and always, always lemons. In the summer, the fridge bursts with berries and stone fruit, corn, and zucchini. Tomatoes sit on the counter nearby (never refrigerated). In the fall and winter, the fridge is filled with fennel, squash, root vegetables in various shades, and hearty leafy greens. In the spring, rhubarb and pungent herbs take up residence.

We have a large bowl nearby where I stash easy-to-grab healthy snacks for the kids—apples, bananas, and stone fruit in the summer—or they can grab a carrot from the crisper. Tempting us close by is the snack cupboard where crackers, bars, dark chocolate, and my collection of sour gummy candy live.

In the Freezer

Our freezer is used for a few vegetables that keep their integrity even after a long freeze, carrots and peas in particular. I keep a few cuts of meat, such as ground beef and whole chicken, at the ready as those are often our go-to and can easily become a meal with a few items from the pantry. Frozen berries dress up bowls of yogurt or oatmeal or make quick work of our Berry Oatmeal Crumble (here), and they are often the bulk of our breakfast smoothies. As the holidays approach, you’ll start to notice stacks of pie and puff pastry doughs. And without a carton of ice cream, the freezer feels empty, but that’s not for cooking, that’s just for me.

Pantry Meals

These are a few of the recipes you’ll find in the pages that follow that rely on the pantry. They are the sort that were born out of the lack of desire to run to the grocery store and they are the recipes that get made again and again.

Curried Tomato Coconut Lentils with Gingery Yogurt

Fried Eggs with Miso Yogurt and Sesame Seeds

Oat and Yogurt Pancakes

Red Lentil and Chickpea Breakfast Stew

Morning Miso Noodle Soup

Lemony Carbonara with Peas

Sheet Pan Meatloaf with Roasted Vegetables

Turkey Meatballs in Arrabiata Sauce

White Bean Shashuka




Equipment

I’m not one for kitchen gadgets. If a piece of equipment has earned a coveted spot in my modest kitchen, it’s because it has proven itself worthy. There are no single-function gadgets; no as-seen-on-TV miracle gear that gets used once, then gathers dust in the depths of the cupboards. I’d say that nearly 90 percent of our meals are created with a good sharp knife and my cast-iron skillet. These are the basic tools that I reference in the coming pages and the ones I reach for on a daily basis.

Knives There is no need to buy one of those fancy knife block sets. Get yourself an 8- to 10-inch / 20.5 to 25.5 cm chef’s knife with a sturdy handle and then keep it sharp. A good knife is a personal decision. Be prepared to spend a bit of money as quality does come at a price; with that in mind, take care in making this choice. Go to a trusted kitchen store and feel the knives. If they’ll allow it, chop a few things. It should feel sturdy and strong but not too heavy. You want it to feel natural in your hand. While you’re there, grab a honing stick to keep it sharp on a daily basis and put it on your calendar to have your knives sharpened professionally once a season or more often as needed. I’ll admit I’m not the best at remembering to do this and my collection of chef knives is much more expansive than it needs to be, so I’m talking to myself here as much as I am to you.

Beyond a chef’s knife, you’ll need a paring knife and a serrated knife. Now, go give every other knife away. You don’t need them.

Cutting Boards Keep on hand a variety of sizes and materials. I like the easy-to-wash and sanitize plastic boards for raw meat, and I keep a large wooden cutting board on my counter at all times; it’s perfect for pastry making and everyday use.

Mixing Bowls Avoid anything fancy here and get a snug-nesting set of stainless-steel bowls. My favorite are the sort that you can find in restaurant supply shops. They are lightweight and range in size from “large enough to toss a salad for forty” to “just right to whisk together just enough dressing for one.”

Pots and Pans By far, the most used pan in my kitchen is my 12-inch / 30.5 cm cast-iron skillet. It’s seasoned to a slick sheen at this point, so much so that fried eggs slip right out of it and onto the plate. My favorite way to season the cast iron? Fry up some chicken for dinner. These pans are sturdy, keep an even heat, and are so multifunctional. I also carry it with me when we go camping as it’s equally at home over the campfire as it is on my cooktop.

Keep it clean with a hearty scrub under a bit of running water, but never use soap. Soap will remove the seasoning and wear down the pan. Rub the inside of the skillet with a bit of oil if you notice it is looking dry. Never let water sit in the pan for too long. Keep it dry and keep it oiled and you’ll have a pan that you can pass down to your kids, who will pass it along to theirs. The best part: you can often find these pans at garage sales or antique stores or buy one new for under $30.

I like to have a couple of saucepans at the ready. Something around the 2 to 3 quart / 2 to 3 L range and then another closer to 4 to 5 quarts / 4 to 5 L. These are perfect for making caramel, small-batch sauces, and browning butter.

The other essential is a Dutch oven. This is the choice for cooking for a crowd. It’s perfect for long-simmered braises over the cooktop or in the oven. It’s my stock-making pot and often is filled with a simmering batch of soup.

I lived without a nonstick skillet for years and years, but now that I have one, I love it for its ability to make scrambled egg cleanup a breeze. Just promise me that if you do use nonstick, you’ll never sear meat in it. The nonstick surface prevents any of those crusty scraggly bits from forming on the bottom of the pan, which is the foundation for a luscious pan sauce.

Peeking into my cupboard, you’ll likely see a few multiples: an additional skillet as well as other cast-iron pans in various shapes and sizes. The ones I mention here are the ones that rarely get put away. They go straight from the sink, after a quick clean, back to the stove to begin another meal.

There may be more lingering in my cupboard, or maybe there’s a pan that you love that I’ve not mentioned. This is in no way a definitive list; rather, a friendly guide through my most-used kitchen items. Find and use what works for you; that’s the best thing you can do.

Baking and Roasting Keep on hand a 13 x 9-inch / 33 x 23 cm glass dish, a few assorted-size round baking pans, a couple of loaf pans, a springform pan, a muffin tin or two, a stash of sheet pans in various sizes, and a glass pie pan, and you should be set. Oh, and a roasting pan for those special meals that require it.

Utensils and Such If I were to get one of those trendy tattoos of my favorite piece of kitchen equipment, it would be a wooden spoon. I love it for its functionality. I love how the softness and strength of the wood feels in my hand and for a sentimentality: I always think of my mom as this is what she always reached for in the kitchen. And she learned that from Grandma. I have many wooden spoons in all shapes and sizes.

There is also a prolific supply of heat-resistant spatulas. I reach for them often, especially when there is baking to be done.

I’ve been known to travel with my Microplane because for some reason or another, not every kitchen is equipped with one and yet I use mine daily, whether I’m grating ginger or garlic, getting fine wisps of aromatic nutmeg into cookie dough, or showering a flurry of Parmesan wisps onto our pasta dinner. In fact, it doesn’t hurt to have a couple in your stash for when another is being washed.

Other tools of NOTE: a couple of pairs of tongs, a spider for frying, an offset spatula for batters and frostings, dry and liquid measuring cups and spoons, and whisks. I’m sure there is something I’ve forgotten, but when I close my eyes and imagine my wanderings in the kitchen, these are the things I’m reaching for.

Kitchen Scale Someday when you meet my husband, Gabe, I’ll let him tell you about his favorite scale, used every morning to brew the perfect cup of coffee, but my scale sits in the drawer next to the spice grinder. I never pull it out for dinner prep unless dinner includes a warm loaf of bread or homemade pasta, but I do value it for the times when I need to heap flour into a bowl or desire a bit more accuracy. It is also lovely to measure everything into one bowl and save the work of cleaning multiple measuring cups. Using a scale will save you from countless baking upsets, I assure you.

Appliances This is where I really loathe the bulk. I do have a full-size food processor, but it’s rarely pulled out; instead I reach for the much more manageable mini food processor. There’s also a stand mixer in the corner that gets used almost daily, a spice grinder to grind freshly toasted seeds into a fragrant flurry, and an Instant Pot. Yes, I’ve jumped onto the bandwagon of the “IP” (that’s what you call it if you’re in the club). When that machine transformed dried beans into perfectly cooked, creamy ones, not mush, in twenty minutes, I knew I had something special. Unlike with a slow cooker (I’ve never understood the allure), you can sear and sauté right in the machine, then set it and, yes, forget it. It’s not an everyday appliance but worth its weight in real estate. It sits next to the ice-cream maker because that, of course, is a must.

A Few More Things A kitchen can never have too many plush kitchen towels. The sort that are always on hand to sop up any messes and protect your fingers from hot handles, ready to pluck doming cakes from the oven. Lately, I’m loving white bar towels. They are cheap, easy to clean, and I don’t feel too terrible when I have to replace them as often as I do.

One can never have too much parchment paper, but I personally loathe the sort that comes in a little roll. It’s hard to manage, curls on the tray, and never cuts with a clean edge. To avoid all of that silliness, I purchase parchment at a restaurant supply store. It comes in large, flat sheets that are much easier to manage. While you’re there, grab some of those sturdy Cambro storage containers.

Oh, and a fine-mesh strainer. And keep an empty jam jar with lid around, for shaking up your vinaigrette. A mandoline; it’s worth the purchase for the Sweet and White Potato Gratin (here) alone. You may find you have additional must-haves and preferences, but these recommendations are more than enough to get you cooking.




MENUS

One of my absolute favorite kitchen tasks is menu writing. I love carefully constructing the courses so each one complements the other while not attempting to steal the show. It usually starts with a spark of excitement for a certain dish or ingredient, then everything falls into place from there. Sometimes the holiday or special occasion dictates the menu, such as our Christmas Eve dinner, where Beef Wellington is always present, or celebrating our birthdays with a towering chocolate cake. Then there are the events created around the food, such as the Harvest Le Grand Aïoli (here).

Genre:

  • Ashley Rodriguez cooks the kind of food I want to eat every day. Packed with bright and fresh flavors that are thoughtfully combined without much fuss, this book is full of recipes for everything from weeknight staples like Flank Steak Totchos and Romaine Hearts with Parmesan Lime Dip to special occasion treats-hello, Bittersweet Chocolate Cake with Salted Butterscotch Buttercream! All photographed in her signature vibrant style, this is the kind of food that makes staying in even better than going out.
    Yossy Arefi, author of Sweeter Off the Vine
  • One look at Let's Stay In and you can immediately see that everyone in Ashley Rodriguez's home is living their best life, and good food is at the core of it. These recipes say to the person you're cooking them for: "You matter to me. For you, I will make the effort." And that kind of message keeps marriages and families together.—Sarah Copeland, author of Feast and The Newlywed Cookbook
  • To say I'm obsessed would be an understatement. Let's Stay In serves as a playbook for living life to the fullest with the most delicious food. It's chock-full of unfussy recipes for every occasion, whether you're cooking a quick weeknight dinner, celebrating a birthday party, or hosting game night for all your friends. Ashley, per usual, hit the ball out of the park on this book!—Gaby Dalkin, author of What's Gaby Cooking
  • Ashley Rodriguez's Let's Stay In is the triumphant extension of her first book, with her very real experience of feeding a thriving family evident on every page. Relatable and enthusiastic, it is full of recipes destined to become favorites of countless households--the Winter Greens Gratin are a comfort on a gray day, then the Golden Raisin Orange Rolls are a holiday-worthy treat, while her Speculaas Graham Crackers are simply brilliant.—Tara O'Brady, author of Seven Spoons
  • "With this book, Ashley has created delicious recipes that my wife and I love making together with our boys as a family, sharing laughs and creating memories. One of my favorite things to say on a rare Friday night off is 'let's stay in,' and this book makes it even more enjoyable to do exactly that!"—Curtis Stone, chef/restaurateur and author of Good Food, Good Life
  • "Ashley's recipes are food at its most sincere. This book is unpretentious and deeply lovable, inspiring a sense of play in the kitchen we can look forward to every day."—Joy Wilson, creator of Joy the Baker and author of Over Easy
  • Let's Stay In showcases Ashley's amazing ability to turn the everyday meal into something beautiful, and holidays into colorful, fun-to-make feasts. This book is filled with delicious, fresh, unfussy recipes that are bound to become family favorites, and stories that will make you want to hug the pages.—Molly Yeh, author of Molly on the Range and star of Food Network's Girl Meets Farm

On Sale
Oct 9, 2018
Page Count
304 pages
Publisher
Running Press
ISBN-13
9780762490578

Ashley Rodriguez

About the Author

Ashley Rodriguez is a Seattle-based food consultant, cooking instructor, food photographer, author of Date Night In, wife, and mother of three. As the creator of notwithoutsalt.com, Ashley blogs about life as told through food. Her blog has earned accolades from Saveur.com (Best Food Blog 2013), Babble.com, Brides.com, BonAppetit.com, Glamour.com, Food52.com, MarthaStewart.com, RealSimple.com, TheKitchn.com, and the TimesOnline.com, and for her writing and original photography.

Ashley’s work has also been featured in several publications such as AllRecipes, Edible Seattle, Food and Wine, Glamour, Martha Stewart Living, the New York Times, and Sunset. Before she began writing, Ashley worked in several professional kitchens including Wolfgang Puck’s Spago in Beverly Hills. Now, Ashley teaches in and around Seattle, and in her new storefront, the Not Without Salt Shop.

Learn more about this author