Bite by Bite: Nourishments & Jamborees by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

   

I have a lot of cookbooks in my TBR, and there is nothing my husband loves more than for me to cook. To inspire me, I took photos with 24 cookbooks I have and I've prescheduled one post a month for the next two years. I'll plan to link up with In My Kitchen, hosted by Sherry's Pickings, and Weekend Cooking, hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader (and Baker). To further inspire me, I've created a Cooking/Baking Challenge for me for 2026 in which I read and bake from and post about one cookbook a month.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil shares the foods of her life, food by food, bite by bite, and, in the process, tells the stories of her life. 

Some of the foods are exotic to me and I've never seen these: Pawpaw, lumpia, bangus, lychee, jackfruit, mangosteen, kaong, gyro, leche flan, halo-halo.

Some of the foods are foods I have heard of, but I've never cooked or baked with: Mango, mint, crawfish, gyro. 

Some of the foods are foods I have cooked with once: Risotto.

Some of the foods are foods I use often: Rice, pineapple, cinnamon, blackberries, vanilla, black pepper, apples, bing cherry, Concord grape, maple syrup, butter, waffles, sugarcane, coconut.

Some of the foods are so familiar to me that I actually grow them in my yard and cook with them all the time: Tomato, onion, watermelon, pecan, figs, potato.

Here's a recipe I make that uses several of these foods. You can choose to leave out any of the ingredients you don't like.

My Mom's Homemade Granola

Oats     Coconut     Sesame seeds

Sunflower seeds     Pecans     Walnuts

Vanilla     Cherries (dried)     Cinnamon

Maple syrup     Almonds (sliced)     Honey

Oil     Cranberries     Raisins

Mix together oats, coconut, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, pecans, walnuts, almonds in a huge pot. Add oil and honey and vanilla and maple syrup and cinnamon and stir well. Put onto rimmed cookie sheets and bake at 325 degrees F for about an hour, turning and stirring several times to get a nice brown bake. Put the baked mix into storage containers and add in cranberries and raisins and cherries. Granola can be frozen. 

My mom would collect and refill our granola storage container every year as her Christmas gift to us. Even though she passed away fifteen years ago, I can still see my mom's faded blue letters: Deb and Jim's Granola Jar. Every time I make granola, I think of my mom.

Be a part of the friendly In My Kitchen (IMK) community by adding your post at Sherry's Pickings each month - everybody welcome!  We'd love to have you visit.  Tell us about your kitchen (and kitchen garden) happenings over the past month.  Dishes you've cooked, preserves you've made, herbs and veg. in your garden, kitchen gadgets, and goings-on.  And one curveball is welcome - whatever you fancy; no need to be kitchen-related. The link is open from the first of the month to midnight on the thirteenth of the month, every month.

Weekend Cooking was created by Beth Fish Reads and is now hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader (and Baker). It is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.  

For more photos, link up at Wordless Wednesday, Comedy Plus, Messymimi's Meanderings, Keith's Ramblings, Image-in-ing, Soul and Mind and So On, Wild Bird Wednesday, and My Corner of the World.