The Cookbook Game #2

If I can, I am going to try to get in a few recipes from this wonderful cookbook. I love the simplicity, but do occasionally have to do a double take on the ingredients. I guess I have just become used to a certain 'set' of ingredients and with a certain online retailer not actually having anything other than digital media for sale until the beginning of this year (Yes, I went 3 1/2 years without Amazon after being a devoted user of it), well I have had to reign in some of my cooking from some of my American vegan cookbooks. However, after some careful selection of recipes, scanned in this afternoon, I have a few easy options to take with me from this book which is book 33 (sorry the hash key is missing in action - my new laptop has a physical keyboard in Australia and an actual keyboard in British which I learnt to touch type in. For letters and number they are exactly the same. the difference comes with the symbols, something that foxes my husband time and time again when it comes to me and our passwords and his ability to actually enter them on this laptop! in this case, what you see, isn't what you actually get and when it is hidden behind stars....yeh 23 years and still counting amazingly!)

So a few options have arisen for meals
Oh the cookbook.... Pure & Beautiful Vegan Cooking by Kathleen Henry. She's a vegan based in Alaska. So obtaining some things for her is a challenge and sometimes the 'go and forage' option for me is a challenge also! Fiddleheads - I know what they are, but trust me, not in this part of Australia. I need to get over to the coast where we have the rainforest zone and then you are into National Parks territory and you don't go foraging there, trust me - they are very strict on what can and can't be touched, moved, and so on, right down to calls of nature (even no. 1's and removing the paper - not acceptable! thankfully there are plenty of rest points with generally very clean compost toilets - OK I know its a cooking thread. I was trying to keep it as clean as possible - foraging isn't an option :( )

So the book, I've cooked once from it actually quite recently, though I'm not certain we thought the recipe to be inspiring or fantastic, but just OK. So it is time to have another attempt.
  • Baked sage risotto with mushrooms and chard
  • sesame peanut soba noodles with sautéed mushrooms and snap peas
  • creamy rosemary chickpea pasta
  • soba & veggie miso bowl
  • herbed socca with roasted broccoli & hummus
I'm not saying I'm going to cook all 5, but those are 5 that I am taking with me and could be able to cook from this book...
I've had to exclude a whole load of recipes because they need a high power blender (my sister won't have one). I'm going to be lucky if she has any blender tbh. I know she has some decent pans, because we gave her ours when we went off to cycle around the world (even then they were nearly 2 decades old... We have the frying pan and the big 5L stock pan back - they were too large for her. We still use them frequently.

I'll edit the post in a moment and upload the front image. I'm on a different device.

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SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
  • Baked sage risotto with mushrooms and chard
  • sesame peanut soba noodles with sautéed mushrooms and snap peas
  • creamy rosemary chickpea pasta
  • soba & veggie miso bowl
  • herbed socca with roasted broccoli & hummus
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All these sound as if they could be good. Baked risotto? That is rather an 'unusual' way to cook risotto.

I think its great that you plan to cook for the game even though you will be thousands of miles from home.
 
SatNav, I do love the way you write. Still laughing. lol

That baked risotto does sound good, (coming from a mushroom lover lol)

Yes, I do appreciate you playing the game, like MG says, so far from home. Thank you again for giving me a home for the game.
 
morning glory said:
All these sound as if they could be good. Baked risotto? That is rather an 'unusual' way to cook risotto.
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We often do a baked risotto. much easier than standing at the pan and stirring constantly. I've got quite a few baked risotto recipes. I liked the looks of this one because of the mushrooms. I'm a big mushroom lover and the problem with Australia is that they don't appear to be. It is really hard to get the chestnut mushrooms... usually you only get them presliced which I hate. its field mushrooms, normal cup mushrooms and Portobello if you are lucky. Very small containers of 'wild' mushrooms which are anything but exciting and wanting to be cooked. and they are so expensive here in comparison.
I was reading about the lack of cauliflowers.... that's a shame. Here we have a glut and they are $2 a cauliflower! so that's roughly £1 per.... bet they won't be by the time I get back!

right packing again... must get on with it.... honestly..... yeah. as you can see the enthusiasm is just leaping out of me onto the page.
 
My comments on Potato and Pea Curry (Mattar Batata)

I chose this recipe because I love vegetable curries and I also happened to have all the ingredients to hand. Overall, the end result is fine and I enjoyed eating it (with a fried egg). But I did run into several ‘snags’. The big issue was the quantity of ingredients as stated in the recipe. I cooked this for 2 rather than 4 people, so I halved quantities.
  • The recipe (for 4) calls for of ½ tsp of whole dried red chillies. I used tiny whole dried chillies. But even so, can you imagine trying to measure ½ tsp of whole dried chillies? I don’t know if they should have been ground up - but if so, the recipe doesn’t state this. I ended up using 3 small dried chillies as I like things hot!
  • The quantity of tomatoes is stated as 3 medium sized / about 450 g/1 lb (for 4). I weighed 3 medium sized (really quite large) tomatoes and they weighed just over half that amount (see images below). That is quite a discrepancy. I used them all for my recipe for 2. But had I been making the recipe as stated for 4, I’d have needed 6 medium tomatoes (I presume).
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  • The recipe (like many other recipes in the book) calls for grating the tomatoes on the coarse side of a grater. Have you ever tried to do this? I ended up with a seedy mush from the middle of the tomatoes and left over flesh attached to skin, which wouldn’t grate. In the end I sliced and used some of the flesh attached to skin, in the dish - the photo in the book shows such pieces anyway! In future I would use whole sliced tomatoes.
  • The quantity of peas seemed a lot compared to potatoes. I’ve made potato and pea curry before and I use far less peas. The recipe calls for 285g of frozen peas, so as I was halving ingredients I should have used 140g (approx). In the event, I used 120g but I feel that is still far too much. I’d suggest 100g maximum for 2.
Amount of peas (and this is less than recipe states). I removed some of them for the photographs of the finish dish.

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So would I make this again? Well, not according to the recipe as written! How can the error in quantity of tomatoes get through in an acclaimed book such as this? I noted that the photo of the recipe in the book clearly shows chopped fresh red chillies which are not included in the recipe as well as the slices of tomato not included in the recipe.

It was nice enough to eat and the flavour of the spices came through. But I wouldn’t say its the best Mattar Batata I’ve eaten.
 
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You didn't say much about your cookbook...........then again.........I guess you did. Thanks so much for playing. (great photos as usual lol)
 
cookieee said:
You didn't say much about your cookbook...........then again.........I guess you did. Thanks so much for playing. (great photos as usual lol)
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I'll add a bit more about the book later - its a very well known book - but this is the only recipe I've cooked from it so far! I may do a second one.
 
My pick for this round is Not Your Mother's Make-Ahead and Freeze cookbook. I went thru all my cookbooks and couldn't find one with the last name starting with J. I thought I'd see, for fun. This particular cookbook I haven't cooked from for about 5 years. She has terrific recipes. You don't necessarily have to freeze. I have used this book regularly it was great. I was able to stock my freezer for convenience. I'm going to make Bacon and Spinach Quiche. I haven't had Quiche in years.And I'll make sure I take a picture this time.
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Puff, puff, have to catch my breath. Just lifted the next cookbook we will be using, down from the shelf. it is so big and heavy, whew, with 527 pages, (not counting the 19 pages of index). It is one of our "J" cookbooks. "The Big Book of Outdoor Cooking & Entertaining" by Cheryl & Bill Jamison-pub. 2006. It has more than 850 recipes. I am going to list just 4 categories that have the most recipes according to what is written on the back cover. 154 things to do with seafood - 89 spice blends,rubs,marinades, and mops - 76 barbecue sauces,salsas, and relishes - and - 58 chicken dishes. ok, 1 more lol - 25 perfect sunset drinks.

I see a few of my red check marks. That means I made a copy of the recipe, but not necessarily made the recipes. Back later with a recipe , I hope.
 
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