Such a fantastic variety of recipes made with love and attention. Best book on southern inspired I have ever read!

Southern Inspired: More Than 100 Delicious Dishes from My American Table to Yours
Jernard A. Wells
If you are a fan of the Food Network & Cooking Channel you have probably heard of Jernard A Wells; he is the host of “New Soul Kitchen” and “New soul Kitchen Remix” as well as contributing to several other shows. “He has deemed himself “The Chef of Love.” He believes food and love go hand in hand.” He has authored several books including: 88 Ways to Her Heart, Southern Modified, Road Map, The Weight of Expectations, Breakthrough, and Weight of Expectations 2.” His latest book is Southern Inspired.
I went through this book carefully selecting some recipes to try, the first one I chose was BBQ Lasagna. In place of your traditional lasagna sauce, you use 3 cups of your favorite barbecue sauce. It was very good but not as good Momma’s Chicken Pot Pie; it has a bit of a kick to it. There is a recipe for a very different fried chicken, Southern Sweet Tea-Brined Fried Chicken. The sweet tea adds a different flavor and juiciness.
Many of the recipes in this book are some form of seafood. Chef Jernard’s Crackin’ Seafood Boil. If you love seafood and we do you will find this recipe out of this world. It is a combination of spices, new potatoes, corn on the cobb, sausage, crawfish, shrimp, and snow crabs. OMG! It is delicious! Jernard’s General Tso’s Chicken is totally awesome.
There are several recipes for side dishes including brussels sprouts and garlicy mashed potatoes. There are plenty of finger foods such as Red, White and Blue BBQ Nachos, and Nashville Hot Chicken Tacos. The East Asian-Inspired Tacos are delicious. If Cheeseburgers are your thing be sure to try The Big Juicy Smoked Gouda Cheeseburger.
This is a great cookbook! I will be using it frequently.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC for "Southern Inspired!" This was not your typical southern cooking, it contains a lot of classic recipes and some twists on other cuisines classics like Jernard’s General Tso’s Chicken. There some great recipes like Smoky Charbroiled Oysters, Gouda Grits, and Chef Jernard’s Crackin’ Seafood Boil. I liked how the chapters were divided with southern, southern inspired, BBQ, Wings, Sides, desserts and many more! The author talked a lot about where he came from and the inspiration that helped him develop his recipes.

I've loved the Chef of Love from the moment I saw him on Cutthroat Kitchen. Excited to be able to get an ARC of his Cookbook, Southern Inspired.

There is a lot of great recipes in here. The BBQ lasagna sounds really interesting and something I'll have to try. Love the chapters in here, too. Home cooking, sides, backyard BBQ, one pot meals, veggies, wings and things, desserts, and even Holiday. Can't wait to make some of these delicious sounding recipes.

Overall, I thought this book was okay. None of the recipes were particularly different or unique and most of the food was not to my taste.
Pros:
Many of the recipes had accompanying pictures.
There were solid descriptions for each recipe.
There was a wide variety of foods to choose from.

Cons:
Not all the recipes had pictures.
A lot of the recipes were very fatty and weren't to my taste.
None of the recipes seemed like they were super special or different from what I have seen in similar cookbooks.

This book wasn't bad, I just think the food wasn't to my taste so I didn't find any of the recipes to be very interesting. If you like this type of cuisine and are okay with heavier food, then you might enjoy this book. I think it's worth trying this book out since you might find at least a couple of recipes of interest.

My husband took a look at this when he saw what I was reading and listed a few things he wanted to try. The top one we agreed on as being our first is teh Blackened Catfish with Smoked Gouda. We went straight out and got what we needed and WOW was it fabulous! Hubby loves catfish and I’m not a big fan of either fish or grits, but this may have converted me, at least for this recipe!

We can’t wait to try more and the Georgia Peach Hot Chicken Sandwiches are on tap for this weekend, with the Cranberry Whiskey Glazed Pork Ribs waiting in the wings. Love, Love, LOVE chef Wells’ recipes and style. This is a can’t miss cookbook for the home chef!!

Beautifully shot and curated cookbook, with delicious-looking recipes clearly inspired by Southern cooking, as the title suggests! Most of the recipes have photos, but not all--as always, I do wish every recipe had got a photo. I was intrigued by this cookbook, but a bit hesitant, as I had a feeling many of the recipes wouldn't appeal to my personal palette, which was the case. Not being a fan of shellfish, hot/spicy food, or tomato/bell peppers, there were definitely a lot of recipes in here that weren't for me, but as I said, I expected that going into the book knowing those are frequent staples in Southern cooking. For those without those restrictions, I'd say the recipes all looked amazing. And though I didn't bookmark as many recipes as I wanted to be able to, there were still a number that appealed. I actually already made of the recipes, the Maple & Balsamic Brussels Sprouts, and it was phenomenal and will definitely be a staple in my rotation moving forward!

5 stars

I come from the west coast and have always wanted to try authentic southern food. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to pull it off all the way but this book is certainly a good starting point. A lot of the recipes are more complex than what I’m used to, but I can see myself cooking at least a couple a month. Every single one looks delicious so it’s hard to decide where to start. The pictures are beautiful and all the stories in the beginning and in between add a nice touch.

We tried Lolipop drumsticks with whiskey chipotle sauce, and holy cow, they were amazing.

I highly recommend this book to literally everyone. I dont think you’ll regret it!