February Cookbook Club - From Delia to a Modern Way To Eat, with a little Bento on the way

[HuevosRancheros]

Welcome to February's cookery book club :)

Each month we choose a couple of books and each try to cook at least two new things from either book. We then report back and share our verdict

This month we have three books to choose from :) :

• Delia Smith's Winter Collection - I'm sure lots of the recipes will be on her website here
• A Modern Way to Eat by Anna Jones - some recipes here
• Just Bento by Makiko Itoh - millions of recipes (more than in the book!) on her website here also on her sister site Just Hungry which seems to be updated more recently

Happy Cooking!

We had the ginger pork and potatoes from Just Bento, upscaled and hot, for dinner the other evening. It was a very quick and tasty dish, I added some kale and spring onions to the braising to bump up the veg and served on a bed of lettuce. Oh, and the miso marinated eggs are lovely.

Made the cardamom lemon drizzle cake yesterday from Anna Jones.... I've got to be honest, I'm not convinced. Texture a bit 'meh' but possibly that's the spelt flour, and maybe a bit too many flavours going on?

So I'll be interested to try some of her other sweet recipes to see how they fair...

Blueberry and oat pancakes from Anna jones this morning. I used almond milk. We enjoyed them but pancakes they are not. Little oat patties maybe. I'll make them again, the dc thoroughly enjoyed it.

I'm now enjoying a blood orange margarita. I may have bought all of the blood oranges in South Wales - along with all the tequila-

I made the tomato and coconut cassoulet from A Modern Way To Eat tonight, it was really delicious (despite the slightly bizarre ingredients list)! We didn't have any ginger so had to leave that out, but we loved it. It was slightly more liquid than the picture - I do wonder about the measurements - but the crispy bread on the top was great.

My partner did nickname it "toast on beans" though.

We had the chickpea and preserved lemon stew/ soup from mwoe yesterday. It was nice, and the back note of lemon was particularly tasty- as did the rocket topping. It's very easy to make and store cupboard ingredients mean I'll make it again (though not for a crowd - it's not amazing, just a nice family supper)

Made mwoe tomato and coconut cassoulet today. It smells divine cooking and I can taste it would be lovely but the chilli I used was far far hotter than your average red chilli- a rogue super hot chilli!

I made the ribollita in Anna Jones for dinner last night. I don't know what ribollita is but its a nice tomato soup. Reminds me of minestrone. I used 1L instead of the 2L of stock in the recipe. But I still only have a soup, not a stew. No way would I need to thin the left overs with water.

Eek, it's March!
I'll start a new thread :)

Just in time, new thread here

We ought to make plans for April soon too, so people can buy beautiful new books order books from the library