Is there a September cookery book club?

[PenelopeClearwater]

Is there a September cook book club? I have had a look but I wasn't sure if I just wasn't looking properly.

Hello! Reporting back on the "proper chilli" from a MWTE. It was brilliant! DH said that he would not have guessed it was vegetarian as it was so flavoursome. Our guests enjoyed it too and I am definitely going to put it on the menu regularly from now on. The recipe makes enough for a small army: it fed 5 today and there is probably enough for another meal tomorrow. All in all, a great recipe!

Kefy that's great that it worked so well :)
Was is from mwtEat or mwtCook? If eat, what page? I can't find it in the index but that could be because of bad indexing!!

Good morning! My popovers were a big failure. Good taste (it would be - they are essentially a ham omelette) but they would not hold together like mini pancakes. Now I have a small hill of scrambled popovers.

Marking my place

Good morning, huevos! MWTE. I have it on kindle- it's the first recipe in the dinners to feed a crowd section.

Sorry to hear about the popovers :(

I've found the chilli - under 'H' for haricot beans. Not under 'chilli' or 'proper chilli'. Grrr.

It sounds good, but I'm not convinced about the ginger - could you taste it? Did it work? In my mind, combined with the garlic, chilli and cumin, it'll taste Indian... never used ginger in Mexican before.

You could not taste the ginger, really. The chilli and chipotle paste dominate a fair bit. On the other hand, I stored some welsh cakes in the box where I had previously stored my prepared ginger, onion and garlic and (despite the fact that it had been washed!) I now have ginger and garlic favoured welsh cakes.

Huevos I've made the chilli and the ginger isn't noticeable- as kefy says the chipotle dominates. It's still feeding us from the freezer two months in. It serves 10 IMO - with all the grains it's very filling.

Thanks :)
I'll give it a go this week, but will halve it, I think.
I know the idea is that it feeds a crowd, but if DH doesn't like it (not a fan of quinoa or bulghur, but I'm hoping the sauce will make them ok for him), then I'll be eating it for months to come!
Sounds like my kind of thing, but I'm a bit lacking in freezer space atm!

PS I'd got it in my head that the mwte chilli was a no-no, according to a cook book thread, hence I hadn't looked at it properly before. But I think it was Deliciously Ella I was thinking of

I made Jamie's vegeree this afternoon. Nice enough, but altogether under whelming. There's nothing wrong with it- it's just not bringing anything new to the party.

The Ella chilli isn't great. I loved the MWTE one and froze lots of single portions of it for later. Lovely.

Oh and the quinoa isn't particularly evident so I think your DH will eat it...

Aha love MWTE and MWTC have been cooking my way through latter over summer. Favourites so far are the Buddha bowl ( a nice massaman with lots of extras), chocolate malted granola (addictive) and chocolate salted coconut almond bar things (lush). Only total failure the carrot top pesto was disgusting and hairy. The pistachio and raspberry brownies were undercooked or maybe due to no flour? but tasted divine after setting in the fridge. I liked the kale nachos too, even the cashew cream which I was dubious about.

Have made the chilli from MWTE several times it's really good and as others have said in huge amounts but freezes well.

We've just polished off mwtc sweet potato, peanut and lime soup. I'm on the fence, it was a bit watery, and unusual. Dh loved it though- he really liked the lime and peanut topping, and has eaten his and the Dcs ( who really didn't like it) I won't make it again, as sweet potatoes are in a wealth of better recipes ( soups included)

Ricotta, thyme and sweet potato bake (MWTE): how is it possible to use up so many saucepans, trays and appliances to make one dish? Cooking this (and more importantly washing up and cleaning) seemed like a mini marathon. I was determined not to make it ever again and then... I tasted it. Soooo yummy! DDs wouldn't try it so I had both their portions and mine. DH liked it a lot too and had seconds. So, I am not sure where I stand on this... I am beginning to think of shortcuts that would make the process a bit more manageable - like witlting the spinach in the tomato sauce (what do people think of this- spinach is meant to sit on top of the tomato sauce). Also using baking paper when cooking the sweet potatoes would help with washing up the trays. Has anyone else tried this recipe?

I have not tried that one, but sounds nice Kefybaby. Another really good one is the moussaka from MWTC way more than the sum of its parts.

I have been a bad cook book member! Still haven't made anything and the Jamie Oliver one still hasn't appeared at the library and there's only 2 days of the month left!

Don't worry, we're keeping these for October too. I haven't written up MWTC smoky beans and sweet potato hash

Very easy provided you're not grating sweet potato by hand. Beans are tasty and simple. I added extra egg to hash - maybe I had large sweet potatoes. Also did smaller cakes than suggested. Would make again. DH not wild about hash (more rosti really) but I liked the simplicity.

Jamie Oliver chicken cacciatore was wolfed down by all. I made whole meal bread rolls alongside. The only thing was that I had a lot of sauce left (it seemed disproportionate to the chicken, if you know what I mean) but then I did add a whole albeit small butternut squash and the whole but again small pack of olives. Not sure why he specified stone in olives given that he then tells you to depit them - I just used pitted ones.

I have saved the leftover sauce with the intention of blitzing it and having it as soup for lunch one day.

Made the mwte chilli last night.
DH liked the flavour, but found the texture odd.
I quite liked the texture, but found it a bit bland
Can't please 'em all!

So I guess I will pep it up a bit, bung it in the freezer and be eating it for the next few months

I just made the Ricotta, thyme and sweet Potato bake Kefybaby mentioned down-thread from MWTC Seriously delicious. Did alter a bit for what I had in; used Kale instead of spinach and made a bechemel instead of butter bean sauce (ugh hate their texture)

Was plenty of washing up but I always seem to have loads for this kind of dish which is essentially a souped up Lasagne. When I was making it, I thought there are too many constituent parts but actually they all came together so nicely.

On a separate note anyone else thinking of getting the NOPI cookbook for Christmas? Or has it already? Might be a good one for a new year book club?

I read the initial reviews for NOPI and wasn't that convinced that it was the book for me - which seriously surprised me!!
Maybe there are more reviews now which may change my mind, but it sounded like the recipes were generally fiddly, high-faff, with hard-to-get ingredients.
Plus I haven't done any kind of justice to Plenty More which I got last Christmas!

But if you do do it, I know I'll end up buying it

Hmmm yes the reviews of Nopi don't seem great......but I flicked through it recently and it has lovely gold end papers (!) lots of new books out for Christmas think new nigella next week.

I have been unusually parsimonious in the cookbook buying stakes recently

It's been so quiet on this thread in the last few days. Are we still continuing with the same books? I have been too busy to try anything new but hope to get back into the swing of things. I hope you are all well!