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?

[Curioustiger]

I've got the new English table by rose Elliott but wonder if we should hold off in favour of a blockbuster book that more people are likely to have as I would think the madhur J one is less likely to feature on everyone's bookshelves as well? Thoughts?

[Curioustiger]

Oh my god! I tweeted nigella asking for a recommendation from feast for our inaugural month and she tweeted back! Custard cream hearts! She is my absolute hero you know, I am so excited!

[Taffeta]

One pan sage and onion chicken and sausage is good but not amazing.

I have made the old fashioned choc cake loads and it has been well received....

[bewareoftheswan]

Tigerlily - yes the pasta, it's good, the cream balances out the vodka.

Remus - I love pretty much everything in there, but off the top of my head the chickpea and chana Dahl curry with mint is pretty much my favourite curry. It's very hot and pretty sour, but so good. There's two really nice sweet potato recipes, and the pilafs are yummy, especially te dried lime one.

Right, off to consult Feast...

[ScienceRocks]

Tiger lily, that's very exciting!

I think the coq au Riesling is in more than one nigella book. In fact, I think it might be in a nigel slater book too mulls

[ScienceRocks]

I've followed you on twitter, tigerlily. I have an equally cooky handle...

[MrsSchadenfreude]

May I join in please?

I've never had a failure with the Nigella brownies (the one that makes industrial quantities in Dom God), BUT I do now adapt her recipe and substitute 300g Muscovado or dark soft brown sugar for 300g of granulated (so still using 200g granulated in the recipe) and substitute 50g cocoa powder for 50g of the flour. It gives a better, more intense, chocolatey flavour.

I have a better Khachapuri recipe if anyone would like it? I have also done the green relish thing (can't remember what it is called) from the Georgian section of Feast, with melon, and it works very well.

I have a lot of American cook books - these can often be had v cheaply secondhand from Amazon - I would recommend The Silver Palate CookBook, Mom's Big Book of Baking (excellent brownies, blondies and choc chip cookies), the USA cook book, the New Basics cook book, and pretty much anything from Williams Sonoma.

[Curioustiger]

science thank you, I've followed you back! I am new to twitter... I am now cookbook club @read cook eat, if anyone else wants to follow (I will put book reminders and so on up there as I am hoping to wrangle some RL friends into the group as well).

mrs s come on in! Pleased to see you! I have very few American cookbooks, that would be an interesting comparison. Do you find them more sugary like other users say?

[Pantah630]

Just signed in to say I'm following too, though I only check twitter sporadically.

I bought the smitten book on kindle so am now at work perusing, rather than smiling sweetly at other bikers as I take their money for all the mots booked in this morning :)

[ChocsandChipsandSealingWax]

Ooh can I join?

I love Nigella's recipes (and her writing, but find her annoying on tv) and also have feast and haven't cooked from it in ages. How to eat is my favourite - everything is in there really; the other books are just reprisals with photos.

[Curioustiger]

chocs great to see you. I am not such a fan of how to eat although I am 100% sure it's because there are few pictures, I really need the visuals, I find. Any reccs from feast for newbies?

[ScienceRocks]

Choc, I don't like watching nigella either. She used to be ok (when she did guest spots on nigel slater shows, for example) but she's almost become a parody of herself. And all that raiding the fridge in the middle of the night with perfect make up and hair does my head in

Thanks for following me tigerlily! My twitter feed will reveal as and when I cook new things. I am utterly food obsessed!

[ScienceRocks]

I agree that how to eat can be offputting because of a lack of pictures. But then I hate books that prioritise pictures over content (yes, lisa Faulkner, I mean you).

[Curioustiger]

I have to have pictures to be truly content but they must be of the food. Not of gorgeous Lorraine Pascale for example (her baking made easy is a prime example, half the pics are of her and not of the food, I find it so annoying, particularly as she is really focused on presentation!)

[Curioustiger]

Right, I have people coming round tomorrow so am going to knock out my two smitten kitchen recipes in one day. I will cook the grapefruit olive oil pound cake using this recipe:
grapefruit olive oil pound cake
There is a very similar recipe on her blog for grapefruit yoghurt cake but it must have evolved by the time it made it to print.

Then I am also making wholewheat raspberry ricotta scones
Same on blog as in book.

Btw I have thought a bit on the policy on linking to recipes and I will do it wherever possible but only if the source looks credible eg the author, the BBC website, a newspaper etc, as I am assuming no author would have a problem with that. But if anyone has other knowledge as to how copyright works for recipes I'd be happy to follow their advice!

[clare8allthepies]

Ooh I'll join in, have loads of nigella books but not feast as I usually cook for 2 and all the recipes in there seem to feed about 30

will get it from the library later though.

[MrsSchadenfreude]

Oh and I like Nigella Bites! It has the best chocolate fudge cake recipe! And Liptauer! Childhood food!

I think she has gone off the boil with Nigellissima though. Meatzza? WTF is that all about?

[MrsSchadenfreude]

I don't think recipes can be copyrighted, can they?

[WhinGin]

Hello! May I please join in? :) I have a gazillion recipe books, love Nigel and Nigella (to read, both a bit annoying on tv) also a big fan of the Australian Womens Weekly recipe books, especially for specific cuisines like Thai. I have recently got into baking, especially bread, which I am finding very rewarding and am enjoying working my way through Paul Hollywoods How to Bake :)
I love Feast, always make the Lemon Meringue Cake for DH's birthday in March as it always usually feels like the start of spring. Its so popular in our house now that DD7 and DS5 have requested it for their most recent birthday cakes as well, choosing it over a garish beautifully iced party cake :) I shall get it out now and find 2 new recipes to try from it, I think I will go for one savoury and one sweet. Then I will have a look at Smitten Kitchen, I have found myself there once or twice when googling stuff but never really had a good look around or cooked anything from there so its quite exciting!

[ScienceRocks]

I'm loving How To Bake as well WhinGin. Toying with buying his new one but scared there will be too much overlap and I will be disappointed. He's another one I can't watch on TV

Tigerlily, I love that you are hitting the ground running with two new recipes in one day! The scones look fab, I may well do that one myself later in the week.

[WhinGin]

Science I know what you mean about PH! I can just about bear to watch him but I think he has got a bit too aware of his silver fox status. I do quite like to watch him with Mary Berry though because I love it when she speaks to him like a silly child Nigella has just become a parody and Nigel seems to move his mouth at least twice as much as is necessary for each word he says!
I looked at Bread and How to Bake and decided that How to bake was better for me, Bread has a lot of recipes of how to use bread as well as the bread recipes but I think there must be a fair amount of overlap as the ciabatta and baguette recipes he did this week are both in How to Bake.
I made the Christmas Buns last week, they were lovely, and i happened to have some dried cranberries in that my sister had given me because she didn't like them, but I think unless it was for Christmas I wouldn't bother with the cranberries and they'd be just as nice with the same weight of sultanas subbed instead.
I currently have baguettes on their first rise and am v excited as I have one of those special wiggly baguette pans to use Mum gave me it when she moved to France as she decided she didn't need it anymore!
I think my sweet recipe from Feast will be the Quadruple choc loaf, not yet decided on the savoury......

[Curioustiger]

Hi whingin what sophisticated tastes your dc have! You are clearly raising them well! I have two little ones coming round tomorrow, let's just hope they are similarly inclined!

[glorious]

ooh can I join? I have a 9 week old DD and just starting to manage to cook the odd thing. v exciting Nigella tweeted you tigerlily. I've made those custard creams, they're nice but I prefer bought . The lemon meringue cake is fab though. We also like doing chilli with cornbread topping though do our own chilli. and the malteser cake is great but horrifically sweet. think I'll try the chicken pot pies first off.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

I found the lemon meringue cake over sweet - much prefer a proper lemon meringue.

Have just had a look through Feast and am struggling to choose a second recipe. I'm going to do the Georgian cheese bread (but will halve it and cut down drastically on the obscene amounts of cheese!) and the relish for melon, but would like to try a cake or pud for my other.

Meant to say I use her mattar paneer recipe from Feast as a guide but leave out the tomato puree (because it makes me feel sick just to think about the nasty tinny stuff) and up the spices substantially. It's a decent base for fiddling with though and mattar paneer is food of the Gods.

[greensnail]

Ooh, how exciting to get a tweet from Nigella. I still can't really get my head around Twitter but should make an effort to try. I've made the custard creams before pre dc but might try them again as I bet my des would love them.