Cookery book club - August - Short and Sweet by Dan Lepard and Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop

[Wearytiger]

Welcome to the Mumsnet cookery bookclub! Each month we choose two cookery books. 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 July our books were:

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

And we posted here.

For August, our books are:

• Fuchsia Dunlop Every Grain of Rice
• Dan Lepard Short and Sweet

For September our books will be:

• Tessa Kiros Falling Cloudberries
• any book from the River Cafe books

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 October's books this month.

[snowlie]

Anyone have A year in the village of Eternity and we didn't settle on a fish book yet - Rick Stein and Hugh FW were mentioned.

[Wearytiger]

Ok fish is an option. I've never heard of that book snowlie, pretty title.

Here are my suggestions:
Lorraine Pascale - fast fresh easy
Gwyneth's Paltrow - food from my father's table....I love this book! This may surprise you. I think it's really underrated.
Anything by barefoot contessa, I think I have the first one. In style I think she's similar to gwyneth's but gwyneth's food is much healthier
Anything by Anna del conte.

[Pantah630]

Ina Garten, I have about 5 of hers and never cooked from any. She's rerunning on the food network at the moment if anyone fancies a look see, Barefoot Contessa.

river Cottage Fish or Meat?

Rick Stein Meditteranean?

Carlucchios Complete Italian?

[snowlie]

YY to the Lorraine Pascale, I have yet to cook one her dishes.

Or maybe a Fay Ripley book, more family friendly than foodie but that's not always a bad thing!

[snowlie]

I watched BarefootContessa make a Borscht and a Caesar Salad sandwich yesterday with Peanutbutter cupcakes - I found her unbearable....very patronising, maybe it was because she was talking to an American market but I felt like she assumed her audience were completely and utterly clueless about food.

[Wearytiger]

Snowlie I know what you mean. I did notice in one episode she got her husband to 'help'... Cue shots of him laboriously peeling carrots like an inept work experience pupil. Her husband was the US Undersecretary of Commerce for international trade!

[Parsnipcake]

What about Gordon Ramsay ultimate cookery course? The couple of things I have done were fabulous. I would also be keen to to river cottage fish or meat. I usually start my Christmas baking in October so anything with a Christmas/ preserving section would work for me ( Nigella Feast?).

[Forgetfulmog]

One of Rachel Allen's books?

Or we could go retro & do Mrs Beeton

Or what about Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Childs?

Sorry, not very helpful, but I do love some of the recipes in MTAOFC, especially her one for Boeuf Bourginion - divine!

[madamecake]

Another vote here for Gordon Ramsey's cookery course. I've yet to cook anything from it, but DH (who rarely cooks) made a couple if dishes and they were fantastic.

I keep seeing Gwyneth Paltrow's book in the library, and I just assumed it wouldn't be very good, but I'm intrigued now!

[UptoapointLordCopper]

Just had a slice of the red wine walnut loaf. Wow. Is all I can say.

[Wearytiger]

Madamecake, I think GP is great (don't know about the second book). The first one is full of light healthy food and although the ingredients are sometimes a bit expensive I would be happy to eat those recipes every day, they're just refreshing somehow. She doesn't eat red meat and so it's all chicken, tuna, salmon, a bit of duck. Yum. Her tuna burgers are to die for!

[Wearytiger]

Forgetfulmog, I do like the idea of MTAOFC. I suggest though that if we did pick that we pick an easy one to go alongside as probably not many people have it. Is the Julie and Julia blog still running as I guess that will have the recipes? (Goes off to google it)

[Forgetfulmog]

There are quite a few recipes from MTAOFC online anyway - I remember googling them before I had the book.

[Wearytiger]

Oh ok great.i think the j&j blog has been taken down. parsnipcake we did feast in April! It was the inaugural cookbook club book, pantah chose it.

[mimolette]

I also like the idea of going old school with Julia Childs or Mrs Beaton. Would also like to do Japanese at some point.

Made the cheese and pepper biscuits last night and had them for dinner as DH is away and I can be lazy. They were quick and nice, but a couple tasted a bit burnt without looking burnt. I've had that with biscuits before, not sure if it's something to do with the oven/temperature?

Planning to do one of the Chinese cucumber things today.

[glorious]

Lots of good options for October

From Every Grain of Rice how about:
Red braised pork (sweetish fragrant stew, from memory few unusual ingredients needed. I sometimes struggle to thicken the sauce though and some people may not like the fatty pork belly)
Double cooked pork (yum yum yum! Spicy and rich and addictive)
Beef with cumin (Muslim food from the north, a sample of something that feels less 'Chinese')
Ma po tofu (top comfort food with or without the meat)

If you don't want to buy much some chilli bean sauce, some black beans and some Sichuan pepper would do a number of Sichuanese recipes from the book. Look at the pictures in the back to be sure you get the right thing. We use Lee Kum Kee chilli bean and Lao Gan Ma black beans. The chilli bean and Bart spices Sichuan peppers are available in Waitrose

Last night we had sour and hot silken tofu which was extremely easy and delicious. A nice zing to it while also being quite comforting with the tofu. The sour and hot is quite classic though possibly an acquired taste especially with the pickled veg.

We had some cabbage in sizzling oil to go with which was quite fun though we were too chicken to get the oil hot enough.

From Short and Sweet I'd recommend the marmalade flapjacks, they are much more sophisticated than normal flapjacks and very easy. I took some of them and some chocolate custard muffins to the birth centre where DD was born to say thank you and they rang me up afterwards to say how amazing the flapjacks were and to ask for the recipe.

[Xiaoxiong]

I'd love to vote for October but as DS2 is due on Oct 7th I doubt I'll get much cooking in that month, so I don't feel I deserve a say

Going to make something from Short and Sweet with DS this weekend I think. The marmalade flapjacks sound perfect but I'll let DH have the veto as he's going to have to eat most of them!

[Forgetfulmog]

Just made the Buttermilk Oat Biscuits from Short & Sweet. I left out the salt & halved the sugar as I wanted 10 mo dd to have them - she loved them! They tasted nice, but I think the sugar/salt combination would have made them tastier & more like digestives.

I'm very intrigued by the Wheetabix Muffins so may have to make them at some point.

[UptoapointLordCopper]

We are going to make the blueberry muffins the afternoon, if I can finish work and if DS1 stops bloody sulking.

[pregnantpause]

As a fish substitute could I suggest Rick stiens coast to coast? Plenty of seafood recipes, but also non seafood mixed in. It's a very nice

[madamecake]

Made the chocolate custard muffins from short and sweet today. Just one word - wow! They really are the best chocolate muffins I've eaten. I'm going to make some more tomorrow because there aren't many left.

[Forgetfulmog]

Oh my life, I think I'm going to have to buy Short & Sweet. Great, another book to add to our collection . We've already run out of shelves (3 big shelves full of cookery books )

[Parsnipcake]

I made the red wine and walnut bread yesterday. I had a hot slither ( delicious) and left it to cool while I fed the baby. I went back into the kitchen to find it gone, eaten by 2 hungover teenagers. They enjoyed it. I wept inside.

On another note, we are going to Tuscany next week. I am so excited to cook. Which recipe book should I take? I plan on getting lots of unusual bits but there is no point in buying a cookbook in Italy as I can't read the instructions! Silver spoon is too cumbersome. Are there any good Italian cookbooks for kindle?

[PeteCampbellsRecedingHairline]

I've got Rick Stein Coast to Coast which I have never used . Not sure if it passes the library test though?

Any chance of a Claudia Roden for October or should we choose something seasonal?

[PeteCampbellsRecedingHairline]

Sorry Pregnant just seen you suggested Coast to Coast.