The All New Bang on Trend Cookbook Challenge 2018

purpleybat

last night I made cod in spiced tomato sauce, spinach with onions and a pea pilau, all from a madhur jaffrey book. recipes were simple and all went down well with lots of compliments.
have written notes on all dishes in the book, which some of my family thinks is terrible, but i'm there's no way I can remember any tweaks when I make the recipes next time.
when I buy cookbooks from charity shops I quite like peoples notes in them, I especially liked the comment 'YUK! DO NOT COOK' against one recipe

Lolly_willowes

:beer:

purpleybat wrote: »

last night I made cod in spiced tomato sauce, spinach with onions and a pea pilau, all from a madhur jaffrey book. recipes were simple and all went down well with lots of compliments.
have written notes on all dishes in the book, which some of my family thinks is terrible, but i'm there's no way I can remember any tweaks when I make the recipes next time.
when I buy cookbooks from charity shops I quite like peoples notes in them, I especially liked the comment 'YUK! DO NOT COOK' against one recipe

That sounds delish! What jaffrey cookbook? I have a lot of hers and taught myself how to cook Indian food from them.
I also love little notes in books and to see what recipes have been tried and are successful

purpleybat

Lolly_willowes wrote: »

:beer:

That sounds delish! What jaffrey cookbook? I have a lot of hers and taught myself how to cook Indian food from them.
I also love little notes in books and to see what recipes have been tried and are successful

it's just called madhur jaffrey indian cookery(cooking?) i have a hardback copy which she has a red shirt on on the cover, a bargain at £2 from a charity shop and all recipes i've used have worked well.
only thing i will say, and i find this of a lot of indian recipes, is that i use a fraction of the oil amount stated in the recipes. eg the fish recipe said to fry fish and add to the sauce and then bake, i just poached it in the sauce saving 5 (yes 5!!!!) tbsp of oil.

Lolly_willowes

I don't think I have that one but will see if I can find a similar recipe in one I do have. I'm terrible for following quantities in recipes so I never notice how much oil is used. As I'm cooking for one I just eyeball things and if I'm halving a recipe I'll often just keep the spice quantity the same as I like my food spicy!
Talking of which I just made a parsnip and carrot mulgitawny soup from the new vegan column from the guardian. I've got a stinking cold so the spice and sweetness was very welcome. Super easy and cheap and I would make again happily.

Lolly_willowes

I'm in the process of trying a completely new to me meal from economy gastronomy. They have a section called bedrock recipes and the idea is to cook one thing and then use over several different meals. I'm making the boiled ham and tomorrow I will make the first meal that is ricotta gnocchi with root veg and a cream and mustard sauce. I don't actually eat a huge amount of meat at home so will be interesting to see if I get sick of it after a few days.

Lolly_willowes

I just made boiled ham with spinach (I used kale) dumplings with root veg and a mustard cream sauce. It was very nice but my god it was a faff! Several pans meant to be used and lots of steps with what initially looks like a simple recipe. Blanche kale and put in iced water. Then make dumplings and preboil. Then boil some of your ham stock and cook the veg, take them out and reduce. Then add veg, ham and dumpling back in. When warm take out reduce again and make a cream sauce I missed steps out and it was fine and I shall never make again. Also dumpling mixture was much wetter than advertised so trying to add flour with sticky hands was a nightmare. Bonus/ negative lots of leftovers and two more meals to make from the ham. If u have a family to feed and a bigger kitchen than me it's worth a cook but for me it was far to homely for so much damn effort!

Lolly_willowes

2nd meal from the bedrock meal. Ham with champ. This was much easier and I devoured the champ. I'm bored of ham now though. Living on my own with only vegetarian friends, making this much ham was a stupid idea and I don't really know what got into me. Anyway one more meal from the book after this and I will still have lots of ham leftovers to freeze after this. I also still have leftover mashed potatoes and stock. A pea and ham soup will be made soon for the freezer and I shall eat some bubble and squeak with fried eggs. Maybe some ham if it doesn't make me cry.

Lolly_willowes

Last meal from the ham and economy gastronomy. Leftover dumplings in a pepper and tomato sauce with paprika. Fried mushrooms and ham served with rocket. I loved this and it made enough for me to freeze two more servings if I can find room in my tiny freezer. I also made a pea and lettuce soup with the leftover stock. I'm gonna have a meat free week after this as I'm sick of the sight of it for now. I may do a roast once a month though when I have freezer space as it was an effective way to cook.

caronc

Goodness lolly, I can see why you are fed up with ham. I have this book and used a few times when the kids were at home but I've not looked at at years. I do like "rolling leftovers" but hate eating the same (or similiar things in a row).
You could use some of the lurking ham to make rissoles, they freeze really well and don't take up loads of room in the freezer.

I've been in "use up" mode of "here's one I made earlier" from the freezer recentlyso not made anything new recently. I'm making gravlax for Easter though, using a recipe my son has tried from Rick Stein which I've not tried before but my son says is lovely. .

Lolly_willowes

Ohhh I love gravalax but I'm staying away from anything that makes large amounts for a little while. I'm trying to get into use up mode myself from the freezer but I have fresh stuff to use before it goes bad first.