Last night I got to stuff my face with the most delightful vegan street food treats at Jackie Kearney’s book launch.
For those who haven’t heard of Jackie, she was one of the Masterchef finalists in 2011 and is a committed vegetarian.
Her latest book is called My Vegan Travels. Jackie has travelled a lot in South East Asia and picked up a ton of great ideas for cooking vegetarian and vegan food. Her previous book Vegan Street Food was along a similar theme, but her new book is focussed on super simple, comfort food recipes.
I got to munch my way through: shitake mushroom croquettes, bombay veg sandwiches, beetroot and watercress samosas and artichoke torta. All rather lovely. But the icing on the cake for me as a greedy sugar fiend, were the chai doughnuts with raspberry jam and soft pecan cookie ice-cream sandwiches (with a vegan malted coconut and blueberry ice-cream). Scrumptious.
The book looks absolutely superb, so if you want to buy an original Christmas gift for a cooking enthusiast, My Vegan Travels is a great shout.
As you may have gathered from reading my blog posts this year, I have a very sweet tooth that interferes with my desire to eat healthily. I have been very open about my ice-cream addiction and my attempts to curb my evening treat.
So a big theme for me this year has been finding a healthier alternative for dessert. And ‘healthy’ cakes have become a thing for me.
When I say healthy, I think it’s more accurate to say it contains a few more wholesome ingredients than the original. The recipes are still loaded with sugar and fat. And whether that’s in the form of maple syrup and coconut oil, too much of it still isn’t good for you.
But I do take great comfort in knowing that when I’m eating a healthier version of a cake, it might be doing me a little bit of good at the same time.
My favourite cookbook for these treats at the moment is Love, Bake, Nourish It was a birthday present back in May, and for the last two months I’ve cooked the sh*t out of it!
Unfortunately I was too lazy to take photos of all of my efforts, but let me tell you about my greedy cakey couple of months.
For starters I really enjoyed the following:
Courgette and apple
Maple pecan
Orange, almond & pistachio
Coconut
Chocolate beetroot
And pretty much unanimously, they’ve all been AWESOME.
And the four pictured below are my absolute faves:
Banana and cinnamon
Chocolate and chestnut
Spiced scented carrot cake with a crumble topping
Nutmeg love
Amber Rose the author tends to use spelt flour instead of refined flour, which is much more nutritious, she also uses honey, maple syrup or brown sugar instead of refined sugar. And the use of a lot of nuts, veg and fruit in her cakes bumps up the goodness levels.
I tell you what though, those ingredients may make the recipes healthier, but actually they seem to elevate the flavours. I’ve been really impressed with complex, interesting taste of the cakes. All of them were rich and indulgent and really satisfying. Most were quite pudding like in that they were quite dense and moist, and I was all over that.
I can’t wait to crack on and cook everything in the book. Next on my list is the passion fruit and lime syrup cake. Mmm.
Banana and cinnamon cakeChocolate and chestnut cakeSpiced scented carrot cake with a crumble toppingNutmeg love cake
I bloody loved The Foodie Teen cookbook. Apologies Alessandra, but I didn’t anticipate a teenager coming up with such brilliant recipes. And they were all super healthy too.
The dishes weren’t just good, they were inventive and challenging. The cakes in particular (all made from non refined sugar) were exotic and had incredible depth of flavour. I would 100% cook from this book again. Although I have two very small complaints: 1) a lot of the dinner recipes don’t have carbs which you do need to feel full and 2) there are too many cake recipes in the book, and despite my obsession with cakes, I craved more dinner options. But overall, my goodness, what fabulous, flavourful recipes.
Here’s my rating on the recipes:
Favourites
Spiced chocolate chilli with coriander spiked avocado. This was so rich and delicious. I might even go so far as to say it’s the best chilli I’ve eaten in my life. We ate it on a friday night and I enjoyed it so much I couldn’t wait to eat the leftovers for lunch the next day.
Pineapple carrot cake with passion fruit coconut frosting. This was an indulgent piece of tropical heaven. The coconut passion fruit topping was sweet and creamy and the cake was so moist.
Crunchy nut banana loaf. The pecan nut and coconut oil crumble on top of this banana bread made it a real treat.
Mexican burgers with all the toppings and raw beetroot-carrot slaw. I’m not sure how Alessandra did this, but the burgers were juicy and the slaw, salsa and guacomale were so fresh, the combination absolutely hit the spot.
Sweet potato vegetable pad thai with lime tahini and ginger dressing. I was sceptical about whether this would work until I shoved a mouthful in my mouth. The peanut dressing coating the vegetables was gorgeous.
Spiced chocolate chilli with coriander spiked avocado
Carrot and pineapple cake with coconut and passion fruit frostingCrunchy nut banana loafMexican burgers with all the toppings and raw beetroot-carrot slawSweet potato vegetable pad thai with lime tahini and ginger dressing
The Also Very Goods
Spicy red thai curry soup with prawns. Exactly what it says on the tin, an excellent red thai curry soup, full of flavour and kick.
Pea and pepper beef curry. This was made with thai curry paste and was a fresh tasty curry.
Blueberry and almond crumble slices. Crunchy, crumbly and juicy with tart blueberries, they didn’t last very long in our house.
Egyptian dukkah crusted chicken fillets wth cauliflower taboulleh. The dukkah crust was a winner, providing a lot of spice and flavour to the chicken and the pomengrates in the taboulleh complimented the chicken beautifully.
Red thai curry soup with prawnsPea and pepper beef curryBlueberry and almond crumble sliceEgyptian dukkah crusted chicken fillets wth cauliflower taboulleh
As I said at the beginning, I bloody love this book. It’s bursting with imagination, colour and flavour and it’s all incrediby healthy. I always love a cookbook that will take me on a culinary adventure yet not leave me worrying about my arteries or my waistline. Well done Alessandra, I could just about cook at basic bolagnaise at your age, so hats off to you for being so clever!
I set myself the goal that I cook one recipe from each of my 69 cookbooks in 69 days. Taking the plunge got me out of my comfort zone and I gained more confidence in various cuisines like Thai/Indian/Chinese which I normally ran away from because of the obscure ingredients.
Me and my many cookbooks
2. I became more comfortable in my own skin
Taking some time out after leaving my job of ten years gave me the chance to nurture myself and my creativity and reconnect with my values. It was a wonderful opportunity.
Chilling out in nature
3. I developed a more mature and confident sense of style
Giving myself some creative space and going to art galleries, on writing and photography courses and exploring the cultural scene in Manchester fed my imagination and allowed me be more discerning and daring in how I dress myself and my house.
My Oliver Bonas in yer face yellow dress and my newly painted office
4. I’ve started to become rather addicted to taking creative risks
I think it’s good for the soul. These risks have involved baring my soul on my blog and talking about quite private matters, public speaking for the first time and even starting a YouTube channel. I’m no Zoella but I’m proud of giving it a crack.
My YouTube channel
5. As a freelancer and now self employed social media coach, I can justify spending a lot of time on social media
It can be a slippery slope. There were days last year when I’d get up at 7am and sit at my laptop until midday pouring over Pinterest and Instagram and not achieving much. This year I have a new rule, be washed and dressed and made up by 9am and have a to do list. As a result I’m way more productive.
iPhone zombie
6. It’s easy to be lonely if you are self employed and a blogger
There’s a potential to spend a lot of time on your tod. However I’ve started to collaborate more and more with freelancer friends and it’s been a blast!
Hotdesking at Katy’s house in Whaley Bridge
7. Holidays are amazing
I was very lucky in 2016, I went on various holidays including to Goa and on a cruise around Italy. I’m quite a worrier and over the years have developed a self destructive habit of needing to be ‘doing something’ at all the times. This year I’ve learnt that holidays are for relaxing not doing. Spending time doing nothing and enjoying your surroundings is brilliantly rejeuvenating and is great for getting the creative juices going.
Patnem beach, Goa
8. Being 40 rocks even if it’s made me feel a bit old
Despite increasingly creaky knees and more laughter lines, I feel like I care less what people think of me and am surer of my own opinions and more entitled to just bloody enjoy myself.
A couple of good mates who I’ve known for a long time at my 40th party
9. I’ve started to let go of my obsessiveness around penny pinching
In my twenties I got into a lot of debt, in my thirties I got sensible and was really careful with my money. However as Jamie taught me, tightness is at times a hindrance and I end up buying cheap rubbish that doesn’t last. Or I’ll cycle in minus 4 degrees to save money and get a cold. So this year I’ve learnt to loosen my grip. I’ve also allowed myself to be indulged.
Jamie treated me to a fabulous dinner at 2 michelin star restaurant L’Enclume in the Lake District for my 40th (and the head chef photo bombed the picture)
10. Being visually expressive is important to me
I’ve always been drawn to quirky beautiful clothes and been interested in design and art. I discovered this year that by expressing myself through photography, colourful clothes and quirky house interiors, that I’m a better and happier version of myself.
Snapping away at Pearl Mill Vintage Emporium in Stockport
Ottolenghi’s Plenty has been an absolute pleasure to review. This man makes you fall in love with vegetables. He serves them in unexpected and delightful ways. Cooking from Plenty made me very happy. And at no point did I feel that there was anything missing due to lack of meat or fish.
So here’s my run through of the eight recipes we tried out, starting with the favourites.
Favourites
Aubergine and lemon risotto. Ottolenghi may cook with vegetables but that doesn’t mean his dishes are low calorie. This dish had a lot of butter in, but it tasted so good. Incredibly rich and creamy as you scoop out the goo of a charred aubergine to mix in with the risotto rice.
Courgette and hazelnut salad. Admittedly we deviated from the vegetable theme here and ate it with roast chicken, but hey we would have been hungry without a bit of protein. Griddled courgettes combined with roasted hazelnuts, parmesan, basil leaves tastes superb.
Tomato, semolina and coriander soup. So semolina is a rather fascinating addition to this dish. It thickened the soup and even provided it with a few accidental potatoey like dumplings. Tasty.
Mee goreng. Apparently this is a really famous Malaysian dish, but I’d never had it before. I am now an official fan. Stir fried tofu, pak choi, french beans, noodles and a chilli and soy sauce. Salty and interesting.
Crunchy parpadelle. A lovely creamy pasta dish made with double cream, sprouting brocolli, mushrooms and an exciting topping of crunchy panko breadcrumbs and lemon zest. I really loved this one!
Aubergine and lemon risottoCourgette and hazelnut saladTomato, semolina and coriander soupMee gorengCrunchy pappardelle
Also very goods
Mixed beans with many spices. Jamie chose this and I thought it sounded a bit boring. I was wrong. Beans can be very delicious in the right spicy sauce. So tasty that I had two enormous plates full of the stuff.
Butterbeans friend with feta, sorrel and sumac. Jamie wasn’t such a fan of this dish, but I love butter beans and feta and dill so I was happy as larry! It was lovely and creamy and comforting with the dill and feta adding a bit of intrigue.
Soba noodles with aubergine and mango. An unusual and enjoyable dish. The mango gave it an interesting sweet and sour flavour.
Mixed beans with many spicesButterbeans friend with feta, sorrel and sumacSoba noodles with aubergine and mango
I loved cooking from Plenty. Ottenlenghi is a creative genius – the dishes are so colourful and imaginative – they really lit up our evening meals. Although sometimes there’s a lot of butter and cream in his recipes, I think they cancel themselves out because all the vegetables and other ingredients are so healthy. I will definitely be returning to this book for more vegetable worship.
On my return from France, because I was so fired up about French food I was desperate to review a French cookery book. But, alas none of my 80 cookbooks are French. Luckily my friend Katy came to the rescue with Rachel Khoo’s ‘The Little Paris Kitchen’.
I hadn’t personally been a fan of the tv programme – I found Rachel a bit smug with her glamourous outfits and her adorable Paris life and her perfect food. Or more accurately I was probably jealous. However I am now eating humble pie. Rachel Khoo – I apologise for misjudging you – I’m converted – your food is ace.
I wouldn’t recommend this book if you’re on a diet – there’s a lot of cream and cheese, although I did try and select the marginally more healthy options. But I must confess I did like cooking with naughty ingredients. It made a refreshing change from my comfort zone of reviewing healthy cookbooks.
The dishes were so good I’ve even had to invent new categories for grading the dishes we tested. Firstly we’ve got the ‘Off The Scale’ category, followed by ‘Excellent’, finishing with ‘Really Good’.
I’ll talk you through them:
Off The Scale
Cauliflower bake with hazelnut crunch. Cauliflower cheese is a comfort food dish, but this is a glammed up version. The crunchy breadcrumbs and hazelnuts on top were a lovely addition. I regret that I over steamed the cauliflower. Next time I will aspire to crunchier cauliflower.
Bouillabaisse or fish stew. This was our new year’s eve dinner. I loved the exotic blend of herbs and spices – star anise, orange zest, fennel seeds, thyme and saffron threads – I’ve never eaten seafood with that kind of citrussy base before. We tried to make the ‘rouille’ to go with it – a saffrony homemade mayonnaise. Two attempts but no success – I think more thorough guidance from Khoo would have been useful, but the stew was still exceptional without it.
Chocolate lava cakes with salted caramel filling. It was a triumphant moment at our table when Jamie and I tucked into these beauties. Hot molten chocolate with salted caramel in the middle. A definite moment of pudding heaven for me.
Cauliflower bake with hazelnut crunch crustBouillabase (sadly without the rouille)Chocolate lava cake with salted caramel filling
Excellent
Smoky fish pie. A good way to use up the leftovers from the christmas cheeseboard and random old veg in our fridge. This was made with smoked haddock, bechamel sauce and veg of your choice. It was a lovely warming wintery dish.
Puy lentil salad with goat’s cheese, beetroot and a dill vinaigrette. The perfect post christmas health kick dinner with the dill sauce adding a nice fresh, tart note.
Chicken and mushrooms in a white wine sauce. Chicken and mushrooms with cream and wine is always a winner and the aniseedy tarragon on top really made it for me.
Smoky fish piePuy lentil salad with goat’s cheese, beetroot and a dill vinaigretteChicken and mushroom in white wine sauce
Really Good
Mushroom terrine. Basically a mushroom quiche without a pastry. Simple and tasty.
Carrot salad and celeriac and apple salad. I too often forget how good salads can taste with a bit of love and imagination. We were particularly taken with the celeriac and apple salad – the mustard and white wine vinegar giving it some pep.
Mushroom terrineCarrot salad and celeriac and apple salad
I was rather sorry when we cooked the final recipe from ‘The Little Paris Kitchen’. It had been a lot of fun – I had enjoyed the feeling of extending my french holiday by continuing to learn about French cooking and eating French food. I also did really like the excuse to cook with fattening ingredients – the French know what they are doing with cream and butter. Thanks Rachel, your cookbook is colourful, inspiring and you make it easy for readers to get impressive results.
Guardian food writer Felicity Cloake has written a lovely cookbook called ‘Perfect Too’ which is a compilation of her weekly Guardian feature/recipe where she seeks to the make the perfect XXXX – this could be a croque monsieur, a jam doughnut, gingerbread. Generally some kind of classic or well known dish.
My main obstacle with navigating this book was Felicity’s tendency towards red meat, heavy carbs and puddings. I wasn’t sure how I’d survive the eight dishes we planned to test without my waistline and energy levels suffering.
However I managed to do a reasonable job of finding the most healthy numbers in the book including – dal, spaghetti vongole and nut roast.
I’ll talk you through my favourites and my ‘also goods’, as there were no failures here – everything turned out well, although there were four clear triumphs for me:
Favourites
Macaroni cheese. Definitely at the top of my list. I’m not a massive fan of mac n’ cheese, but nutmeg in the sauce and a crunchy breadcrumb and parmesan topping breathed new life into this dish. Sweet, creamy comfort food.
Spaghetti alla vongole. Easy peasy to make – ready in just ten mins (apart from soaking the clams for two hours to get the dirt off them). A superb dish – salty, lemony and it tasted of the seaside. It felt sophisticated and looked rather rustic and beautiful.
Nut roast. Another unexpected hit. I choose this more for nutrition reasons than from real interest in the dish. But it was quite spectacular. The sage, chestnuts and parsnips gave it a lovely earthy flavour and the stilton was a lovely tangy creamy twist.
Potato salad. I didn’t realise potato salad could taste this good. Felicity’s version included capers, anchovies, fresh chives, mint and parsley, dijon and wholegrain mustard, spring onions and lashings of mayonnaise. Creamy herby, salty heaven!
Macaroni cheeseSpaghetti alla vongoleNut RoastPotato salad
The Also Goods
Aubergine parmigiana. This nearly fell into ‘favourites’ as it was gorgeous. It didn’t make it because it wasn’t as much of a revelation as the top four dishes. It was smoky, meaty (yet vegetarian), moist and delicious. The inclusion of two balls of mozzarella gave the dish a lovely creaminess and chewiness. Warning: pretty laborious to make and involved boiling a lot of aubergines!
Meatballs. Made from pork and mince beef molded together with onions, fennel seeds and breadcrumbs soaked in milk. Felicity used the pork to make them more juicy, fatty and flavoursome – and it paid off – they were much more interesting than normal meatballs and the fennel seeds were a tasty, fragrant flavour addition.
Dal. A very virtuous dinner – this must have had hardly any calories in it and was full of healthy lentils. It was tasty but I think eating it with a couple of curries would have been the ideal way to eat it – it was a bit uninspiring just by itself.
Cullen skink. A creamy smoked haddock and potato soup. A hearty, tasty and again healthy dinner.
Whilst Felicity’s recipes were a bit stodgy for me and this might not end up being my go to cook book, I ate some great meals. And there is something magical about the way Felicity takes classic recipes – be it macaroni cheese, meatballs or parmigiana, amalgamates the best techniques from a variety of chefs and makes them REALLY REALLY well. Sometimes it involved a bit of extra faff and effort, but it was worth it for the excellent outcomes.
Nigella’s How to Eat is considered to be a cooking bible for many. It’s held up for it’s beautiful prose and her ability to empower the reader to cook confidently and intuitively. It’s also known for being good for explaining classic recipes in a really straight forward way – roasts, stews, pastry, victoria sponges, trifles – it’s all there.
I fully expected to be wowed by this 1998 legendary cookbook. It had been sat on my shelf for two years untouched apart from a stunning mushroom ragout I made as part of the 69-er cookbook challenge. Neglecting this book had actually been more to do with it not having any photos than anything else. But I felt duty bound to review read it as part of my ‘Cooking the Books’ series because I’m such a big Nigella fan.
My Nigella experience until this point has been a heady one. I’ve been cooking her recipes for over seven years and everything I’ve ever cooked (with perhaps two exceptions) has been not just a success, but a true triumph. Her recipes combine incredible and exotic flavours with an idiot proof recipe – allowing me to be lavished with praise by work colleagues and dinner party guests in exchange for very little effort on my part. Favourites included the toffiest banoffee cheesecake, the sweetest, juiciest egyptian tomato salad, a fragrant courgette and lime curd cake, a dense chocolate guinness cake and the laziest, but most impressive cherry cheesecake. In fact I could fill the page with my Nigella wonder dishes – she’s done a lot for me (and my popularity!).
But How To Eat was a different deal. It was classic food (little of her more recent fun stuff) and if I’m honest a little on the dull side! And the sprawling way it’s written and designed makes it an uphill battle – there’s Nigella ramblings about general cooking and eating advice, interspersed with haphazard recipes on the same page and with NO photos. I really wanted to like it, but I found it a drag. However as you can see below we did still enjoy some really tasty food so I won’t knock it too much! I guess I just didn’t find it punchy and inspiring like her other books.
The Favourites
Pea orzotto – effectively pea risotto made with pearl barley instead of rice with loads of cream and butter! Unsurprisingly it was creamy and rather tasty.
Mushroom risotto – just an easy and delicious risotto with some porcini mushrooms thrown in.
Lebanese moussaka – not a moussaka as we know it. In fact barely anything like it. A stew of tomatoes, chickpeas and aubergines with cinnamon and all spice. Earthy, sweet, spicy – a great dinner.
Pea orzotto, mushroom risotto, lebanese moussaka
The Disappointments
Vegetable Curry – as curries go this was again ‘alright’ but quite bland for a curry. The raita saved it, but it wasn’t even Nigella’s.
Sausages and onion and wine gravy – I think we didn’t help ourselves by buying crap sausages – butchers’ ones would have made a big difference. The gravy was just very average if I’m honest – for the 30 mins of simmering you would expect it to pack a punch and it didn’t.
Fish pie – again, I thought – a Nigella fish pie, she’ll take it to another level. She didn’t. It had some porcini mushrooms in it which I thought might spice things up, but nope, there was nothing special about this pie.
Beer braised beef – I thought this would be amazing – it was just quite nice. The prunes were a lovely touch though!
Vegetable curry, sausages and onion and wine gravy, beer braised beef, fish pie
I’m glad I did this How To Eat immersion, just so I can say I’ve read it as it’s held in such high regard. But it’s definitely not a book for contemporary recipe inspiration! Yes it was written in 1998 so you can’t expect it to be that modern, but Nigella’s Domestic Goddess was written in 2000 just two years later and is bursting with adventurous, inspiring bakes that still stand up in 2016. Clearly things got better on the recipe front for Nigella after this first book. But that’s my slightly negative experience of the book, if you like Nigella’s writing style and want to learn how to cook some classics in an idiot proof way – fill your boots!
I relished the chance to get cracking with my immersion into John Whaites’ Perfect Plates. I did a Rustic French cooking course in May at his new cookery school and he was a bubbly delight of a man and obviously an excellent and passionate cook. I expected his book to be as full of personality and great ideas as John himself and I wasn’t disappointed.
So the premise of the book is that all the recipes contain just five ingredients – another reason to like the book – that sounded nice and simple. The rules are that basic ingredients like oil and seasoning don’t count as an ingredient.
I really enjoyed cooking from this book. It was a little bit of a shock after Anna Jones’ guilt free very healthy cooking to embrace heavier, carbier dishes, but – who cares they tasted good.
The Favourites
It’s difficult to pick out favourites as everything we cooked was impressive but here we go:
Braised Fennel with Halloumi and Grapefruit – I’d just got back from holiday so needed something to brighten my day and blast away my blues. A simple assembly job here creating a joyful colourful dish singing with flavours. The sour of the grapefruit and the salty halloumi hit the spot.
Lamb, Cherry and Yellow Split Pea Tagine – Jamie kindly cooked this slow cooked dish while I was out on a ramblers hike in Yorkshire. I returned shattered and hungry and very happy to devour this tender tasty stew.
Mushroom and Sage Gnocchi – This felt like utter decadence. Fried gnocchi with mushrooms with crispy fried sage. Buttery naughtiness!
Ham and Fennel Pasta – After pre-holiday dieting being able to eat ham with pasta and cream felt like a heavenly treat. And those ingredients are lovely together – the subtle fragrance of the fennel with the strong meaty ham and cream in the background work so well.
1: Braised Fennel with Halloumi and Grapefruit 2: Lamb, Cherry and Yellow Split Pea Tagine 3: Mushroom and Sage Gnocchi 4: Ham and Fennel Pasta
The Very Very Goods
Four-hour Tomato Pasta Sauce – I wanted to use up the glut of homegrown tomatoes we had post holiday. Luckily we had a lot as you need 1.5kg of them! Apart from having to blanch and skin all the tomatoes this was such an easy dish – just a long wait until serving. It was sweet and delicious.
Roasted Radicchio and Figs with Stilton and Balsamic Onions – Despite the fact we couldn’t find any radicchio and had to use chinese leaf instead, didn’t stop it from being excellent. It was a bung everything in the oven and roast type of dish and the flavours were beautiful – roasted fig and melted stilton is wonderful.
Tahini and Honey Chicken and Paprika Potatoes – Put all five ingredients in the oven and roast and hey presto you have beautiful nutty sweet chicken and potato dinner.
Roasted Courgettes and Tomatoes with Mozzarella and Basil – Another throw it in the oven dish – lovely and lazy and satisfyingly melty and tasty.
1: Four-hour Tomato Pasta Sauce 2: Roasted Radicchio and Figs with Stilton and Balsamic Onions 3: Tahini and Honey Chicken and Paprika Potatoes 4: Roasted Courgettes and Tomatoes with Mozzarella and Basil
I think this book is great for time poor people who like to eat restaurant quality food. It’s easy to follow the instructions, the recipes are generally simple and quick apart from a few slow cook recipes which are still straight-foward they just have a long time in the oven. And when you only have to buy five ingredients per dish it makes shopping a breeze. I thought it was a good range of dishes too and they were all dinner party worthy – so a great way to impress friends with minimum effort! It’s fun, colourful, easy-going and light-hearted just like John.
I relished the chance to get cracking with my immersion into John Whaites’ Perfect Plates. I did a Rustic French cooking course in May at his new cookery school and he was a bubbly delight of a man and obviously an excellent and passionate cook. I expected his book to be as full of personality and great ideas as John himself and I wasn’t disappointed.
So the premise of the book is that all the recipes contain just five ingredients – another reason to like the book – that sounded nice and simple. The rules are that basic ingredients like oil and seasoning don’t count as an ingredient.
I really enjoyed cooking from this book. It was a little bit of a shock after Anna Jones’ guilt free very healthy cooking to embrace heavier, carbier dishes, but – who cares they tasted good.
The Favourites
It’s difficult to pick out favourites as everything we cooked was impressive but here we go:
Braised Fennel with Halloumi and Grapefruit – I’d just got back from holiday so needed something to brighten my day and blast away my blues. A simple assembly job here creating a joyful colourful dish singing with flavours. The sour of the grapefruit and the salty halloumi hit the spot.
Lamb, Cherry and Yellow Split Pea Tagine – Jamie kindly cooked this slow cooked dish while I was out on a ramblers hike in Yorkshire. I returned shattered and hungry and very happy to devour this tender tasty stew.
Mushroom and Sage Gnocchi – This felt like utter decadence. Fried gnocchi with mushrooms with crispy fried sage. Buttery naughtiness!
Ham and Fennel Pasta – After pre-holiday dieting being able to eat ham with pasta and cream felt like a heavenly treat. And those ingredients are lovely together – the subtle fragrance of the fennel with the strong meaty ham and cream in the background work so well.
1: Braised Fennel with Halloumi and Grapefruit 2: Lamb, Cherry and Yellow Split Pea Tagine 3: Mushroom and Sage Gnocchi 4: Ham and Fennel Pasta
The Very Very Goods
Four-hour Tomato Pasta Sauce – I wanted to use up the glut of homegrown tomatoes we had post holiday. Luckily we had a lot as you need 1.5kg of them! Apart from having to blanch and skin all the tomatoes this was such an easy dish – just a long wait until serving. It was sweet and delicious.
Roasted Radicchio and Figs with Stilton and Balsamic Onions – Despite the fact we couldn’t find any radicchio and had to use chinese leaf instead, didn’t stop it from being excellent. It was a bung everything in the oven and roast type of dish and the flavours were beautiful – roasted fig and melted stilton is wonderful.
Tahini and Honey Chicken and Paprika Potatoes – Put all five ingredients in the oven and roast and hey presto you have beautiful nutty sweet chicken and potato dinner.
Roasted Courgettes and Tomatoes with Mozzarella and Basil – Another throw it in the oven dish – lovely and lazy and satisfyingly melty and tasty.
1: Four-hour Tomato Pasta Sauce 2: Roasted Radicchio and Figs with Stilton and Balsamic Onions 3: Tahini and Honey Chicken and Paprika Potatoes 4: Roasted Courgettes and Tomatoes with Mozzarella and Basil
I think this book is great for time poor people who like to eat restaurant quality food. It’s easy to follow the instructions, the recipes are generally simple and quick apart from a few slow cook recipes which are still straight-foward they just have a long time in the oven. And when you only have to buy five ingredients per dish it makes shopping a breeze. I thought it was a good range of dishes too and they were all dinner party worthy – so a great way to impress friends with minimum effort! It’s fun, colourful, easy-going and light-hearted just like John.
katyascakehole 