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.

Which one elr? The real risotto is lovely, not so much love for the Risoniotto though.

Think i have River Cafe Easy somewhere, will have a gander later.

I turned my left over filling from the spinach and thyme pasties into little triangular spanikopitas. They're delicious and better than as pasties in my humble opinion.

I've got river cafe easy as well. Will be good to revisit!

Is it river cafe easy or anything from river cafe?

Also have River Cafe Easy . Haven't cooked from it for years so it will be good to revisit!

snow anything from river cafe as I think the recipes are harder to find online so want to make sure we can all get copies from libraries etc

Sorry Tigerlilly, I seem to have written the same post as you!!

Oh good because I've just noticed they have a great drinks section in yellow - strawberry prosecco....raspberry prosecco, peach bellini - they are just calling out to be tested!

Damn it. I've now bought, not just river cafe blue, but green and yellow as well. Amazon is to blame- 0.01p plus p and p for books is too tempting. I've got three books for under a tenner though

Drat Pregnant. Why did you tell me that? Just bought yellow and blue for 6 quid

Does anyone know what I can use instead of semolina in HB Palak Paneer?

Cornmeal or ordinary flour apparently! I Googled

You lot are incorrigible. I specified more than one RC book on the grounds that it would save you money as many of us will have at least one!

Sorry, being very dim here, but I can't see River Cafe 'Blue' or 'Yellow' on Amazon
I see 'Green', which is veg based, so tempting to me.... I can see a blue book, which is just called The River Cafe Cook Book, and there is an orangey yellow one, which is volume 2...... is this what you are talking about?
Thanks :)

That's it, blue is the first one, then yellow and green.

Can someone in the know please tell me which river cafe book they like so I can get one? Thank you!

HB pad Thai here tonight. Oddly light in flavour. Unconvinced.

Huevos- it's just the colour of the book, so yes river cafe the original is 'blue' and so on.

Science- when mine arrive I will report back.

ATM while I am still enjoying reading my cookbooks I'm far too hot to cook, or to plan in earnest. I barely feel up to eating in this heat. Tomorrow I'm making hfw macaroni peas- hoping the dcs will enjoy it, I will call it monster food and hope the green intrigues rather than repels them

I know madhur jaffrey should suit the heat given the climate of India, but to me, curry is cold weather food.and it involves my oven or hob being on for lengthy periods, which I also cannot face can any of you recommend one that is delicious not too taxing for the weather?

The Seekh kebabs would be good from HB as most of the work is the prep (and even then, not much) with the cooking just a few minutes on the barbecue, in a a frying pan or under the grill. Delicious wrapped in pitta or wraps, with some salad and raita, and any excess can be frozen.

The dosas would also be suitable for hot weather. Or a fish curry, as these tend not t require long cooking.

Thanks :)
Got confused because the green one is actually called 'Green'

Have ordered 'Green' second hand from Amazon . You lot are a bad influence
Will have a look at the others from the library.... I already have an Anna del Conte (my first ever cookbook when I was 13!) and a Marcella Hazan - quite meat/fish based, which I can imagine the River Cafe ones to be

Pregnant know what you mean about too hot to cook! Especially curry!
I think it was the Goan Fish curry I did from HB that was quite light

Science have a look on Amazon, you can 'Look Inside' the RC books and see a list of recipes, might help you choose?

Oh, and I have the doorstep that is Silver Spoon, got it for Christmas after it was raved about on MN a couple of years ago..... hardly used it.

I have river cafe easy which I have hardly used so will be good to revisit. I will look forward to Nigella Christmas as this will be the first Christmas at home so can't wait to cook lots of Christmassy things.

I know we didn't pick a fish book this time but I would be keen to do one in future months as I love fish but I am not that great at cooking it.

So last week I made a few things from HFW

Mushroom risoniotto - I liked this I think the quantity of mushrooms gave it a good flavour but I think I might have preferred with rice instead of orzo. I found orzo quite slimy in texture maybe I overlooked it?

Spelt salad with squash and fennel - nice ans easy to eat and cook in the hot weather

Pasta with raw tomatoes - I think the tomatoes i used needed to be more flavoursome but a nice idea and easy to eat in this weather. Will try again if I end up with a glut over over ripe tomatoes.

Have just looked again at my copy of River Cafe Easy. Not inspired TBH and this is probably why I've hardly used it. It really is very basic indeed. Hopefully the other two I've ordered will be more interesting

I made the Palak Paneer from HB. We liked it but the children found it too spicy.

Need to get cooking from River Cottage ASAP!

I need your help! Last night, intrigued by the name, I made the Cambodian wedding dip from HFW and it did not go down well - the family christened it "brown gunk". Trouble is, I hate waste. So what can I do with a large-ish tub of mushroomy, slightly coconuty paste? It's moderately spicey but otherwise rather bland, though don't think adding more soy sauce (as per recipe) will fix it...

Sounds like a good thing to chuck into a curry.

I haven't made it mimolette, nor looked at the recipe, but could you use it in a stir fry? Or as a curry paste? Or in a soup? You could make it more interesting by adding ginger, garlic and chilli, perhaps.