2015 Cookbook challenge

Lizling

I made vegetable and harissa soup with feta and mint paste topping from Plenty More. It was a decent, warming but not spectacular vegetable soup, but the feta paste idea was a good one.

Might try the cauliflower cheese or the root veg pies next week when I've got more time.

merzal

I made sweet potato and pulled pork hash from Jamie's new book. It was nice but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy the ingredients to make it again. Was very handy to use up the pulled pork and sweet potatoes we had lurking.
Tonight I am making a chicken tray bake from Jamie's America.
I bought Delia's Frugal Food yesterday (25p from a car boot) so will look through that for some inspiration for next week.

jm2926

I started yesterday with the Kitchen Revolution cookbook. I used to use this a lot a couple of years ago. It works on the idea of a large meal from scratch, then two using leftovers, a store cupboard meal then one to make double and freeze half.

So this week I'm making

Roast beef with hassleback potatoes and cabbage
Beef tagliatelle
Sausages with potato and apple
Smoked haddock and chickpea salad
Coq a vin

The beef yesterday worked well, although the recipe had it in a huff paste which was a bit of a faff. The hassleback potatoes were hugely disappointing, I would rather have had regular roasters. For some reason I follower the suggestion of placing them on grease proof paper and they stuck!

Lots of beef left which I've been handing out to mum etc, and some for tonight's tea and the freezer.

S-Iam

Yum.... Some fabulous sounding recipes. My mouth is salivating

I have the first one of the Hairy Dieters cookbooks, but after the comments here I'm going to investigate the other two, too.

Over the weekend I made Sausage and butterbean pot from the Ginger Pig cookbook.
It was lovely. Really tasty and budget friendly. A definite do again.

I used 2 tins of butterbeans instead of dried, as that's what I had in, but also for ease. I can't eat tomatoes so I substituted the tomato puree and butterbean stock ( as I didn't use dried beans I didn't have the boiling liqueur) for chicken stock.

We had the leftovers reheated for lunch the next day and it as nice, if not better. For us a all round winner.

S-Iam

jm2926 wrote: »

I started yesterday with the Kitchen Revolution cookbook. I used to use this a lot a couple of years ago. It works on the idea of a large meal from scratch, then two using leftovers, a store cupboard meal then one to make double and freeze half.
.

Sounds like a interesting and practical concept. I have a cookbook called Economy Gastronomy which sounds similar and is a useful way of cooking. I'm going to have a look at for a second hand copy of KR - after I've checked the library that is.

Mmm...... This challenge was/is meant to get me to use the millions of cookbooks I already own, not to remind me what fantastic cookbooks there are still out there .

sparkychris

Thai red lentil curry was a huge success and really really easy!

Didn't taste the lentils because the spicy flavours overpowered them and they did indeed turn to mush. The 'meat' as it were, was big lumps of cauliflower- I don't know why it was called lentil curry. Its cauliflower curry!

Cooked from the sainsburys one pot cook book (so all the ingredients had 'by Sainsburys') after them!

Substituted fresh coriander by sainsburys with dried, and a can of chopped tomatoes with basil and oregano by sainsburys with cheap chopped tomatoes and dried mixed herbs, and vegetable stock by sainsburys with chicken stock cubes I had in.

About £1 a bowl, and had it with warmed flat bread. By tesco

Absolutely loved it.

Looked watery and vile all the way through cooking but as the lentils soaked up the stuff it came together in the last five minutes.

Will definitely do it again.

lilahloo

Hi KDF

Could you post the receipe for the chicken Korma please. I used to cook this alot but my son has mislaid my copy. It was so simple and tastey.

Our other favourites from that book are Acapulco chicken and the tortilla cheesecake. For some reason I can remember them!

Lizling

Grilled ziti with feta today, also from Plenty More.

It turns out that ziti is just ordinary penne, and grilled ziti is just an ordinary pasta bake, but it's a very, very good pasta bake and what's more, it's huge so I won't have to cook again for days. That was the plan because I've got a lot to do this week, hollow legs, and not much time for cooking.

Usual sorts of substitutions applied - broken spaghetti for ziti, dried herbs for fresh, 5 tomatoes and half a tin instead of 8 fresh tomatoes, ...erm and 1 accidental substitution. I'm fairly sure the herb in the oregano jar was actually thyme. I reuse jars sometimes, you see, and I don't always remember to label them. Never mind. Thyme worked well too.

mrsscattercushion

Due to house renovations, cookbooks are all scattered over the house and not very accessible, so trying a couple of new things from online sites. Firstly A Girl called Jack's carrot, red kidney bean and cumin burgers, served with shredded lettuce in a wrap (I'm doing really doing bread at the moment). As a side rosemary and Parmesan polenta chips, from a website I've already forgotten (sorry, fibro fog!) The instant polenta has been in the cupboard ages after a cheap buy in A!di's so worth digging out to see...thin we've had something similar before when eating out.

Will feedback how it goes

Mrs_Veg_Plot

I made the fish pie with leeky mash from the second Hairy Dieters cook book. But taking on board barginlover08's comments I added a chicken stock cube to the milk for the white sauce for added flavour. It was really tasty. To be honest I have yet to make one of their dishes that was not tasty. I would recommend this dish but fish pie is a favourite of mine so I am probably biased.