One of my quick updates… I have been meaning to bring up the subject of cookery books for a while now. I cook quite a bit and I use cookery books at least as much as I use the interweb to get recipes. I also store some on evernote, this is a random selection including some I got from my dad and some I found more recently.
I own cookery books and I use them. I have just had some of them out to plan the last details of food for Christmas and I was compelled to get rid of some books that I never open, and re-affirm my love for others. So without further ado, here are some cookery books that I am going to give to charity.
I bought the 3 River Cafe books all together many years ago when they first came out. I have used one or two of the recipes, but I think I liked the sentiment of their cooking style more than the actual recipes in these books. Jamie’s Naked Chef is a modern classic in my eyes. The roast chicken recipe in it is great, it also has bacon sandwiches as I remember and I think I can do those on my own! It is a good recipe book, but as you will see, I have other newer Jamie books and I think they match the types of things I cook a lot closer.
Just so you all know, here is a pic of the cookery books that I am keeping. I particularly like the Leith’s cookery course. It strongly promotes the use of good quality produce and is so well laid out that you can find a base recipe, modify it and add something else from page 548 without breaking a sweat.
The River Cottage Cookbook as a great bolognese recipe in it, and I am currently in a mental battle between this version and the one in Leith’s. Leith also has a great Lasagne recipe that has a ragu base… River Cottage also has great cookies that my wife makes 🙂
The book without the spine is the good old Dairy Diary (UK based) That;s definitely seen a bit of use, I can tell you.
The results of the cook book outing this time? A good chunk of my work will come from Jamie at Home this year, centering around a lamb shoulder for one meal. I also have a curry from the green book on the list to use up the left over chicken from Christmas day. Whew 🙂
Have a good Christmas.