Cookery book club - July - Hugh F-W Veg and curries by Madhur Jaffrey and the Hairy Bikers (vroom vroom)

[Curioustiger]

Come join the Mumsnet cookery bookclub! Each month we choose two cookery books - one popular, like Nigella / Jamie / Delia, so you probably already have it / can borrow it and one a bit more unusual. We cook a minimum of two recipes each - you choose the recipe, they just have to be ones you have never cooked before- which works out at four new recipes each month.Then we chat about them!

For June our books were:

• Mexican Food Made Easy by Thomasina Miers
• Thirty Minute Meals by Jamie Oliver

And we posted here

For July our books are:

• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Veg Every Day
• Madhur Jaffrey Ultimate Curry Bible AND / OR madhur Jaffrey's Curry Easy AND / OR Hairy Bikers' Great Curries

For August, our books will be:

• Fuchsia Dunlop Every Grain of Rice (chopsticks at the ready ladies)
• Dan Lepard Short and Sweet

We will always try to pick at least one book with recipes available on the Internet, and local libraries are great for cookbooks if you can order in advance. We pick books three months ahead so will be choosing September's books this month.

HFW Fish keeps staring at me from the bookshelf.

Ooh yes, a fish book would be great for Sept or subsequently. Something healthy(ish) to follow a month of baking...

Can I just please beg that we do Nigella Christmas in December? I have wanted to buy that book for ages! In fact this thread just justifies my cookbook purchases instead of me just randomly buying more books I have a valid reason, it's fab!!

Elr nigella Christmas is one of her best books I think (in fact I am going to indulge myself here as I love her so much and tell you them in order pf my preference 1. Feast 2. Nigella Christmas And joint Nigella express 3.Nigella domestic goddess 4.. Nigella forever summer 5.. Nigella kitchen 6. Nigella how to eat 7. Nigellissima 8. Nigella bites.)

So I am well up for that. I don't even like traditional Xmas good much (turkey = big, difficult to cook chicken, mince pies ... Why?, Xmas cake = not as good as proper cake etc etc). And I love it.

Plus it's an excuse for me to rebuy it as I had to throw my copy away after it got drenched it with soy sauce.

Nigella Christmas = not just for Christmas!
Her Christmas coleslaw is great with BBQs.

Woop woop! Does that mean we get to do it for December?
I love nigella too I only have feast, express and forever summer. I would love to get domestic goddess at some point.

Yy to Nigellas Christmas at Christmas, alongside Delia's Christmas methinks

Oooh there's a nigella Christmas? And here I was looking forward.to revisiting feast for the season! I usually use hairybikers Christmas book- the goose and following goose risotto recipe is brilliant, as is their Christmas pudding vodka

I love Nigella Christmas, though I've yet to cook Christmas dinner from it. So yes please from me, as we are finally having Christmas in our home as opposed to visiting my parents or parents in law.
I always feel festive just flicking through it.

Seekh kebabs from HB on the barbecue tonight. Really good in that they held together and tasted great. I served them with a cucumber raita. Definitely a keeper recipe.

Madamecake you won't regret it! The chestnut stuffing alone is worth the cover price! I have to say that I prefer Delia's method for turkey as nigella brines hers which is a total pain if you don't have a pantry or larder or similar (I had to leave it outside for a day and hope foxes didn't get at it).

Right back on July thread. We still haven't settled on book 2 for sept. I will go through the last page of this thread and compile a list of recent suggestions. Back in a bit.

For sept book 2 to go alongside tessa kiros cloudberries

• not baking
• not curry

-Fish book (HfW? Rick Stein?)
-Claudia Roden arabesque or veg or fish or Jewish food or food of Spain

• Moro

-Tonia Buxton

• river cafe books

I think it is pretty hard to choose between this selection of books which are all pretty amazing. Plus i don't like the pressure of choosing in case you all hate the book! So can you all just nominate one book now from this list. Hopefully more than one poster will pick the same book and we can go with that. We can always save the others for a future month.

Ps pregnant I note your walnut tree suggestion for future months and would love that as love Scandinavian food but have been a bit disappointed with the scandinavian books I've bought so far... Still looking for the one)

HFW Fish book gets my vote sorry Tonia we'll get to you another month

I'm going to vote for a Fish book - not passionate about which, I think I have both and need a nudge to cook from them. Fish intimidates me slightly.

River cafe, only because I have the green and blue ones and it will save me money!! But I really want to do one of the claudia books, so we def need those for future!

Just seen on amazon rick stein 100 fish recipes £4.99 so that's quite cheap if anyone chooses him!! Sorry this isn't helping is it!

I really want to do Claudia Roden but I know that's not helpful so I'll go with Rick Stein as ELR says it's cheap!

River cafe gets my vote, (I have blue) my dh hates fish it's just not as rewarding cooking for just me and DC.

River cafe, as my dh hates fish too, and dd isn't that keen either. I only get to eat fish if we eat out!

Ok so going to be totally daft now but has anyone considered Jamie Does? It has a mix of Italian, Greek, French, morrocan Spanish and Scandinavian recipes and the tapas section is quite good.

I have that ELR and agree its the Jamie book I really like out of my collection. Probably because he is cooking the food I like to eat :)

We had HFW Mushroom Risoniotto for lunch. It was nice but needed more, will cook the orzo in stock next time and add grated Parmesan or keflatori to up the flavour content.

Ok here's the summary:
Pantah hfw fish
Snow fish
Elr river cafe
Elr rick stein
Pete rick stein
Pregnant river cafe blue
Madame river cafe
Elr Jamie does

Elr did you read the bit where I said pick one book from this list?

So... let's do the river cafe books. Having had a quick google, I think it's best to say any river cafe book rather than one specifically, because it's harder to get the recipes online than Nigella's or Jamie's etc. I'll keep a note of te suggestions for next month but it feels like Claudia Roden would be good.

Happy with that - I have 2 river cafe books.

Ha ha sorry now you see why I have so many cook books!
River cafe good as I have blue, green and two easy and have to admit bar a few faves I haven't really cooked much from them!!
Tonight I'm trying the mushroom risotto thing!