Cookery bookclub - who is with me?

[Curioustiger]

I love cookbooks and have picked up a ton of recommendations since joining mumsnet. I am keen to set up a cookery book club - anyone else interested? I propose:

• we select one book each month
  
• we go away, try out the recipes and generally revel in the deliciousness
  
• we chat about it
  

We could alternate between books people are likely to have eg Nigella, Jamie, Delia and something a bit more unusual. If we have a rolling three month list, that gives people time to borrow / buy books they don't have (from the library for example).

What to you think?

[FreeButtonBee]

Have been avidly lurking on this thread and its been fab to see how people's real life experiences have worked. but with 11 wk twins, my cooking and baking has been sadly limited for the past few months!

Just to say that SK is one of my absolute favourite websites and I have a couple of faves that might be worth a go

The simple butter tomato sauce is excellent - I make it in vast quantities wi passata and freeze for quick dinners - lovely over good pasta with a shit load of Parmesan.

Also the blueberry crumb bars (have made with raspberries and also mixed brozen berries and also rhubarb too)

The buttermilk cake is good as is the yoghurt cake - think some of you have tried those.

The lentil and squash goats cheese salad is excellent as well as the spicy slaw - this would be amazing at a BBQ, it has a real kick but is ally fresh and not sickly like ordinary coleslaw can be.

Haven't linked all these as am on iPad but if you can't find them them let me know and would be happy to dig them out.

I might join you for may's books. Am starting to get my cooking mojo back so long as its something that can be dropped mid cooking or done in no more than an hour!I have NS kithcen diaries and have only cooked the choc brownies so far ( the absolute best brownies in the world) so need to branch out a bit

[ELR]

pregnant I've always fancied the heaven and earth mash so will be interested to see what you though.
I am fasting today so not cooking anything today but tomorrow I'm going to do the pheasant curry but with chicken and the coconut and blackberry macaroon tart from SK.

[Nolda]

Hello, I've been lurking for a while but now I have borrowed Feast and Kitchen Diaries II from the library and would love to join in, if that's OK.

I know that there's not much of April left but fancy trying the Guinness cake and the SK popcorn cookies (has anyone else made those?).

I have borrowed Feast before and made the quadruple chocolate loaf cake and malteser cake. I usually find cake recipes more tempting than savoury but will try to be better next month. However, the pheasant curry does look good and I might give that a whirl using some chicken.

[enormouse]

I've just ordered feast, even though there's not much of April left. I want to give the quadruple chocolate cake a bash as my cakes-pertise is very limited. I'm egg allergic but I've found a great egg replacer lately so I'm going to give it a bash when it arrives.

[Nolda]

Well, Guinness cake is in the oven. I'm having one of those, is this really going to be a cake moments, but hopefully, all will be well.

By the way, I've just ordered one of these . I've fancied one for a while having read Nigella's suggestion for brownie cooked in the tin and served with scoop of icecream in. I can't remember which book of hers it was in though. Anyway, camelcamelcamel tells me it is a super low price so thought I'd pass the info on.

[Curioustiger]

Nolda, the Guinness cake is so delicious, you won't regret it! Have just ordered your dessert bowl thingy as it is such a good price. I already struggle to shut my baking cupboard so one more thing won't make much difference... Right?

[Curioustiger]

Enormouse feast is easily in my top 5 of all my 100+ cookbook collection. It is so good. I hope you like it as much as I do!

[Nolda]

Tiger, your baking cupboard sounds like mine. I hope DH is out when the postman brings it .

The cake looks good. It has only sunk a little but nothing a lashing of topping won't fix. Talking of which, will I have to keep the cake in the fridge?

[Curioustiger]

nolda the cake keeps for ages and I've never put it in the fridge.

[pregnantpause]

The heaven and earth mash was, resists the urge to say heavenly lovely. The DC loved it, ( 2 & 4 ) I thought it was delicious.

The gravy was not for me. Edible in very small amounts as it was, er, tart. Has anyone tried it? Perhaps in halving the recipe I've ruined it somehow.

Next time I'll make the sausage and mash, and my own onion gravy.

[Nolda]

The cake was amazing. Thanks for recommending it. It's not something that I would have tried otherwise. DH enjoyed it too, and he is not mad on cake as a rule.

Pregnantpause, someone did say that they made the gravy all the time, but I can't remember who (not helpful, sorry).

[frenchfancy]

Guinness cake this weekend I think. I must remember to put it away as soon as it is cooked though, the dog ate most of the lemon bars which was a shame as they were delicious.

[TheRealFellatio]

Right, I've signed up to the Smitten Kitchen website and it looks fantastic - so many good things I don't know where to start! nut it looks as though you've moved on to Nigella's Feast now? I need to go back through this thread - I've lost track and got all out of sync!

[pisgah]

Yesterday I made the cauliflower pesto from SK. On its own it was really tasty, far more so than I would have expected. I had a few complaints from the DCs though, when serving with pasta - I think I would leave out the almonds if making it for pasta again: there were comments like "why does this sauce crunch" and "have some more cheese, it takes the taste away a bit" I will have to think of some more ways to use it - SK suggests as tapenade, on little toast things.

I forced myself to leave some of the quadruple choc cake to see how well it kept, and it is still perfect, from last Thurs/friday - must be the syrup

[Hunn1e]

Hi - have to join this one - it'll give me an excuse to buy any books I don't already have (not that there can be that many of those she says guiltily!).

I tried the turkey her way this Christmas - I would never have thought of brining. I'll never go back to not doing so now. It was so moist and delicious. I couldn't find some of the ingredients in my local shops but noticed that most of them were in the pickling spices mix I use for pickled onions, so I substituted.

The poinsettias are pretty lovely too.....only problem is that they taste so innocent.....hic, hic......

[ELR]

Just baked the Roasted Pear and chocolate chunk scones from SK they were really nice I used 250g self raising though not 190g as she suggests as 1.1/2 cups is just over 250g not 190g and I used milk not cream, also only had three pears but def going to make them again and will be using this recipe for my next cooking class too!

[Curioustiger]

Ooh I would love that, I love pear and choc. Nigella has a very simple recipe in express for pear and chocolate pudding and it's delicious and incredibly (dangerously)more ish. But I am on a no bake month now!

[Curioustiger]

Hi hunn1e good to see you and please keep an eye out for the May thread!

[Curioustiger]

realfellatio we're cooking from two books concurrently each month so in April we cooked from feast and smitten kitchen. As it's nearly may I've also set up a new thread for May's books which are Jerusalem and kitchen diaries I. So you are a bit out of sync but lots of us are still going with smitten kitchen in particular, so just cook away and let us know what you think!

[ELR]

tiger quick bake them today your no bake month doesn't start until tomorrow! I know the recipe you mean in express I have never made it as I make a chocolate, hazelnut and pear cake which uses dark brown sugar which is similar, I do like the look of her chocolate sauce though.

[karmakameleon]

Just catching up on this thread. We've just got back from a lovely weekend away so lots of gorgeous food has been scoffed by the kameleon household but sadly none cooked by me! If I'm feeling enthusiastic I may just be able to sneak one last recipe in tonight but no promises...

pisgah Interesting that you felt the same way about the cauliflower pesto as I did. Tastes great in itself, but I didn't really think it worked with pasta. I did have the leftovers on crostini the next day and that went down much better.

I'm so glad that tiger set up this thread. I have totally rediscovered Feast, which I love but tend to save for Christmas. I've also found a few new favourites in the sk book which would probably have sat on the shelf idle if it hadn't been for the book club. So at least one happy customer here.

[Curioustiger]

Hi karma great to hear it! I've also really enjoyed the thread do far, there are just so many helpful tips and I think having two books on the go at once has worked really well. I've definitely been cooking recipes I would never have tried otherwise which is a big part of it for me.

[pregnantpause]

Well, thats the last of the feast recipes for me. Moving on to May.

The cherry coke ham is delicious. Really very nice. the glaze especially.

I made the creamy pasta ham and peas for the DC using some and they ate it nicely.

[ELR]

Well I've finished April off with the curry banquet in feast, I am stuffed!!

I did the pheasant with green chilli but with chicken and it was good.
The lamb maharaja was fantastic I cheated slightly as I had loads of left over shredded lamb and onions after cooking Simon Rimmers vindaloo shredded lamb on Sunday but other than that i followed the recipe.
The mutter paneer with peas this time instead of spinach and whilst it was better it was still not that great.
The cardamom rice was good too.
I halved all the quantities apart from the mutter paneer recipe. We also had poppadoms and chapatis with chutneys and raita, it fed me and DH and the two dc's and DH has a nice big portion for lunch tomorrow and we still have a little left.
DH gave the meal an 8/10 which is good for a curry dish.

Just about enough room left for a roasted pear and chocolate chunk scone from the SK blog which I made this morning.
tiger thanks for setting this up its really great, roll on May!

[bewareoftheswan]

Hello!

Life has got in the way of my cooking a bit this month, but I've managed the raspberry ricotta scones (ok, bit odd) and the leek fritters (v nice, sauce good but mega garlicky) from SK, and the funeral tagine (amazing, was expecting it to taste like lamb jam, but it was really, really good) from Feast. I've really enjoyed this month's cooking, and I'm looking forward to May...