15 Celebrity Cookbooks To Liven Up Your Home Cooking

Back to the Kitchen: 75 Delicious, Real Recipes (& True Stories) from a Food-Obsessed Actor : A Cookbook by Freddie Prinze Jr. ($9.63)

The 90s and early 2000s star of films such as She’s All That, Scooby Doo, and I Know What You Did Last Summer, and half of Hollywood couple with Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy star and also has her own cookbook here), is also a skilled home cook. Prinze Jr.’s are inspired by growing up inNew Mexico, his Puerto Rican heritage, and his mother. Learn how to make New Mexico–style eggs, homemade biscuits and green-chile sausage gravy, or Parker Posey’s pancakes.

The Rock’s Cinnamon Pancakes

Serves 4

These are my little jiu-jitsu master’s pancakes–my son’s favorite breakfast. I make these cakes–which are taller and heartier than Parker Posey’s on page 9–with my kids, and I encourage you to do so, too. I find my daughter, Charlotte, tells me everything going on her in her evil-genius mind, but only while we are cooking. If I ask her how school was after she gets home, I get the standard answer: “good.” If we’re cooking, unprompted, she’ll spill all her secrets: “So, Daddy, yesterday at school we got to meet a real-life iguana!” Me learn quick-like: Me cook more with my kids. My mom also made pancakes like this for me. She would chop fruit up, add it to the pancake syrup, and warm it all in the microwave at the end. You want to add fruit right to your batter instead? Do it. How will I know? The point is, do your own thing!

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 4/5 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus 2 to 4 tablespoons for cooking the pancakes

1. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Gently whisk in the buttermilk and egg. When the batter is smooth, mix in the melted butter.

2. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. When the skillet is hot, add 2 tablespoons of butter. As soon as it is melted and sizzling, make the pancakes a few at a time. I use 1/4 cup of batter per these pancakes, adding more butter if necessary after each batch. Pay attention, as these will cook fast: Flip them when you see bubbles form on the top and the bottom is GBD! (Golden Brown Delicious.) And then, once the other side is GBD, and the top no longer feels loose or jiggly to the touch, remove them from the skillet immediately. For best results, try not to flip them more than once.

3. Keep warm or serve right away, with plain syrup . . . or syrup with chopped, fresh fruit warmed in the microwave, just like Mom.

–Excerpt. © from Back to the Kitchen