You know how sometimes you meet someone and you just click? And you want to spend the rest of your life sitting on a sun drenched balcony with a glass of crisp rosé and maybe a some lovely fresh seafood just listening to that person talk? Because right from the get go you recognise that this person is charming, delightful, witty and that you will be friends forever?
These are the people who one of my childhood reading friends, Anne of Green Gables would have called “kindred spirits”. And that is EXACTLY how I felt whilst reading Laurie Colwin‘s Home Cooking.
Oh, yeah, I’m back! I hope you all enjoyed the Margaret Fulton holiday special. Particularly as I only got about a third of the way through the book…so plenty more where that came from, even if it is about a year away. Holiday deets will be forthcoming but first Home Cooking because like rust, I never sleep and I pretty much wrote this whilst on holiday almost immediately after closing the last page….or whatever the Kindle equivalent of that is.
I LOVED this book. And I really want to be BFF’s with Laurie Colwin.
Wanna know why?
Laurie Colwin is a little bit like me
As frightening as that may be, reading parts of this book was a little like talking to myself. I could just imagine us chatting and having so many of those “Me too” moments vis a vis….
“I love to stay home…I love to eat out, but even more, I love to eat in”
“In foreign countries I am drawn into grocery shops, supermarkets and kitchen supply houses”
“Dinner alone is one of life’s pleasures”
“There is no such thing as really bad potato salad”
“At night some people count sheep and others read mysteries. I lie in bed and think about food. Often I make up menus. Sometimes I invent recipes”
“My favourite party is a tea-party”
She also shares some characteristics with some of my best friends both in real life and my favourite food bloggers!
She is opinionated
“As everyone knows, there is one way to fry chicken correctly. Unfortunately, most people think their method is best , but most people are wrong. Mine is the only right way,”
Grilling is like sunbathing. Everyone knows it is bad for you but no one ever stops doing it”
“I do not like to eat al fresco. No sane person does, I feel”
There is nothing to be said about (gingerbread) mixes. They are uniformly disgusting”
She has a sparkling wit
I was once romantically aligned with a young man who I now realise was crazy, but at the time, he seemed…romantic”
For eight years I lived in a one room apartment a little larger than the Columbia Encyclopedia”
“It is possible to get nasty food everywhere, but with the exception of a few eccentric meals fed me by my peers, the only awful thing I ate in England was a packaged pork pie; but then a person who eats a packaged pork pie gets what she deserves”
I am a great champion of English food, but what I was given at these dinners was neither English not food as far as I could tell.”
She writes about food like a dream
“The smell of chocolate bubbling over and slightly burning is one of the most beautiful smells in the world. It is subtle and comforting and it is rich. One tiny drop perfumes a room like nothing else”
“Soup embraces variety. There are silken cream soups that glisten on the spoon and spicy bisques with tiny flecks of lobster”
I was so sad at the end of the book to discover that Laurie Colwin passed away in 1992 aged only 48 that I cried a little. After loving every word of this wonderful book, I truly felt like I had lost a friend. And whilst I will never be able to a share cucumber sandwiches with anchovy butter with her in a teeny apartment in Greenwich village I feel like I have found a “kindred spirit” whose wit and wisdom will stay with me long after I have closed the last page of “Home Cooking”.
As I read this on holiday, I have not yet cooked anything from Home Cooking, but as soon as I do I will tell you all about it. I have however ordered the sequel to this book, called More Home Cookingand, based on Laurie Colwin’s recommendation, I have also moved Elizabeth David’s book English Bread and Yeast Cookery to the very top of my wishlist. In the meantime, the folks over at Food52 recently had their own Laurie Colwin celebration. You can read about that over in their site.
And I will leave you with some more lovely words from this wonderful writer.
No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.
Please note that whilst I received my copy of this book for review for free via Net Galley, my opinions are, as always, entirely my own.
Mexican was a recent selection at the Tasty Reads Book Club. I chose Cantina by Paul Wilson for my book because it is food porny to rival Sabrina Ghayour’s Persiana!
Cantina
Take a look at these pictures from Cantina.
Pacific Oyster Cebiche with Melon Salsa.
Dani made this as her bring along to the discussion and they are even more delicious in real life than the picture.
Cantina Cebiche
Ranchero Style Beef Broth With Bone Marrow Toasts
Personally, I’m not sure about eating the Bone Marrow Toasts but they LOOK amazing!
Cantina Ranchero Style Beef Broth
Street Style Tostadas With Seared Tuna and Wood Grilled Vegetables.
Would it be wrong to say this just made me want to lick the page?
Cantina Street Style Tostadas
Gorgeous right? However, as you may have spotted, this is not your typical bean and burrito Mexican. There is not a yellow box in sight. As a Mexican Dorothy might say, “We’re not in Chipotle anymore Toto”. Cantina delivers high end, highly complex Mexican food. For instance, those “Street Style” Tostadas?
22 ingredients – minimum. But you also need a base. So depending on which of the bases you choose you can add another
7 ingredients if you use the Jalopeno and Finger Lime Crema
13 ingredients if you use the Veracruz Sauce
8 ingredients if you make the Sesame Pipian. But hold up. One of the “ingredients” of the Sesame Pipian is a Tomatillo Verde which in turn contains another 8 ingredients…so that would be another 15 ingredients.
Thirty. Seven. Possible. Ingredients. And up to three separate recipes. For “street style” tostadas. And ok, I get it, sometimes you need a lot of ingredients to get a depth of flavour and that alone would not necessarily be enough to put me off a recipe.
However, these recipes were further complicated by a lot of the ingredients not being readily available in Australian supermarkets meaning a lot of ingredients having to be bought on the internet or having to drive across town to pick them up. And then some could only be bought in bulk – hence the almost kilo of padron peppers sitting in my freezer!
Not to mention that cooking from Cantina was like going down the rabbit hole – one recipe lead to another which required another…it seemed never ending! Here is a prime example.
Heirloom Tomato Escabeche
I made this – it was one of the things I took to the Book Club Night. It’s a salad. It’s a fancy salad. It’s maybe the BEST salad I have ever eaten. But it’s a salad.
However to make this salad, as per the recipe, you need to first have made the Mexican pickles. And you also have to have made the Pasilla Chilli relish.
Then you make a lime crema base…
THEN you make the salad.
Then you collapse in a corner quietly sobbing…or….erm…you know….
I did LOVE this, it was so pretty and also incredibly tasty. But so much work for a salad. Bear in mind this would usually be an accompaniment to something else – which probably also had multiple elements. It was hard enough cooking one thing. An entire meal would have sent me loopy!
Cantina Heirloom Salad Escabeche
But to really demonstrate how this book just about sent my sanity to the edge and had a damn good crack at ruining my relationship you can go no further than….
Hanger Steak with Huitlacoche Mustard and Salsa Negra.
Cantina Hangar Steak
That pictures looks pretty damn simple right? It’s steak, salad and a condiment. How hard could it be?
Let me step you through the timeline of this one meal shall I?
Week -1:
Order Huitlacoche off internet.
Day of the Hangar Steak
6:30pm – Get home from work
6:45pm: Make my Latin Spice Rub. This stuff is awesome. Because you make much more of this than required, I have sprinkled this over everything since I made it and it makes everything – steak, chicken, fish, eggs, calamari – taste better. Just beware it is hot, Hot, HOT so if you don’t like it spicy, go very easy!
Cantina Latin Spice Rub
6:55pm – Soak the dried porcinis
6:58pm – Chop onions and garlic.
7:03pm. Open can of huitlacoche. What is in the tin looks like corn covered in snot. Wonder if you have got a dodgy tin.
7:05pm. Google huitlacoche. Realise it’s supposed to look like that. Wish you hadn’t bought it.
7:15pm. Heat oil and cook onions garlic and both types of mushrooms
7:20pm. Add huitlacoche and porcini liquid.
The recipe them says to cook for 10 minutes until the liquid has reduced to a glossy sauce. This never happened. For a start it was way too chunky – bear in mind the recipe does not even tell you to chop your mushrooms (which I did) but what I had in my saucepan after ten minutes looked like chopped mushrooms and corn covered in snot.
7:40pm. “When are we eating? I’m hungr….what on God’s green earth is THAT?
“It’s mustard”
“It looks like mushrooms and corn covered in snot. Why are you making mustard? Can’t we just have Colman’s?”
“You can’t have Colman’s, we’re having Mexican. It’s special Mexican mustard.”
“It looks revolting”.
It didn’t look great. And I don’t want to be pedantic (I so totally do) but surely…a major component of anything called mustard should actually be mustard?
And don’t even get me started on the Apricot and Mescal Aioli that contained no mescal and was not any sort of aioli I ever had.
7:45. I’m staring at a hot mess in a pan, thinking maybe if I blended it it would look a little bit more like the mixture in the picture.
7:55. After some blending with the hand mixer, we now have something that looks pretty much like the picture in the book. Which is to say, like baby poo.
I’ve now been cooking for an hour and have….a spice rub and some sort of condiment which probably should not be called mustard. Which he is refusing to eat and I’m losing interest in by the second..
Never mind. The rest is steak and salad. Easy Peasy.
8:00pm. Rub the steaks with the spice rub. That can sit for a while because now, we need to turn to page 36 to make the Latin Vinaigrette for the garnish. Yes. Even the garnish requires you to move to a different page.
Latin Vinaigrette contains 10 ingredients. Roll eyes, sigh. Make Latin Vinaigrette.
8:10. Latin Vinaigrette Made.
8:15pm. Start on the Salsa Negra.
8:16pm Turn back to page 36 to make Salsa Mexicana for the Salsa Negra
8:17pm Salsa Mexicana requires a Zesty Lime Dressing found on page 37. Sigh, roll eyes start muttering swear words underbreath.
8:20pm. : “When are we eating? ”
“Soon. I just need to make the steak. And the salad”
“I thought that’s what we were having”
“It is” This through gritted teeth.
“But…you’ve been cooking for hours…why is there no steak? Or salad?”
“Because it’s Mexican and it’s driving me insane. I just need to make this dressing first. And I really need you to be quiet.”
“I thought you just made dressing”
“I did. That was a different dressing”
“Right. So you’ve been cooking for ages. And you’ve made a mustard that isn’t even a mustard and two salad dressings? When will you cook the steak? I’m starving!!!!”
“Just. Don’t. Speak. This Mexican is doing my head in and the more I have to chitter chatter with you, the longer this is going to take.”
8:30pm Zesty Lime Dressing Made.
8:40pm Salsa Mexicana made.
8:45pm “Where’s the can of black beans that we absolutely definitely had in the cupboard?”
“I ate them for lunch…”
“But….the salad is back bean salad. How are are supposed to have black bean salad with no black beans?”
“We have white beans”
“You can’t make black bean salad with white beans”
“Don’t be a bean racist”.
“Shut up”
We didn’t have white beans. By now I was slightly hysterical. Two hours and no beans to make the bean salad.
8:55pm “I’m hungry….when are we eating?”
“Shut up, I need to think”
“I’m going to have some cereal”
“Don’t eat cereal, we’re just about to have dinner”
“A likely story…”
9:05pm. We had couscous in the fridge. I ended up making the black bean salad with couscous.
9:15pm. The steak finally hits the grill.
9:30pm. Nearly three hours later, we sit down to eat. It was good. It was really good. The couscous was fine – maybe even better than black beans. But it was steak and salad. And it had taken nearly three hours to make. And i was in such a bad mood by the time it was ready I didn’t really enjoy it on the night. Next day for lunch though? Super!
And here in lies the what I feel is the dilemma of Cantina. Two and a half hours of cooking is WAY to long for a weekday meal. Ok, you could make the rub and the dressings and the mustard before hand but that it still time spent somewhere. And for me this is not a dinner party dish either. It’s something…I’m just not sure what – it’s too complex for a casual meal but not fancy enough for a dinner party meal.
Oh, and that so called mustard? I wouldn’t even bother with that. I didn’t like the taste of it and there was enough flavour in the rub and the dressings and the other bits and bobs so that you would not miss it.
And finally…here it is:
Don’t get me wrong. It was DELICIOUS. Nothing I made from Cantina was bad. Except for maybe that mustard. But you had to work hard for that goodness.
Will I cook from Cantina again? Hmmm….Possibly. There are still a few recipes I really want to try. But I would do it on a weekend. Ideally a long weekend.
Here is some of the other stuff I made:
Jalapeno and Finger Lime Crema
Mexican Style Pickles
Loved them!
Baked Devilled Eggs with Sobrasado
I did a cheaty version of this in that I swapped in similar stuff I had for the listed ingredients such as barley wraps for the corn tortillas, pancetta and salami for the serrano ham and sobrasado, cheddar cheese for the Mahon…It was still awesome if not exactly remotely authentic.
Chorizo with Apricot and (no) Mescal Aioli
Pumpkin Soup with Chorizo Migas
I had to buy achiote paste for this and didn’t like the flavour of it at all.
I do enjoy saying Chorizo Migas in a very bad (a la Speedy Gonzales) Mexcan accent though.
Your’re meant to drink this alternating with sips of a shot of tequila. I just put my tequila in the drink along with all the rest of the stuff. Loved this!
Here is the recipe for the Spice Rub, direct from Cantina. And also serves as my Spice Blend for a Daring Kitchen Challenge MONTHS ago. And hey, I guess the Hangar Steaks cover off on their Grilling challenge!
[yumprint-recipe id=’33’] I honestly feel like cooking from Cantina once a week which is what I try to do with the Tasty Read selections almost broke me. And, if the end result hadn’t almost invariably been delicious I would have gladly tossed the book in the trash multiple times. Instead, it’s filed away in the bookshelf just waiting for the right occasion. So, just know this. If you ever come to my house and I make you Mexican food that looks lovely and casual, know that I must REALLY like you! Because that stuff is hard!
Remember last year when I forgot to celebrate my blog-irthday? Not so for Year 3 my friends. This year, not only are we starting early but I bought you a present. Well one of you…but more about that later. I have quite the celebration planned, cakes, a cocktail, these lovely cucumber candlestick canapés and maybe even a Spanish take on the Potato Salad Roll…
But first up, my mum and and I had a lovely Mother’s Day bonding experience last weekend by hitting up some of the local op shops and I got a huge swag of goodies, some of which will be jumping right to the top of the queue in the retro food stakes.
Here are some of the best of the best:
The Complete Avocado Cookbook by Christine Heaslip
I was utterly obsessed with this book as a child. But until I saw this book in the oppy on the weekend, I had completely forgotten a very strange thing I used to do. I must have had an idea that avocados were very sophisticated and I remember borrowing this book from the library about a billion times because I would get it home, then I would dress up all my dolls in their best clothes and put them in a circle and put the book in the middle and I would make up menus and they would have avocado based dinner parties where i would flick to a page in the book and tell them what we were eating, and they would each comment on the food.
Sometimes they didn’t like what they were given in which case they either got put into the corner and missed the next dinner party or I’d twist their heads around 180° and say something like “Maybe you’ll like it better out of the back of head”
(WEIRD. ONLY. CHILD).
Complete Avocado Cookbook
I was particularly obsessed by this – The Crusty Stuffed Avocado. Which is an avocado stuffed with camembert, crumbed, deep fried and served with an almond butter sauce.
Crusty Stuffed Avocado
Maybe I should have used that as a threat for the dolls that didn’t like their meals. “One more peep out of you Missy and you get the Crusty Stuffed Avocado. And then we get to play Barbie gets a triple bypass”.
The Egg Cookbook By Peter Russell Clarke.
Back in the day, he was a celebrity chef in the 80’s whose catchcry (is that a word? it looks weird) was “Where’s the cheese?” To which the answer presumably was “In the hardened arteries of the people who ate the Crusty Stuffed Avocado”.
Eggs are one of the favourite ingredients here at maison de la retro food so this one was a certainty, despite it contains such dubious delights as a banana and chicken omelette and eggs in oranges. That one is so dodgy that even Peter Russell Clarke admits his friends don’t like the sound of it.
If you you tube PRC you will see that, instead of his good natured tv personal is he actually a bit of a foul mouthed curmudgeon. As one myself, it only made me like him more!
The Beautiful Breakfast Book by Judy Willing
Proof that you can judge a book by it’s cover. And Judy looks more than willing on the cover! This is going to be GOLD!
International Mixed Drinks
This isn’t strictly vintage but who could resist a book that offers over 300 cocktails by country? Not me that’s for sure. Mind you, I think they might be drawing a long bow in some of their allocations. Yeah, we all totally get that the Long Island Ice Tea and the Louisiana Lullaby are from the U.S.A. However, I searched for cocktails containing Parfait Amour, because I still have a buttload of it left and I found the Purple People Eater and the Love Bite. These apparently hail from The Seychelles and Mauritius respectively. Which smacks of allocating sucky cocktails to countries who are too small to declare war on you.
Still, this got me all sorts of excited. I was thinking we might do a round the world in a cocktail glass feature over the next year…52 countries in 52 weeks? Or at least until either incipient bankruptcy or alcoholism make their presence felt…..
And finally, this is it folks, over the top
Australian Cooking For Today by Anne Marshall
If today was 1977.
This is a MONSTER of a book, 900 recipes, 450 colour photos. If you were hit over the head with this book, you would wind up in hospital faster than someone who had eaten a Crusty Stuffed Avocado.
And this can be yours!
(Basically because when I got it home, I realised I already had a copy.)
And just in case the cover is not enough to convince you, opening Australian Cooking For Today at a random page reveals this – Giant Gingerbreadmen apparently reenacting the Great Train Robbery and a big ball of sausage and cheese:
You know you want it…
How You Can Win Australian Cooking For Today
There are three ways to win:
If you already follow the blog, follow me on twitter or facebook or viceversa, drop me a note and I will pop your name into a hat.
If you know of someone who you think would enjoy reading this, send them my way – all new followers will get a chance to win and if they leave me a message giving me your name, you get 5 chances.
Finally, if you already follow me on all media as do all of your friends, neighbours, co-workers, etc or you have none of the above, leave a comment below, answering the very simple question “Where’s the cheese?” and you will get a number of entries commensurate with how funny I think your entry is.
The T’s, The C’s, The Boring Bits
The actual birthday of the blog is 25 May, however it’s going to take me a bit longer than that to post all the posts on the celebrations so let’s say you have 4 weeks from now to enter. Entries will close midnight 14 June 2015.
You can enter as many times as you like.
If you are outside of Australia, I will have to send the book by cheapest mail possible as postage from here is terribly expensive. So you might get it by Christmas.
Maybe once you get it we can do a combined cook or something. Then again, it’s your present, you can do what you want with it!
One of my new year’s resolutions this year was to take my lunch to work a lot more. I had lots of reasons for this – it’s a LOT cheaper, it meant I could control ingredients and portion sizes, it can often be healthier and there’s much less wastage both in food and packaging. There’s no real downside.
Except. The monotony. By about mid February I felt like I was cornering the market in tins of tuna – tuna green salad, tuna pasta salad, tuna potato salad, tuna and couscous had become my go to and frankly it was becoming a bit of a bore. I was maxxed out on the tuna and feeling my motivation starting to wane.
Enter “Bring Your Lunch” by Califia Suntree.
Bring Your Lunch
And can I just say…awesome name, Califia Suntree.
And awesome book.
In the interests of full disclosure and all the blah blah, I did not pay for this book, I got it free off net galley but I would hope that you all know me well enough by now to know that if I truly dislike something, I’ll let you know.
The Book
The first few chapters of the book are the facts, man. Why you should take your lunch, what you need, planning tips etc. This section is very thorough. Or so I assume from the number of pages devoted to it.
To be honest, I didn’t actually read all of them because I wanted to get my hands on the recipes. Plus, I felt I was already motivated to bring my own lunch didn’t need to be pitched on the reasons why. However, it is very nicely illustrated and if you need to be convinced, or feel your motivation flagging at any time, take the time to read these pages.
My favourite picture in this section was the lunch horoscope. It really helped to refine what recipes would best fit your lifestyle,not just your tastebuds! Which is so important, I’m not the person who is going to be spending any time in the morning making lunch so it’s important for me to know which are the good “night owl” recipes.
This could have been carried even further by attaching the relevant symbols to the recipe. That would have been amazing!!!
The Food
The food sections of the book are broken down into various sections, starting with
Last Minute Lunches – Salads
The Kale Agrodolce is not only just a good idea for lunches but it has pretty much become my go-to salad at the moment. I’m loving the sweet-sour of the agrodolce. Having said that, that name made me giggle though. Anyone of a certain age in Australia would like me probably associate an Agrodolce as the mutant lovechild between a foul-mouthed puppet host of a children’s cartoon show from the ’80’s….
And Joe Dolce, a singer who made his fortune by playing to the casual racism of the average Australian;
Thankfully, it’s actually a lovely sweet-sour blend of sultanas soaked in balsamic vinegar. Add some toasted pine nuts, some kale et voila. Here it is with some of the Potato and Mushroom Tarts from Valli Little’s Slow. This was one of the best lunches I have had in ages!!!
Kale Agrodolce
Another super salad from this section was the Fennel and Spinach Salad with Figs and Blue Cheese. I don’t have a photo of this . Largely because every time I made it I was far too busy shoving all that tasty goodness into my mouth to take photos. Just believe me when I say it is one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten. But don’t take my word for it. I feel bad I didn’t have a photo for you, so here is the recipe:
Who knew egg and prawns would go together do well? And tarragon pretty much makes everything taste good. I had this both as a traditional sandwich and wrapped in a lettuce leaf and it was delicious both ways.
Leftover Leitmotifs
Waste not, want not. Make all your food count by creatively using leftovers to make delicious bring your own lunch meals. I made:
Nasi Goreng
Great way to use random veg – I had cabbage, mushrooms, onion, carrot, corn, spring onions, snow peas, broccoli….I think that was all and some chicken breast. I also threw in some prawns. So tasty!!!
Nasi Goreng
And who doesn’t love Chicken Noodle Soup? The Parmesan Cheese and Lemon in this Lemony Chicken Noodle Soup makes it particularly tasty.
Lemony Chicken Noodle Soup
Other delicious sounding recipes in this section include:
Chinese Chicken Salad
Pork Tacos with Pinepapple Salsa
Beef Stroganoff
Ceviche with Mango and Basil
The Freezer Is Your Friend
Mini Lasagnas are my friend. Bake these vegetarian delights in muffin trays and pop in the freezer for future use.
Hardy Green Mini Lasagnas
And how gorgeous do these look, particularly when topped with a lovely cherry tomato compote?
Hardy Green Mini Lasagnas With Cherry Tomato Compote
Ditch The Vending Machine
Chickpea Nuts
Delicious to snack on. So simple to make.
You can indulge your sweet tooth with
Chilli & Cherry Brownie Bites
Gingery Pecan Cranberry Granola Bars
Califia even provides advice on how to Tart Up Your Tuna, so there is absolutely never any reason to get stuck in a rut even with this staple lunch ingredient.
Tart Up Your Tuna – Califia Suntree
I really liked this book and can see it becoming a go to for lunch (and more).
My only criticism, is that whilst I love the drawings as featured above, I would have liked some photos of the food, sometimes it is just nice to see if you have “got it right”. But that is probably more about my insecurities than any fault of the book.
At the time of writing Bring Your Lunch is selling at around $4 which is absolute bargain. I would pay that just for the salad recipes let alone all the rest. Why don’t you buy it and start bringing it too?
It’s been a while so I thought I would give you a little update on how I am getting on with the Tasty Reads Books.
Slow: Valli Little: August 2014 pick
Slow – Valli Little
Recipes in book: 60
Recipes marked to cook: 34 38
Cooked to date 12 22
Newly Cooked
p50 Fresh Piccalilli
I did not make the Ham Hock Terrine that this was supposed to accompany but this was one super pickle!!! So fresh and tasty and zingy.
p60 Roast Chicken With Pan Roasted Romesco
This was delicious!
p64 Oven Baked Thai Chicken Curry
Meh…take it or leave it…a solid chicken curry but nothing to write home about.
Oven Baked Chicken Curry
p66 Moroccan Chicken with Olives
Sorry, I took this photo on the fly during a dinner party. Not the best quality but this dish was great. Very tasty and you can pop it in the oven and pretty much forget about it until serving time! Oh, and in the background you can see the fennel and apple salad from Persiana.
Slow – Moroccan Chicken With Olives
p70 Massaman Roast Chicken
I really wanted to cook this in style of the cover (above) but we had a heap of chicken breasts…this was delicious!
Slow – Massaman Curry Roast chicken
p74 Fish Pie
OMG. So good.
Slow – Fish Pie
Slow – Fish Pie2
p76 Green Curry With Smoked Salmon
This was ok. I probably would not make it again. It was a bit too salty with the smoked salmon and the soy and the fish sauce.
p84 Fish Tagine
Superb!
Slow – Fish Tagine
p102 Baked Mushrooms with Pine Nuts & Feta
Absolutely delicous!!!
p124 Deep Fried Brie with Sweet Chilli Sauce
Of this lot, my top three were the mushrooms, the fish pie and the tagine. And you know…fried cheese is never wrong!!! The piccalilli was really good too.
The worst was the smoked salmon curry. Funny thing was, I don’t think I had it marked as something to cook, however we bought some hot smoked salmon which was on sale so I thought I would give it a go. I should have stuck to my initial instincts.
Still To Go
p6 Braised Beef Cheeks With Salsa Verde
p8 Braciola (you’ll notice I’ve added a few in)
p10 Steak with Wild Mushroom Sauce
p22 Lamb & Apricot Tagine
p24 Massaman Curry Lamb Shanks
p28 Lamb En Croute
p36 Macaroni Cheese with Truffle Oil
p44 Meatballs with Heavenly Mash
p62 Roast Quail with Split Pea Dhal
p88 Mushroom Soup with Garlic Bread
p92 Cauliflower Cheese Soup
p104 Pumpkin, Goat’s Cheese and Onion Marmalade Jalousie
p106 Twice Baked Souffles
p110 Mushroom & Potato Tarts
p116 Bagna Cauda with Baby Vegetables
p118 Instant Fondue with Roast Vegetables
Sixteen to go.
I’d like to cook them all before this August which will be the 12 month mark. Technically, that should be easy. Then again, I also have retro books, Persiana, Healthy Every Day and two Tasty Reads selections I have not even told you about yet!!! Plus at least one other bloggy project I am keen to get off the ground. We’ll see…
She has a sparkling wit
She writes about food like a dream
No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.
