The Editors at Americas Test Kitchen - The Americas Test Kitchen Do-It-Yourself Cookbook: 100+ Foolproof Kitchen Projects for the Adventurous Home Cook

Growing up on a farm, just about everything was Do-It-Yourself or D.I.Y. You milked the cow, picked the blackberries, and made your own Anadama bread using molasses and cornmeal. You changed your clutch, welded the snowplow, sharpened the chainsaw, and hunted for most of the meat in your freezer; almost always venison, with the odd rabbit or wild turkey thrown in for good measure.

These days, virtually nothing is D.I.Y. You cant adjust the timing on your distributor or replace a fuse, and most folks have even forgotten how to bake a cake or make biscuits.

All that is about to change.

With The Americas Test Kitchen Do-It-Yourself Cookbook, we want to put the fun and the homemade back into home cooking. Did you know that wine vinegar is nothing more than wine, water, and a store-bought culture left to sit on the counter? You can ferment your own hot sauce in a French press coffee maker with no daily skimming. Believe it or not, American cheese can be made in a food processor in just minutes, without the flavorings, colorings, and emulsifiers.

Yes, we show you how to make pickles and jams, but you will also learn to make recipes like marshmallows, graham crackers, homemade versions of Thin Mints, Nutella, Fritos, and Ritz crackers, plus cocktail bitters, root beer, tonic water, and ginger beer. This cookbook demonstrates, step by step, how to make homemade bacon, mozzarella, Greek yogurt, marinated artichokes, preserved lemons, salted caramels, and even your own tofu and harissa.

Some of these items are quick and easy, others are more complicated, but we have thoroughly tested each and every one of these recipes and photographed every step of the process (we include more than 700 large color photos) so you can be sure that they will turn out as advertised.

In Vermont, nobody tells you what to do. You learn by example, by watching others do something the right way. In fact, the only time I earned a rebuke was when I took a tractor and baler out of gear going downhill. The farmer, Charlie Bentley, allowed as how I might not want to do that a second time given the poor state of the brakes! So, we are offering to show you, not tell you, how to make your foods from scratch the smart way. Weve made the mistakes so you dont have to.