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Home Cooking - Rachel Allen
by katyc I have an addiction luckily it isn't too damaging to my health , my addiction is cook books , I love cooking and indeed am a cook so it really is something that aids my career ! My most recent addition to my collection is Rachel Allen's Home cooking bought for 50p at our band jumble sale see I had no hope of resisting!! What ... is it? Home cooking is written by the Irish TV chef Rachel Allen who studied at Ballymaloe Cookery School and also teaches there. This is her 6th book but her first for me I decided to buy it after having a quick flick because this covered every meal as well as having lovely sounding recipes which were well laid out and didn't seem to be over the top something Hubby could pick up and easily follow without having over the top terms and unnecessary preparation. The chapters are Breakfast, Lunch, Sunday Lunch, Supper, Desert, snacks and sweets, Baby Purees and basics: Breakfast: This chapter contains both what I would term special breakfasts as well as the basic such as porridge and boiled eggs. I have yet to try any of her breakfast recipes but her Rhubarb muffins sound divine and a nice breakfast for when we are off on holiday and eat on route as well as for a lazy brunch. I am also impressed by her scrambled egg recipe which gives the basic and then 4 alternative such a Mexican which I think would be a delicious Sunday supper. Lunch: From soup to poached salmon with hollandaise this chapter has every lunch option covered my favourite is nettle soup with smoked mackerel crostini a very cheap soup with a lovely flavour . Sunday Lunch Ok I can cook a great joint and serve with all the trimmings but occasionally I want to jazz it up a little and make it more exciting and minted broad beans and celeriac and sweet potato mash are firm favourites with my girls and tastes great with any roast meat: Supper: This chapter again caters for all tastes from Basic jacket potatoes to Butternut squash Ravioli with sage and pine nut butter (delicious) My family love the Beef burgers and gherkin relish and Hubby thinks the blue cheese burgers with rocket and onion jam are immense! Deserts Well if you have room for a desert then my recommendation has to be the strawberry and white chocolate tiramisu is simple to make and tastes divine yet after a big meal isn't too heavy, we also love Joshua's ice cream extravaganza really ice cream, melted mars bars and crushed crunchie bars what isn't too love. Snacks, treats and sweets Another fantastic chapter filed with a wide variety of recipes the Millionaires shortbread had my husband in raptures he is a millionaires shortbread fan and best of all my little sister can eat it too as the recipe uses rice flour so is gluten free yet it still tastes fantastic no mean feat with gluten free. I also like the Thai sticky chicken this is perfect for parties or picnics. Baby purees Sadly I do not need this chapter but having flicked through I was impressed with the flavour combinations and would have made these for mine and will be making them in the future for my Godson I think plaice with spinach and pea sounds very good. Basics: This chapter covers all those things that a lot of cook books think you already know such a stock, white sauce and also has the recipes to make Horseradish, tartare sauce it also tells you how to cook dried beans or peas it also tells you how to stock a larder a well stocked larder means you can always rustle up a meal. Cost and stockist: I was extremely lucky to get this at our Band Jumble sale for the silly price of 50p (even more ridiculous it should have been 10p!) unless you are lucky to get one cheap it will cost you £16.00 on Amazon www.amazon.co.uk and even at that price I would still recommend this as it is a good book for experienced cooks as well as beginners and indeed contains recipes for every occasion so would be a great gift for someone starting out. Recommendation I cannot recommend this book highly enough I think it is brilliant it contains very simple basic meals such as the scrambled egg, shepherd's pie and macaroni alongside more exciting recipes such as the salmon, chicken and coconut curry and there are simple family suppers as well as more dinner with friends recipes all well laid out , easy to follow and achievable I cannot wait to get more of her books. Read the complete review |
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Lorraine Pascale's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food - Lorraine Pascale
by scooch12 At Christmas, my parents always ask me if there's anything they can get me for 'something to wrap'. I always ask them for books as there's always new ones out that I'm interested in - a variety with my favourites being autobiographies and cookery books, especially if the recipes are quite easy to do and don't need hours of endless ... slogging in the kitchen. This book, Fast, Fresh and Easy Food by Lorraine Pascale, was one I was very keen on looking at and was added to my Christmas list. The book costs around £9 on Amazon although the recommended retail price inside the book is £20. It is available as a hardback and as an e-book (prices given are for the hardback). I first came across Lorraine on her BBC2 show 'fast, fresh and easy food', also the title of this book. The programme showed Lorraine make various recipes, all of which are in this book. Most of the recipes on the show looked quite easy to complete with minimal effort. The thing that drew me to it was the fact that all of the ingredients looked quite normal - I've lost count of the amount of times that my cupboard has ended up with a weird ingredient that no-one's ever heard of and it just festers away because I decide I'm not keen on the recipe. These recipes looked tasty, easy to do and didn't require me to spend countless hours in a specialist herb shop trying to find that last vital ingredient. Recipes that she showed on the show varied from making pizza, to making curry, making a lamb roast dinner to making her masterpiece Maltesers Cake, although she refers to it as the 'let them eat cake cake' I assume because of advertising reasons. All recipes shown on the programme are included in the book, along with many others - there are 100 recipes in total, so plenty to read through and try out. The book has a small introduction from Lorraine about her main aim of writing the book- she says that the goal was to make a book that would be referred to regularly, several times a week. It also has a handy tips page about the recipes before moving on to the recipes themselves. It is then separated into sections for each type of food - canapés and cocktails, starters, snacks and soups, salads, chicken and duck mains, beef, lamb and pork mains, fish and shellfish mains, vegetarian mains, cakes and puds, bread and pastry and tasty treats. There is quite a selection of food to try! There's around 10 to 12 recipes per section and they cover a wide range. For example in the chicken and duck mains section, there is, amongst others, a recipe for piri-piri chicken, a recipe for chicken tikka masala and a chicken casserole. I feel that she's tried to cover a wide range of world cuisine, and I think she's done a good job of doing so. I have to be honest and say that I've not tried out recipes from some of the sections, but I have tried a lot from the beef, lamb and pork mains and the cakes and puds (for obvious reasons with that one!). The recipes throughout the book take a similar format. The first recipe I was drawn to was the slow roast leg of lamb with chardonnay, rosemary and sage. This was a recipe I'd seen her complete on the TV programme and it looked so delicious on the show. Using the book to recreate the meal, I tried it for myself. I have to say that I found the recipe very easy to follow from the book. The layout of the book is great - alongside all of the recipes, a full size picture is given of the end result of the meal, so you know what to aim for. A list of ingredients is given at the side of every dish. The preparation time, the time spent in the oven, the serving number and equipment needed for the recipe are all given above the ingredients. What I really like about the style is the friendly and informal format - for example, for the chardonnay part of this recipe, she says "400ml of white wine", then followed by "any wine will do". She also mentions honey, the measurement being "a couple of squidges". The format really relates to my way of cooking - I am not a person that measures things out precisely and feel better to just try a bit and see what happens. From watching the show, she seems to base a lot of her recipes on experimenting in her cooking. This easy reading format is also used throughout each of the recipe methods. The methods are very easy to follow and are very clear. I have to say that with this dish it miraculously turned out looking very similar to the full size picture given in the book. This has fast become one of mine and my husband's favourite meals now. Almost every other recipe I've tried has lived up to my expectations - maybe not all looking exactly like the big picture given in the book, but some did and all tasted spectacular! There was one disaster in the kitchen with the burgers recipe that she gives in the book, although if I'm honest, I think I did substitute one of the ingredients for another as the supermarket had ran out of it on my weekly shop. They fell apart in the pan which was a real shame. But, I will try again with this one, as the picture in the book just makes them look so delicious. I find the last section is very helpful too. The last section is 'tasty treats' and has recipes for sides such as mango chutney and toffee sauce. There aren't many recipes in this section but they are mostly things that don't take long to do. I find them useful as don't really have the knowledge on how to make accompaniments for main dishes from scratch. As for the ingredients, I have found that as expected, the majority are pretty straightforward and normal, although there have been a couple of recipes where ingredients have been used that weren't on sale in our local supermarket. On the whole though, I've found that around 95% of the recipes had ingredients that were available there and I'd say most of these were ingredients that you would find a lot of kitchens anyway, tomato ketchup for example is used in a few recipes I've looked at, something always in our cupboard. I would really recommend this book to anyone like me who enjoys cooking but doesn't always have loads of time spare to spend in the kitchen. It certainly helps me to make nice meals with very little effort. Thanks for reading :o) Read the complete review |
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Yummy Little Cookbook - Rebecca Gilpin
by milliesmum123 My daughter adores anything sweet! Whenever we go shopping we always end up popping into a bakery for a treat but recently we have started to bake our own. When she is at school she comes home with all kinds of treats that they make at school and so I thought it was time we began to make our own things too! I was bought this book by my ... mum for Christmas and it's lovely! So simple and straight forward so easy for me too! Baking I am hopeless at baking, I always get great ideas and believe I am some wonder chef and then when it comes down to it I'm hopeless. There is something really nice about baking though, the smell it fills your home with is just something which is always appealing! I think baking is quite an important skill to learn, I never did any really and it's made me realise how rubbish at it I really am, maybe if I'd have done more with my mum when I was little I would be better so I think it's nice to bake with my little girl now. The book This is a little book aimed at young children to get them interested in baking. Saying this though everything within this book is perfectly edible and appealing to adults too so it's not just a childish book. It is split into sections so that you can see various things such as a Christmas section and an Easter one too. There is also a chapter on wrapping and storage which is nice as it shows you how you can wrap them up nicely and give them as gifts. I must admit the ideas are very simple yet I hadn't thought of them! The recipes vary from very, very simple things to a little bit more difficult. I wouldn't say any are very challenging but it will depend upon how expert you are in the kitchen. The easiest recipe in my opinion is one which is dipping fruits in melted chocolate. That is very straight forward and then a more difficult one is making a big Easter cake and decorating it. The recipes are easy to follow with pictures giving you a step by step guide with simple written instructions too. There are a few safety things pointed out such as to make sure you wear oven gloves at one time and so forth which makes it show that it is aimed at children but really this isn't any different from a normal recipe book. All of the recipes you can make are appealing to children because they are very bright and attractive. They are all also very yummy too. One of the sections which is popular in our house is the chocolate and sweet section which shows you a variety of recipes to make yummy finger foods. We have made the chocolate dipped fruit, coconut ice and the chocolate truffles. All of the recipes were easy enough to follow and all ingredients were easy to get from our local supermarket. There wasn't anything that I hadn't heard of. All of the recipes have parts in it which children can be involved in. There is no way that my little girl could do any of these on her own, we always make them together will me doing about 70% of the work as she can't do it but she is able to get involved in about 30% of the things which is usually the stirring, rolling, helping to put on an oven tray and so forth. Although I do most of the work my daughter still feels really involved and really loves making them. She helps to follow the instructions and the pictures are very clear so it's easy for her to do so. Education Both my daughter and I have learnt lots since we have had this book. When we first got it I told her to go through the book and choose something she liked the look of and we'd bake it. We now have worked through several. It has helped to teach me very simple recipes but also some which are a little more complex but we have managed it! My daughter has learnt a lot about baking, she has been able to be hands on and has learnt about how putting ingredients together and doing various tasks then leads to a lovely creation. It has also taught her about patience too as some of the recipes involve a lot of waiting- the chocolate truffles for example need to have a 20 minute wait and then a further 90 minutes before you can complete them so she has learnt that things do not always happen right away which is an important lesson. I think learning about food is really important, it helps us to be more aware of what we eat and how it is made. I think it is an important skill to have too and I hope that both myself and my daughter will learn some good baking skills from this book. My little girl has also learnt some basic kitchen safety too, she already knew lots about not touching knives and going near the oven and so forth but I think using this book has really helped her to understand why, she's able to see first hand the processes which take place. Fun Baking should be fun! Baking should be very fun when you're young especially and this book does make it fun! It helps because everything in this book is so appealing and bright and yummy! It isn't a book that's pretending to be healthy and trying to force low fat/low calorie options at you and I like it for that. There's nothing healthy in this book but that's fine! Because everything is so appealing it makes it look so much more exciting. My daughter loves sitting with this book and going through the pages choosing which thing she'll make next. We also have fun then finding the ingredients and ticking off our shopping list as we go. Baking together is really fun, we love watching our recipes come to life and then especially enjoy testing them afterwards! We haven't tried any of the wrapping options yet as we haven't made any for presents but I think when it comes round to Christmas time we will be making use of this section and I imagine that will be even more entertaining too. Conclusion This is a book which will help your children get into baking without it taxing you too. If you are an experienced baker then this book will appeal because your children need to be eased in gently but there is still plenty of scope and inspiring recipes. If you don't know how to bake very well then this is also appealing to you because the recipes are very easy to follow and the majority of them are very easy. I love this book as it is so varied, it has lots of ideas in it which I never would have thought of. Previously we just made buns or rice crispie cakes but now we make chocolate truffles and flap jacks! The majority of the recipes are for small items so you can also help your children with portion control too, nothing is healthy but at least they are only small. This is a really lovely book which will help children learn about the joy of baking in a really friendly and enjoyable way. We highly recommend it especially as you don't need lots of fancy equipment or a huge baking knowledge to make the recipes. They taste yummy too! Read the complete review |
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Author: Charmaine Yabsley, Amanda Cross / Cookbook / Paperback / 128 Pages / Book is published 2009-01-05 by Hamlyn |
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Author: Madhur Jaffrey / Cookbook / Hardcover / 224 Pages / Book is published 2012-10-11 by Ebury Press |
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Author: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall / Cookbook / Hardcover / 416 Pages / Book is published 2012-08-30 by Bloomsbury Publishing |
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Genre: Food & Drink / Cookbook / Dieting / Author: Dorothy Hartley / Paperback / 672 Pages / Book is published 2009-07-02 by Piatkus |
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Author: Fuchsia Dunlop / Cookbook / Hardcover / 352 Pages / Book is published 2012-06-07 by Bloomsbury Publishing |
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Author: Carlos Lischetti / Cookbook / Hardcover / 192 Pages / Book is published 2012-09-22 by B.Dutton Publishing (A Division of Squires Kitchen Magazine Publishing Ltd.) |
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Author: VARIOUS / Cookbook / Paperback / 160 Pages / Book is published 2011-01-06 by Simon & Schuster Ltd |
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Author: Nigel Slater / Cookbook / Hardcover / 544 Pages / Book is published 2012-09-13 by Fourth Estate |
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Author: Paul Brodel / Cookbook / Paperback / 68 Pages / Book is published 2011-12-05 by MWB Publishing Limited |
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Author: James Martin / Cookbook / Hardcover / 208 Pages / Book is published 2012-10-25 by Quadrille Publishing Ltd |
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