100 free-spirited, comforting recipes for Southern-style dishes made with love from the social media icon behind LilyLouTay

Hannah Taylor is a culinary creator from Georgia known for her Southern charm, down-to-earth personality, and carefree “measure with your heart” cooking content. When Hannah began sharing her experimental cooking projects and snippets of her small-town life online, her platform exploded with support for her big-hearted spirit and off-the-cuff style, and her debut cookbook embraces this playful side of cooking.

<Measure with Your Heart< is filled with Hannah&rsquo;s twists on classic Southern cooking, with an emphasis on making everything from scratch so you know exactly what&rsquo;s in it. Try your hand at Hannah&rsquo;s homemade versions of kitchen staples like Vanilla Extract or Beef Bone Broth. Bring some warmth to your dinner table with mains like Finger Lickin&rsquo; Fried Chicken, Butternut Squash Casserole, and Ham Hock Lima Bean Stew. Serve up Aunt Teisha&rsquo;s Cowboy Caviar or Mini Pizza Pops at your next gathering alongside a Strawberry Sip N&rsquo; Spritz.

Featuring 120 gorgeous photographs and 100 mouthwatering recipes, <Measure with Your Heart< has ideas for sweet and savory breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, as well as drinks, appetizers, and, for parents reading, even snacks for your kids (and pups!)&mdash;so get in the kitchen and try things out. If you totally mess up, even better! For Hannah, home cooking is not about being perfect&mdash;it&rsquo;s about having fun and nourishing the ones you love.

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Hannah Taylor is the fast-growing culinary creator known on TikTok and Instagram as “LilyLouTay.” She is a proud mother of three and prioritizes her family while working as a creator, elopement wedding photographer, and entrepreneur.

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 100 free-spirited, comforting recipes for Southern-style dishes made with love from the social media icon behind LilyLouTay

Hannah Taylor is a culinary creator from Georgia known for her Southern charm, down-to-earth personality, and carefree “measure with your heart” cooking content. When Hannah began sharing her experimental cooking projects and snippets of her small-town life online, her platform exploded with support for her big-hearted spirit and off-the-cuff style, and her debut cookbook embraces this playful side of cooking.

Measure with Your Heart is filled with Hannah’s twists on classic Southern cooking, with an emphasis on making everything from scratch so you know exactly what’s in it. Try your hand at Hannah’s homemade versions of kitchen staples like Vanilla Extract or Beef Bone Broth. Bring some warmth to your dinner table with mains like Finger Lickin’ Fried Chicken, Butternut Squash Casserole, and Ham Hock Lima Bean Stew. Serve up Aunt Teisha’s Cowboy Caviar or Mini Pizza Pops at your next gathering alongside a Strawberry Sip N’ Spritz.

Featuring 120 gorgeous photographs and 100 mouthwatering recipes, Measure with Your Heart has ideas for sweet and savory breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, as well as drinks, appetizers, and, for parents reading, even snacks for your kids (and pups!)—so get in the kitchen and try things out. If you totally mess up, even better! For Hannah, home cooking is not about being perfect—it’s about having fun and nourishing the ones you love.

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Introduction

I didn’t grow up in the kitchen. Food was not my community’s love language. But my “off the land,” free-spirited childhood in the Georgia woods shaped the homey person and cook I’ve become, and the person my new community has gotten to know over the last few years.

I come from working-class people, factory workers, and avid Pizza Hut–goers. My Mama, dad, brother, and me had our mobile home parked behind my grandpa’s (Papa’s) log cabin, and when he and my dad went into mechanics together, part of the property slowly turned into a junkyard—and a playground for me. If my fingernails didn’t have dirt under them at the end of the day, I had to have been sick in bed.

When I wasn’t messing around near those cars, I was frolicking all over my grandparents’ property in southeast Georgia, in a little town nicknamed “Nash Vegas” (because everyone there acts like me—can you even imagine??). It was a little farm built by my dad and Papa. They had chickens, goats, dogs, pigs. Papa and my Granny Mary loved to garden. But despite being surrounded by beautiful greens, homegrown fruits, and farm animals, the people in my life didn’t cook much. All the adults were working long hours, so convenience and thrift for our meals were everything. My Mama swore by her Crock-Pot for dinners. Most of my days consisted of someone throwing peanut butter and jelly on bread and sending me on my merry way until the evening. I was raised on processed, packaged, chemical products we bought from the grocery store. But at times, Granny did surprise me with her biscuits. And when she did, taking a flaky, buttery bite filled my whole body with warmth. I could feel her love in all her baking.

I remember watching Granny cook on sunny mornings when she wasn’t at work, the house smelling of wood, and mechanic’s grease on every surface (even the kitchen counter). When I could finally pull myself up onto my Granny’s high barstools, I would go into a trance, completely enamored with the wrinkles on her hands rolling around as she worked the biscuit dough. Her motions, how she played with the dough, felt very old and fragile. There was something almost nostalgic about it. Like even at my young age I knew she had watched her mother do it the same way. I was mesmerized by her elegance and the dance she did with the ingredients. How it all went from just flour, butter, and buttermilk to something as complex and full of different textures as a biscuit. When she’d find me staring intently, we would laugh as if I got caught doing something sneaky. The memory makes me feel so much love today, and it’s no wonder biscuits were one of the first recipes I made myself.

I was a wild child in that I always had my own way of doing things regardless of what I was told I was “supposed” to do; the outdoors helped satisfy that desire to learn hands on. I hated the curriculum and structure at school, but I loved band and dancing (surprise, surprise). I enjoyed the arts and things that weren’t taught so much as experienced. I loved that aspect about myself and I feel proud that I’ve always stayed true to that trait.

Years later, I got out of my first, abusive marriage and I needed to support me and my daughter, Lily, but I didn’t want a career that would take away from my free-spiritedness and love for myself. I wanted my baby to grow up watching her mom do what she enjoyed, no matter the circumstances. I owned a good professional camera and decided to take it seriously; I was mentored by local photographers in all sorts of genres: portraits, weddings, nature—you name it. For many years, photography was my main source of income and inspiration. Eventually I would become a mentor to others and launch my own wedding and elopement photography business. It made me realize that it’s possible to support yourself, have structure, and find purpose and beauty in what you do. I’m so grateful Lily got to see that, too.

After I left my first marriage, I was single for a long time. I had pretty much given up on dating. I dabbled a bit in my early 30s, but let me tell you, it was some nonsense out there. But on Thanksgiving…