“Tasting Kentucky: Favorite Recipes from the Bluegrass State” by Maggie Green. Helena, Mont.: Farcountry Press, 2016. 176 pages, $29.95 (hardcover).

Maggie Green is a culinary standout in Kentucky. She is a chef and registered dietitian and owns Green Apron Co., working as a culinary nutrition consultant, writer and editor. This is her second cookbook, the first being another Kentucky-themed treat, “The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook.” Most notably, though, Green spent three years editing and perfecting the recipes for the “New Joy of Cooking.”

Green’s “Tasting Kentucky: Favorite Recipes from the Bluegrass State” lives up to the name. There is a fantastic assortment of recipes from classics to modern marvels, including a number of traditional Kentucky home recipes that are not often found in cookbooks. Her recipes will inspire you to cook and send you back to the kitchen over and over again. The recipes can be prepared easily, with great success, and are wonderful variations on classic recipes and some new favorites with a modern flair.

Every recipe includes an exquisite photo that showcases these marvelous Kentucky recipes to their full mouth-watering potential. The recipes are accompanied by information about the chef who created it, the restaurant that features these foods and a wonderful description and additional details that just make this cookbook a joy to read. From expert to novice, the beautiful pictures will inspire you to venture into the kitchen. With the expertise of chefs from around the state of Kentucky, the detailed and well-thought-out instructions that are a hallmark of Green’s culinary expertise, you are assured to have great success.

The cookbook includes a lovely assortment of breakfast items, appetizers, soups, entrees, side dishes, desserts and even drinks. The recipes include down-home country classics from Kentucky, like the house-made pickles, buttermilk cornbread, corn pudding, southern-style pole beans, peach cobbler and numerous other recipes with definitive Kentucky flavors featuring sorghum, beer cheese or bourbon. There are a number of delightful breakfast choices, including light and luscious lemon souffle pancakes with blueberry compote that are my personal favorite, to classics with a Kentucky twist, like eggs Benedict on homemade biscuits with country ham or the sorghum granola.

The cookbook showcases special treats from famous chefs and restaurants around the state, including Moonlight BBQ’s barbecue beans, Ed-Mar Dairy’s smoked pimiento cheese dip, Shaker Village’s Shakertown cole slaw, The Brown Hotel “Original Hot Brown” sandwich and Patti’s 1880’s Settlement “Sawdust Pie.” There are even a few drink recipes: Jack’s Lounge Mint Julep, a Shaker Village Manhattan, and another Kentucky tradition from the Tousey House Tavern – the bourbon slush.

Additionally, there are contemporary recipes with sensational variations exemplified by the exceptionally tasty chorizo-cheddar corn fritters with cilantro-jalapeno aioli or the bourbon and coke meatloaf sandwich with fried egg. This cookbook was a pure joy to read and has inspired many meals in my home, to great success. Every time I open this cookbook, it brings a smile to my face and whets my appetite to return to the kitchen and try something new.

— Reviewed by Julie K. Lee, Western Kentucky University Family and Consumer Science Department

— Editor’s note: Maggie Green will speak in WKU Libraries’ Kentucky Live! series at 7 p.m. Thursday at Barnes & Noble on Campbell Lane. A book signing will follow.