Welcome to a fresh 12-month cooking journey with native Kentuckian Maggie Green. The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook guides home cooks on a journey through a Kentucky year cooking fresh meals in a Kentucky kitchen. Centered in the kitchen this book guides aspiring and seasoned cooks through the seasonal variety of Kentucky’s land and pantry. With this book Maggie hopes to lead Kentuckians back into their kitchens where cooking fresh meals for themselves, and for others, unlocks the potential of our kitchens for our families, our healthy, and our communities.

Raised in Lexington, and now living in Northern Kentucky, Maggie blends the traditions and foods of these two regions while cooking with traditional ingredients including buttermilk, cornmeal, Bibb lettuce, bourbon, blackberries, pork, sorghum, beans, fresh herbs, and honey, black walnuts. Using seasonal cooking methods, Maggie makes cooking fresh, homemade meals not only inviting, but doable. She blends the concerns of contemporary cooks with regards to time, health, and the environment, and appeals to modern tastes using up-to-date, clearly-written recipes and cooking techniques. Maggie’s recipes are accessible, clear, and appropriate for the season. She focuses on using readily-available ingredients for a variety of foods from roasted and grilled poultry, beef, and pork, stews, soups, salads, side dishes, sheet cakes, and a host of portable foods, and desserts. She wraps her recipes in sweet Kentucky memories that move through the richness of Kentucky culinary year. She includes personal stories and reflections of her own woven with local information about Spaghetti Knob in Newport, Gethsemane Cheese in Trappist, and Goetta, a popular breakfast side-dish from Covington. These ingredients and stories acknowledge the importance of the people who call Kentucky home while defining how the culture shapes food choices and cooking methods in each month.

Maggie believes any act of cooking done with love and care has the potential to transform the simplest ingredients into a memorable meal She also believes sharing fresh home cooked meals can go a long way into making Kentucky a healthier and more welcoming and hospitable place, if you can imagine such a thing.