The Challenge is over ...
March has (well and truly) come and gone and that means that the challenge is over! I haven’t always managed to hit my target of 1 recipe a week – probably more like 1 recipe a fortnight, but never the less I did learn a few things and thought I'd share them with you
Practice – I’d say my cooking has vastly improved purely due to committing to cook different things more regularly. I feel more confident with experimenting with flavours and ingredients as my knowledge of flavour combinations has increased a lot.
The importance of being precise – I’ve seen a vast improvement in my baking as I now stick to exact measures! (As opposed to my previous habit of winging it!)
Food to be eaten cannot be styled – I’ve tried to improve my food photography but it’s quite difficult to take a photo of something you really want to eat or that might go cold. I find that if I’ve been preparing and cooking, once it comes time to take the photo I get too impatient to ‘style’ because I just want to eat …. Not yet sure how to fix that problem!
My recommendations for a 'start up' cookbook collection ... (This list contains a good mix of inspirational and practical books)• MoVida Rustica by Frank Camorra
• Snowflakes and Schnapps by Jane Lawson (Get this book more for the beautiful photography rather than frequency of use, as the recipes are great - but quite involved/complicated. Makes a beautiful coffee table book)
• Jamie Does by Jamie Oliver. (With this book Jamie has got his Mojo back! It’s a fun, enthusiastic book and the recipes are diverse, exciting and totally mouth watering!!)
The perfect 'Mid-week Go-To’ books/sites
Two resources stand out in this category and they are the resources I cannot do without and use at least once a week. I can’t help but be evangelical about both of the following!!
The first, which I have written about a lot is, Leon: Ingredients and Recipes, I wont go on about it too much – However I would encourage everyone to buy this book. Its exceptional: Nutritious, tasty, informative, easy, entertaining … the list goes on and on – a bit like me!
101 Cookbooks is my ‘Find of 2009’. This site offers fantastically healthy, tasty menu options that are relatively easy to put together and inject a well balanced aspect to a weekly eating plan. Its a vegetarian site and the author generally sticks to cooking with whole foods and natural ingredients. The author of the site, Heidi Swanson, is a photographer and her photos are as inspirational as her recipes! My Favourite recipes so far are Heidi's Veggie Burgers, Simple Butternut Squash Tart and a healthy alternative to a breakfast bar or biscuit, Nikki's Healthy Cookies.
Check them out and if you've got any other recommendations leave me a comment and let me know.
That's a great reading list, I only have Falling Cloudberries amongst them. I have lingered over Snowflakes and Schnapps in Waterstones and thought it was beautiful. I'm also a huge fan of Wahaca (in midst of typing up a blog post before I got distracted by Google reader) so I know I'd love the Tomasina Miers book.
ReplyDeleteRe Tessa Kiros, my mother bought me Venezia and the pictures in it are sumptuous. I am desperate to visit Venice now!