Welcome to The Pioneer Woman Cookbook Club! This month, we’re featuring Natasha Kravchuk, founder of Natasha’s Kitchen blog and author of the new Natasha’s Kitchen cookbook by the very same name. As a busy wife and mother of two, Natasha is no stranger to searching for weeknight-friendly meals that her family will actually enjoy, and her new book is filled with plenty to try. Read on to find out how she ensured every recipe in the book was in tip-top shape, plus snag a family-favorite—her crispy, crunchy ‘Thank You, Mom’ Chicken Schnitzel.
If you’re a home cook, there’s a good chance you have at least a few cookbooks floating about your kitchen. But be honest—which of those are you actually grabbing when it’s 5pm and your family is sounding off with the unavoidable: “What’s for dinner?” Add Natasha Kravchuk’s new book to your shelf and consider all your dinnertime woes officially solved. How? “It’s things your family will actually eat,” says Natasha.
A long time coming for the millions of readers who’ve been following Natasha’s blog since its inception in 2009, the Natasha’s Kitchen cookbook is every amateur household chef’s best friend. It’s chock-full of real family food—no bank-breaking spices, obscure cuts of beef, or recipes that require hours of intricate detail in site. Instead, Natasha dwells on transforming everyday ingredients into something special, a practice she learned watching her mother feed their family of seven when they first arrived to the United States from Ukraine.
Natasha was only four years old when she, her parents, and four sisters fled Ukraine to escape religious persecution, and in those early days of learning a new language and building a new life in America, the family survived off groceries from the local food bank. Her mom would transform humble ingredients like flour, eggs, cheese, and potatoes into scrumptious pierogi or whip up a stack of her fluffiest, yeasted oladi pancakes from basic kitchen staples.
When Natasha and her husband, who is also originally from Ukraine, started the blog, they shared a blend of those family recipes from their mothers along with other meals the duo was learning to cook themselves. Their first recipe to go viral was a wonderfully simple cucumber, tomato, and avocado salad, and today the blog is a wellspring of endless inspiration for the almost 20 million people who visit it each month. Natasha’s premier cookbook? Well, it follows suit:
In the Natasha’s Kitchen cookbook, Natasha has woven in more than 100 breakfasts, dinners, appetizers, and desserts—her mother’s famous pierogis and oladi pancakes, and that viral salad included—as well as whole sections dedicated to tips like working with yeast and softening butter, plus genius entertaining ideas. (If you’ve never put together a loaded baked potato bar, now you know.)
Natasha’s motto is: If you can read, you can cook. Well, as long as what you’re reading is a “well-written, tested, and trusted recipe,” she adds. When it came to the cookbook, Natasha wasn’t taking any chances. She called out to her trusty followers through Facebook requesting recipe testers and the response was overwhelming. “After 24 hours, we had to close the form because it got out of control,” Natasha says.
More than 300 people, all of whom are recognized in the book, took on the dutiful job of testing each and every recipe you’ll find in its photo-filled pages. “People submitted reviews, suggestions, tips, and photos of their creations of the recipe, and not every recipe made the cut based on the feedback,” says Natasha. “So, I feel like the book really is the best that it could be and it works for a variety of cooking levels.” In fact, testers ranged from novice cooks to professional chefs. “We really wanted to make sure the recipes were approachable, the recipes would work, and people would have success with them,” she says.
If Natasha’s cooking could be defined by a single recipe, it could very well be the chicken schnitzel recipe we’ve shared here. It’s made with a short list of inexpensive ingredients—three-quarters of which you probably already have—and is ready in about half an hour. The first time Natasha made it for her family, her daughter got up during dinner to thank her mom for such a delicious chicken dinner, hence the name, “Thank You, Mom” Chicken Schnitzel. Serve it with a squeeze of lemon, pile it on a bun for a juicy chicken sandwich with coleslaw and pickles, or slice it up and toss it into a salad. This do-it-all chicken will have you thanking Natasha, too.