Homestead recipes Midwestern inspirations, family favorites, and pearls of wisdom from a sassy home cook

I Am Homesteader blogger Rettke (Surprise-Inside Cakes) offers the homiest of home cooking with recipes that highlight "how fantastic and crazy the food is here in the Midwest." She begins with sweet breakfasts, including overnight caramel rolls, while her husband weighs in with a savory pulled pork hash. Among the filling appetizers are a skillet beer cheese bread that owes its golden brown finish to an amount of butter that's "nothing short of ridiculous," and a Piggy Pickle Pizza topped with Alfredo sauce, Canadian bacon, and sliced dills. Making no apologies, soups and salads go the sinful route with options such as lasagna soup, and a salad made with Granny Smiths and roughly chopped Snickers bars. If the main dishes are not haute cuisine, there are at least a trio of French onion entrées, including French onion pork chops. For a side, eight heads of garlic meet six pounds of red potatoes in the hundred-clove mashed potatoes. Zucchini, of all things, gets a chapter of its own and, even more surprisingly, four of its seven recipes are tasty desserts (chocolate zucchini cake, anyone?). This clears the path for the expansive, vegetable-free dessert chapter itself, featuring some 31 decadent cookies, bars, and cakes. A spoonful of sugar, then several more, help the treats go down in this waistline-be-damned parade of comfort foods. (Apr.)