Cookbook Challenge 2013 - Week 34

After a few days of not feeling too good and being generally lazy when it came to the evening meal I felt the need to snap out of it and make more effort, so to this end I cooked Duck Breast with a Rich Tomato, Jalapeno & Green Olive Sauce from Wahaca (Thomasina Miers). I love duck but haven’t had any for a while and the thought of making it in a Mexican style sounded very appealing. The dish was really easy to make, the sauce just needed to simmer, with the duck being cooked at the last minute, and served with plain boiled rice it really could not have been simpler. The duck could have done with slightly less cooking, because although it was still moist and by no means tough it was just not as pink as I’d have liked it – a note for next time I think. The sauce had a lovely spicy hit from the jalapenos and worked beautifully with the duck, I think to make it a lighter dish I might serve it with something other than rice, but it certainly worked well as a more substantial meal.

The mighty aubergine made a comeback this week with my next recipe taken from BBC Good Food Magazine, for our Sunday meal I cooked Baked Aubergines with Cannellini Beans. Just the thing having walked 15km the day before (accidentally I might add, there may have been a wrong turn somewhere…and some scary cows!), this dish basically looked after itself in the oven leaving me to rest my weary legs – they’re only little so it doesn’t take much! I did take a couple of liberties with the recipe in that I added some crushed chilli flakes to the sauce (naturally), and then when I was ready to serve I scattered some rocket liberally over the top, a dash of green really perked the whole thing up. The aubergines were wonderfully soft, and slightly crispy on top from the layer of parmesan, the beans added a lovely texture and the added kick to the sauce really gave the whole thing a nice lift – I figured the dish was substantial enough so didn’t feel the need for any accompaniments, aside from the rocket garnish that is! 

Feeling invigorated from a healthy weekend I wanted to continue feeling virtuous and so returned from work on Monday to cook Thai Trout with Red Pepper Noodles from Fast, Fresh & Easy Food (Lorraine Pascale). Cooked en papillote it meant that all I had to do was chop the veg and place it along with the trout, and various seasonings, in some little foil parcels ready for the oven later on. The noodles were cooked quickly just before serving and only involved frying some red pepper, adding the pre-cooked noodles and heating through with some soy sauce. This was incredibly tasty, the flavours of ginger, soy, chilli and trout had infused beautifully in the parcels and the aromas alone were absolutely delicious. Hubby was especially pleased with this dish, and even more so when he did his Masterchef ‘palette test’ and managed to identify all the ingredients – next time I’ll just have to make it harder! 

 

Next up was the obligatory weekly pasta dish and this week I chose Penne with Chorizo & Broccoli from BBC Good Food Magazine. I have to admit that I did mess around with the method a bit though, I prefer to cook the broccoli for the same time as the pasta instead of adding it for just a few minutes at the end, I like it when it breaks down into the sauce and is completely cooked – especially in this dish when you have the chorizo for extra texture. I also added the cream cheese to the chorizo before I added the pasta as I find that it breaks down a bit quicker and creates a sauce which coats the pasta more easily. Next time I’m not sure I would add the fennel seeds as I’m not sure they added anything useful to the dish, but aside from that (and my minor modifications) it was a lovely recipe and made good use of the chorizo I had in the freezer.

My final new recipe of the week was Elderflower Cordial Cake from The Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook, and was in honour of my friend’s birthday – she had previously admired the recipe in the book so when I decided to make a cake I knew it would be that one. This was a work in several stages as I made the sponge one night after work and then the following night I made the buttercream and the white chocolate ganache; which I had to leave to thicken and was subsequently slathering over the cake at ten-thirty that same night. My next challenge was to get it into the office the next day without destroying all my hard work, so for any cars following me on Thursday morning I’m very sorry but I had precious cargo (I’d like a ‘Cake on Board’ sticker for my car so that people know why I’m taking my time!). Fortunately it arrived in one piece so all I had to do was add a candle and leave it on the birthday girl’s desk. As she consumed three slices before the designated tea-break I’d say it was a success, and I believe a small piece may have made it home for her hubby to try.

Recipe Count: 112
New Target: 156

Cookbook Challenge 2013 - Week 33

This week I have discovered that if you get up before the crack of dawn you may well be worn out by the end of the day, but you’ll have an awful lot of cake! Upon waking on Saturday at 5:50am I decided that the best thing to do was to get baking, I mean that’s never a particularly bad idea is it? First up was the Lemon Limoncello Cake from Peggy Porschen’s Boutique Baking, as I had purchased some new cake tins and I thought I had better justify their place in the kitchen. The sponge was very simple to make and they were on the cooling rack in no time, soaking up the limoncello syrup nicely. Mine may not have looked as smooth and chic as the picture in the book (I’m going to blame my lack of a turntable!), but it sure did taste good – the weekend must be off to a good start when you’re baked and iced a cake before 9:30am. Though I must confess that I did not go to the effort of making the delicate daisies to adorn the top of my cake, I went for the retro ‘crystallised lemon slices’ instead.

Since one cake is never enough a few hours after my first creation I turned my attention to the Caramel Cake from the same book, it is essentially the same recipe but with a few changes in flavours – brandy in the syrup instead of limoncello, and dulce de leche in the buttercream instead of lemon curd. I managed to ice this one a little better as I discovered a cake board I didn’t know I had and once this was placed on my cake plate it created a make-shift turntable upon which I could work. Instead of dusting with cocoa powder, which would have turned moist before hubby returned from his trip, I had a little bag of fudge pieces in the cupboard and thought they would work perfectly, so I sprinkled them around the edge of the cake. This was without doubt one of the best cakes I have ever made, the sponge was lovely and soft, the syrup had made sure it stayed moist and the caramel icing was just divine – it was so good that hubby put in an order for another one before we’d even finished it. 

Having been up to my eyes in cakes so far I thought it was about time I turned my hand to cooking something savoury and with hubby returning from a festival I thought he might appreciate a nice bit of home cooking. So my third new recipe of the week was Masala Chicken Pie from BBC Good Food Magazine, I think it was in a pre-Christmas issue last year so I’m a bit behind! Essentially it’s a curry with a mashed potato topping which is then baked in the oven to get nice and crispy. I made it the day before so that I could just pop it in the oven when I got home, and then listen to all the exciting festival gossip. It was the perfect thing for a Monday evening dinner, with all the work already done it was like being cooked for by someone else and it was really tasty to boot – I think hubby certainly appreciated some hot food.

My final recipe of the week was Farfalle Salmone e Piselli from Gino D’acampo’s Fantastico! which was another resounding success, I love pasta but I do get fed up of always cooking the same thing over and over, and it’s frustrating when you go out for pasta and always get the same tired choices wherever you go. Therefore I’m making the effort to try loads of new recipes to see what works and to find some more exciting variations on a very tired theme. Having not been a fan of farfalle in the past I have really come to love it recently, the de cecco brand is especially nice and one of my favourites at the moment. This was a really simple dish of shallots, peas, smoked salmon and cream, all tossed through the cooked pasta and served immediately. It was full of flavour and made for a really delicious mid-week meal.

 

Oh, and I've had to up my target again...who knew I'd actually stick to this challenge!

Recipe Count: 107
New Target: 156

Cookbook Challenge 2013 - Week 32

First off I need to make a small confession, I was quite innocently browsing cookbooks on a well-known website when out of nowhere two cake books just fell into my basket and before I knew it they had been delivered to my place of work…in a bid to appease my conscience I felt that I had to make use of them as soon as possible. Therefore my first tasty treat of the week was a Marbled Chocolate Crumble Cake from my brand new copy of Rachel Allen’s Cake. Extremely easy to make this was swirled, crumbled, and in the oven before lunch – and more importantly, ready for consumption just a few hours later. I did take one look at the size of it and think we’d have to give some away (I know, I know, what did I just say?!), but luckily hubby stepped up and accepted the challenge – he’s been putting on a brave face and packing some in his lunchbox every day. Slightly bizarrely when we sat down to enjoy a piece for breakfast on Sunday morning we switched in the TV to find Rachel Allen cooking this exact cake…spooky!

Following a successful cake-making session I decided an easy dinner was called for, so I whipped up some Aubergines with Buttermilk Sauce from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty. This was quite possibly the easiest dish to prepare, the aubergines take care of themselves in the oven while you prepare the sauce, and whack the hell out of a pomegranate to release the seeds (boy did I have fun with that, though I do wonder how many stray seeds I’ll find scattered about the kitchen this week!). Thanks to the thyme and the za’atar there are delicate hints of lemon, and then bursts of sweetness from the pomegranate, finished off by the creamy yoghurt dressing and the soft flesh of the aubergine – a wonderfully summery dish which I served with just a side salad. If you’re a fan of aubergines, which I definitely am, then this is the dish for you.
  

Having abandoned this next recipe in favour of an easier dish the night before I finally got round to making the Salmon Fishcakes from Delia’s Frugal Food for Sunday dinner. They didn’t actually involve much work but clearly the thought of waiting for potatoes to cook and then making the fishcakes was just too much for a Saturday. They were made with a tin of salmon, so nothing fancy at all, and much cheaper that way too (always a bonus!). With a pinch of cayenne pepper they had a slight kick to them which, along with the crunch and zing of the cornichons, lifted these from being just mundane fishcakes to being very tasty indeed. With just a side salad to accompany them this was a lovely fresh and light meal, just the ticket when you’ve got a massive cake stashed in the kitchen for supper! 

 

A week in our household just wouldn’t be complete without some form of pasta dish sneaking its way onto the menu, this week’s offering was Penne al Mascarpone e Pancetta from Gino’s Pasta. The recipe was in the gluten-free section of the book but I just substituted regular penne, and cooked it anyway (because I’m crazy like that!). I guess when I get aubergines on the brain one dish a week just isn’t enough, but when it’s finely chopped it doesn’t really count right? The aubergine cooked down and soaked up all the juices from the pancetta, I did add a little bit of the cooking water from the pasta towards the end, just to slacken the sauce slightly – I usually find that mascarpone sauce can dry out a little so this helped it coat the pasta nicely.


Recipe Count: 103
New Target: 104

Cookbook Challenge 2013 - Week 31

This week began with a very exciting and impromptu trip to Borough Market, when I arranged to meet up with a friend of mine in London. The place was absolutely packed, and every available space around the market was taken with people picnicking on the purchases they had just made. Since the main purpose of my visit was to catch-up with my friend we found a lovely little café in which to park ourselves for an hour or two, the fact that they had a table outside with all kinds of baked goodness may have lured us in! After several cups of tea and a almost an entire wedge (well it was enormous) of red velvet cake we headed for a quick look around, I managed to avoid the temptation of buying everything in sight and limited myself to a small pot of za’atar – I mean those Ottolenghi recipes just won’t be the same without it. I have resolved to go back here when I have some more pocket money!

Since the weather had turned wet, and a bit miserable, I decided that a nice warming/cheery curry was the answer and so I made Chicken with Spices and Cream from Nigel Slater’s Real Fast Food. This was such a quick and easy dish; I do urge everyone to try it, even if as Nigel points out in the introduction, you’re sceptical about using a ready mixed curry powder (I used a Rajah madras one). The chicken was still nice and moist and the spiced sauce was just heavenly, a good job really as the house still smelt of it two days later. I served it with some plain rice, and a nice glass of chilled wine – bliss! The recipe can be found here if anyone’s interested: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2001/apr/21/foodanddrink.recipes5

Next up was another curry; somehow the slight drop in temperature has brought me out in a wintery mood, so heaven help me when it actually turns cold! This was a dish that I had already had the good fortune of trying when my mum cooked it for us last year, so I was more than a little anxious about doing it justice. The recipe was Fisherman’s Curry from BBC Good Food magazine, another one that’s been lurking in my recipe file for too long. This was a lovely fresh dish, the fish absorbs so much of the flavour and spice (it may have been a bit on the zingy side!) and the sauce was just begging to be soaked up by the naan that I served it with. 

 

My final recipe of the week was Middle Eastern Koftas from Rachel Allen’s Home Cooking, and it meant donning my CSI gloves to avoid turning up at work looking like I had jaundice, there’s nothing like turmeric stains to make your hands look decidedly unattractive. We were heading to the cinema that evening so I wanted to get some of the preparation done ahead of time, therefore when I returned home all I had to do was cook them and arrange the smorgasbord of accompaniments (think Build-a-Better-Burger, but with koftas and pitta – anyone who didn’t have this game as a child just hasn’t lived!). I know my cooking always goes down well with hubby because he’s very good with the compliments, but there’s nothing quite like the twinkle in his eye when he gets to ‘build’ his food, the fact that it was also super tasty was merely a bonus!

Recipe Count: 99
New Target: 104