Cook The Books: Jerusalem

I am participating in a virtual cookbook book club called Cook the Books.   The ladies at Grow and Resist and Oh, Briggsy are hosting a year long cookbook challenge.  So each month they picked a different book and a bunch of people will cook things and post blogs about them as well as reviews of the books.

This month I cooked from Jerusalem: a cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi.  It was the perfect choice for September as it is chock full of tomato and eggplant recipes. It also just happens thatI was trying to perfect homemade hummus and the recipe in this book really helped me do that.  Jerusalem is well written, has beautiful pictures, and good recipes.  I might have drooled a bit over the challah pictures in this book.  

Here is what I made: no recipes given secondary to copyright.  Go to your local library and check out the book. 

Hummus pg 114 (no pic)

Mejadra pg 120 (no picture but just think rice and lentil salad)

Musabaha (warm chickpeas with hummus) and toasted pita pg 119

Burekas pg 254

Red pepper and baked egg galettes pg 243

I didn't make any substitutions in these recipes and enjoyed them how they were written.  The musabaha would be a wonderful dip to serve at a party. We tried to eat it as a main course for dinner but it was a bit much.  The burekas  and red pepper galettes were my favorite and they were probably the easiest.  They are basically different versions of filled puff pastry.  Yum yum yum!!!!

I am looking forward to going back over all of these months and cooking the best recipes again. Maybe my project for winter 

I wish you enough (chickpeas and cumin)!!!!

Cook the Books July: Gran Cocina Latina

I love love love Gran Cocina Latina!  This book is huge, no literally it is enormous, and has 912 pages.  The author, Maricel Presilla, did some wonderful research and really did a great job with this book.  There are lots of recipes in each section that are very interesting and fairly simple.  The recipes are easy to follow and most ingredients are easily found at my local grocery store and mercado.  I liked that the foods were fairly colorful and interesting.  I use canned tomatoes when it's not tomato season at the farm so in most cases I just substituted with them and things turned out great.

So glad I cooked the book this month...!

I made:

Coconut Chicken from Artenga

As you can see I made this on the grill in a cast iron pan.  I can't believe there would be a tastier way to make this dish.  And now I'm super excited about cooking everything this way all summer!!!!

Mango and Hearts of Palm Salad

Different and delicious and super easy to make. Followed the recipe exactly. 

Avocado Watercress Pineapple Salad

This is the time of year I could find watercress but my garden was full of spinach and arugula. I substituted these and it was fantastic.  Personal preference I would have liked more avocado.  This would be a wonderful side to take to a BBQ. 

Chicken Fricassee

Yum yum yum!  I've actually said that about all these dishes.  So far this cookbook is super yummy.  I liked this and used Viognier wine instead of beer.

Sorry I don't have pictures but I had a dinner party and made the mexican rice and coconut shrimp.  For the rice I used canned diced tomatoes with their juice and just threw everything in a rice cooker.  The coconut shrimp was cooked outside on the grill in my huge cast iron pan.  The garden isn't being super generous with tomatoes yet so I again used a can of diced tomatoes with their juice rather than tomato sauce, and fresh tomatoes.  I'm sure it's better with freshies so that will give me an excuse to try it again.  This dinner was probably my ** favorite** of all the recipes I tried.

Have I said I love this book.  This is one of my favorites so far!  Right down my alley. Oy!!!!!

** Public Library Plug:  I am a big proponent of public libraries and so far in Baltimore County they have either had these books or have purchased them after I requested them.  The great thing is that I don't have to store them and can get them whenever I want.  

I wish you enough!

Cook the Books: Asian Dumplings

I am participating in an online cook book club called Cook the Books and I completely missed February.  The book was Asian Dumplings by Andrea Nguyen.  My local library bought them and I was waiting for it to arrive.  I just got it the other day and have decided to skip this month mostly due to time constraints.

The book looks wonderful and one day I'll make dumplings.... maybe when my girls are old enough to help me fill them up.   So give it another 3 years....

Anyway I'm starting the March book, Good Fish, as soon as it arrives in the mail and I'm super excited about this one so you will definitely see some recipes and new posts soon.  Speaking of fish recipes check out my adaptation of Salmon Rillettes.

I think tonight we'll have a sweet potato cauliflower mash, with broccoli and salmon.  Yum.


Have a great weekend.

Pissaladiere

This month I am participating in a virtual cookbook book club called Cook the Books.   The ladies at Grow and Resist and Oh, Briggsy are hosting a year long cookbook challenge.  So each month they picked a different book and a bunch of people will cook things and post blogs about them as well as reviews of the books.

January's book is Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan.  I am usually hesitant to look at french cook books because there are always hard to find ingredients and the techniques take to long for me right now.  This book is wonderful.  Ms. Greenspan includes recipes and stories that are simple, tasty and quick.  I made a pumpkin flan, and plan to make pissaladiere (onion anchovy pizza), salmon rillettes, tuna confit with black olive tapenade, and possible a fresh orange pork loin.  Stay tuned.....

Next up was the Pissaladiere (pg45):

This is basically a caramelized onion pizza with anchovies.  The dough is a basic pizza dough and is very good and fairly quick from start to finish, about an hour.  I would definitely use this crust again.  So to make the pizza you caramelize onions with some thyme and bay leaves and then stir in some chopped anchovies and bake.  The recipe calls for anchovies on top too but I learned through making this that I don't particularly like anchovies like I thought I would.

After I made this and didn't like the anchovy flavor I picked them all off.  Then I made a reduced balsamic vinegar glaze to drizzle on the pizza.  This wasn't a favorite in my house but to those who love anchovies it is a wonderful recipe.





Stay tuned for more from Dorie Greenspan's book Around My French Table.

I wish you enough!