Posts Tagged ‘cookbook’
1
Book Review: Family Food and Weekend Feasts
1
Summary (Random House website)
FAMILY FOOD & WEEKEND FEASTS has it all: quick, delicious meals you can whip up in minutes and lovely, leisurely recipes for those days when you have time to slow down and enjoy yourself in the kitchen. But whether it’s a weeknight dinner or a sumptuous Sunday evening spread, Janelle Bloom’s food is always a treat.
In this new book, the popular TV cook presents her own everyday favourites (such as sticky chicken wings, spiced beef tacos and strawberry and cream tart), as well as fabulous special occasion dishes (such as slow-cooked curry-crusted lamb, stroganoff pie, roasted plums with ricotta fritters, and profiteroles with tiramisu ice-cream and hot fudge sauce).
Janelle also serves up easy-to-follow menu plans for brunch, barbecues and picnics, cosy nights in with friends, afternoon tea with the girls, and an unforgettable Christmas dinner. And, as always, she dishes up plenty of handy tips and tricks along the way, to help you get every recipe just right, every time.
Comments
I love Janelle Bloom’s first cookbook in this series, Fast Fresh and Fabulous, and have tried out many of the recipes with great success. I have seen a copy of the second book, Fab Food for Family and Friends, but didn’t find quite as many recipes in it that appealed to me, so I was unsure what the latest book, Family Food and Weekend Feasts would be like.
With multiple recipes already tagged for use in the near future, it would seem that book three in the series is going to be just as popular in our home as book one. I’m particularly looking forward to running a taste comparison between the Frozen Cosmopolitan from book one and the Raspberryoska (a caipiroska variation) from the current book.
As with her previous books, Family Food & Weekend Feasts has quite a warm, inviting feel about it. Each recipe is briefly introduced by Bloom and there are cooking and food preparation tips scattered throughout the book. You really get the sense of sharing recipes and cooking tips with a family friend, which I quite like. There is a great mix of recipes with a nice balance of savoury and sweet to choose from.
I’m an enthusiastic although not necessarily highly skilled cook and I love the range of recipes, easy to follow directions, accessible ingredients and general approach of this cookbook. As with Fast Fresh and Fabulous, it seems likely that this latest book will quickly show signs of frequent use in the kitchen.
As a brief, unsponsored aside – I noticed Big W has book one and two on sale as a set for $29.95 at the moment. They make an excellent Christmas gift idea, so it’s worth seeing if your local store has them in stock.
Review copy details
Title: Family Food & Weekend Feasts
Author: Janelle Bloom
Publisher: Ebury Press, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-86471-123-3
Genre: Cookbook
1
Book Review: Our Family Table by Julie Goodwin
1
Title: Our Family Table
Author: Julie Goodwin
Publisher: Ebury Illustrated, 2010 (243 pages)
ISBN: 978-1-74166-968-8
Genre: Cookbook
Summary (from Random House)
Since taking out the coveted title of Australia’s first MasterChef, Julie Goodwin has been cooking, testing and writing away like mad, preparing to publish her first cookbook.
Julie says: ‘In this book I’m not just presenting recipes but exploring the role of food in families and communities. I want to get people back into their kitchens and promote the joy of food and family. OUR FAMILY TABLE is full of lovely stories and recipes and feasts, with a strong focus on good old-fashioned tucker. ‘
Some recipes are heirlooms passed down in Julie’s family through generations, while others were given to her by friends and neighbours. There are lazy weekend breakfasts to enjoy with the family, weekday and special occasion dinners, barbecue and camp cooking, and cakes, biscuits and puddings galore. Julie also includes recipes she created on MasterChef – such as her now famous lemon diva cupcakes and her passionfruit ‘puddle’ pie.
The final section of the book is Julie’s favourite: a beautifully designed ‘blank’ chapter with pages for the reader’s own photos, clippings and hand-me-down handwritten recipes from family and friends.
With a foreword by Australian culinary icon, Margaret Fulton.
Comments
I was interested to see Julie Goodwin’s cookbook when it finally arrived on the shelves. I love to cook, but confess that the hyper-styled meals and fussy recipes of many celebrity cooks just leave me cold. Some people may be able to balance family, work and social commitments as well as turn out gourmet meals, but I’m afraid I’m just not one of them.
I was a little worried that somewhere between the end of MasterChef Australia 2009 and the release of Goodwin’s cookbook the marketing guru’s would decide to alter Julie’s rather basic cookbook plan to ensure that it would appeal to the foodie fans of the program. I’m very pleased to report that this hasn’t happened and, as I had hoped, Our Family Table is filled with the kinds of recipes that I am likely to make at home for my own family.
I’ve tried out the recipe for Grandma’s shortbread, which was delicious. If you want further confirmation of this, just ask Meredith from Oh, The Thinks You Can Think, who gobbled the shortbreads I took to her place down faster than you can say “Would you like to keep the leftover biscuits for your kids for afternoon tea?” Leftovers? What was I thinking?
I’m sure that this is a recipe book that I will be referring to often. I’m not necessarily likely to write my own recipes in the blank pages at the back, but that’s simply because I have too many to fit. This section does make this cookbook a lovely idea as a housewarming, engagement or wedding present however, with perhaps favourite family recipes already included.
Talking about that shortbread has made me hungry. I think it’s time to put another batch in the oven…
Related links:
Review of Our Family Table at Suite101.com
1
Book Review: Mummy and Me Cookbook by Annabel Karmel
1
Title: Mummy and me Cookbook
Author: Annabel Karmel
Publisher: DK, 2008 (47 pages)
ISBN: 978-1-40532-880-7
Genre: Children’s Cookbook
Summary (from DK website)
Get cooking with your child and make tasty, healthy food with child nutrition expert, Annabel Karmel.
Cooking and eating together are great for encouraging kids to eat healthily! Annabel Karmel shows how you can create all kinds of lip-smacking finger food with your child that’s good for them, too. Step-by-step photos show you (and them) exactly what to do and will help your child develop basic cookery skills: from weighing and counting to mixing and rolling, while you take care of the sharp knives and hot ovens.
From munchy oat bars and lettuce boats to perfect party treats, this is food that’s yummy and good for any size tummy. Whatever you cook up, it will be as much fun to make as it will be to eat.
Comments
With dishes that are both simple to prepare and visually appealing, Annabel Karmel’s cookbook for kids will delight any budding chefs. There are instructions for holding a cooking party including invitation ideas, party games and foods such as mini-pizzas and cookies that can be made at the party.
Recipes include a list of ingredients, preparation and cooking time, how many/much the recipe produces, and clear step by step instructions accompanied by photographs of each step. Karmel is based in the UK, however the ingredients and recipes are reasonably generic and should be appealing to most children in other countries.
Basic cooking techniques are explained and a list of basic kitchen utensils and equipment are also listed with photographs. There are some recipes requiring the use of a stove top (eg to melt chocolate) and an electric mixer.
There is a range of recipes for meals and treats, offering both sweet and savoury dishes suitable for meals and desserts.
Recipes include:
• easy cheesy bread rolls
• mini Caesar salad
• mini pizzas
• chicken dippers
• salmon fishcakes
• meringues
• banana muffins
• peanut butter bear cookies
• iced cookies
With a few exceptions, such as the meringues, recipes are healthy or healthier options for favourite treats. The emphasis is on enjoying time spent in the kitchen and involving children in food preparation. The illustrations feature young boys and girls, which may limit its appeal to younger children and girls, as school-aged boys might find the layout and appearance too babyish.
I purchased this book as a gift for my 5-year0-old niece, who loves it.
Related Links:
- Annabel Karmel website – recipes, general nutrition information for children, competitions and forums as well as a details on Karmel’s other cookbooks
- Review of Annabel Karmel’s Complete Family Meal Planner at Suite101.com.
1
Celebrity Chef Cookbooks
1Since we were both hopelessly addicted to MasterChef Australia earlier this year, we are awaiting tonight’s Celebrity MasterChef Australia with great anticipation.
We’re keen to see how the chosen celebrities survive the stresses of the MasterChef kitchen Will their soufflés fall? Will their cookies crumble? Will someone accidently set an oven mitt on fire? The potential for disasters is almost limitless and we wait with baited breath for some entertaining viewing in the coming weeks.
To celebrate the first episode of Celebrity MasterChef Australia tonight, we thought we would run a cookbook giveaway. On offer we have Keep the Table Laughing – A Cookbook with a Twist. This is our very own cookbook, written in 2005 and filled with our favourite family recipes as well as anecdotes and a lot of chatter and fun.
We came up with the concept of Keep the Table Laughing when we were discussing the huge number of celebrity chef cookbooks on the market. So, in honour of those inspiring celebrity chefs and the Australian celebrities aspiring to be chefs, we want you to share with us the name of your favourite celebrity chef cookbook.
I’m a cookbook junkie, but since I have been trying to cull my cookbook collection to those that I use regularly, I must confess that the number of celebrity chef cookbooks has dwindled considerably. My current favourite would have to be Janelle Bloom’s Fast, Fresh and Fabulous, although I made a fantastic chocolate mousse last weekend from a recipe in an Iain Hewitson cookbook. Yes, that’s the same Huey who wrote the foreword for Keep the Table Laughing.
Whether you are a fan of likeable lad Jamie Oliver, domestic goddess Nigella Lawson, bad boy Gordon Ramsey, Aussie favourites Neil Perry and Stephanie Alexander or ever popular Australian food stylist Donna Hay, we want to know. We don’t mind whether it’s an international celebrity or a local culinary star, we want to hear which celebrity chef cookbook you love.
We have two copies of Keep the Table Laughing to give away. To enter just leave us a comment below with the name your favourite celebrity chef cookbook. Tweeting the competition will result in a bonus entry. Competition is only open to Australian residents and will be drawn the day of the Masterchef finale.
Make sure you include your email address when you leave a comment and include our twitter name, @thinkthinkers, in your tweet so that we don’t miss your extra entry.
1
Booking Through Thursday – The More You Read, The More you Know
1
A short and sweet question from the Booking Through Thursday meme this week:
What’s the most informative book you’ve read recently?
The most practical and informative book I have read recently would have to be Table Tucker, a cookbook by New Zealand-born Australian mum Penina Petersen. I have reviewed Table Tucker here at Reading Upside Down and at Suite101.
After years of knowing that I should have a meal plan but lacking the self-discipline to actually put one together, Petersen has saved me from myself by providing a 52 week family meal plan that not only takes care of the stress of having to decide what to cook for dinner each night and making sure that all the necessary groceries are available, she has also provided all the recipes.
Not only that, Table Tucker provides meals that can be pre-prepared, so that two meals are cooked on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday nights, making Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings far more relaxing as meals simply need to be reheated and served.
The book also contains annual, quarterly/seasonal and monthly shopping lists to further organise grocery shopping and reduce costs. There are household budgeting tips throughout the book as well.
I have been using this book for the past few weeks and it really does deliver on the promises it makes. So, not only is the book informative it is actually useful.
Other informative books I’ve read recently include:
Becoming Shakespeare by Jack Lynch – fascinating look at how William Shakespeare became the world’s most recognised playwright
Tying the Knot by Terri Psiakis – an entertaining collection of tips on how to plan a wedding without losing your mind or blowing your budget
Manthropology by Peter McAllister – an amusing and informative comparison of modern man to man throughout the ages
The Expanded Bible (New Testament) – a new expanded text translation of the New Testament
Reviews of these titles are on the way and will be linked above ASAP.
What informative books have you read recently? Delving into history, true crimes or an autobiography, something practical like gardening or craft or simply reading up on a favourite hobby or interest?
1
Book Review – Table Tucker by Penina Petersen
1Title: Table Tucker
Author: Penina Petersen
Publisher: Hachette Australia, 2009 (328 pages)
ISBN: 978-0-7336-2444-5
Topic: Cookbook, Home Organisation
Despite my tendency to over-organise other areas of my life, I’m not really all that good at being organised with household tasks like cooking and cleaning.
I know that I can save money by preparing a menu plan and shopping list and sticking to it, but I just don’t seem to be able to get my head around actually doing it. I have often searched for menu plans online, only to be disappointed when these plans expect me to do all the hard work of organising recipes and filling in spreadsheets or templates with my meal choices.
Finally, a light is shining into the darkness of my kitchen chaos and I can only wonder how I haven’t come across Penina Petersen and her amazing Table Tucker concept sooner.
This handy little book takes all the decision making stress out of preparing family meals. It provides not only a 52 week seasonally adjusted meal plan suitable for Australian households, but it also includes a weekly shopping list. All I have to do is prepare the meals and even then Petersen has organised the menu plan so that two meals can be prepared on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, resulting in No Cook Monday, Unwind Wednesday and Freedom Friday.
That’s right, cook on three nights and on the alternate nights you simply need to reheat the pre-prepared meal. Too easy. Saturday night is left free for left-overs, eating out or an easy family favourite night.
The meals are generally quite simply to prepare and may not necessarily appeal to those with more gourmet tastes. Experienced cooks should have no difficulty adapting recipes to suit individual tastes and personally I like that the meals are given in a basic format that makes them suitable for everyone in the family.
Table Tucker includes weekly grocery lists, but also provides monthly, seasonal and annual grocery lists for those who would like to save money and packaging by buying in bulk. Additional recipes, an online forum and cooking and grocery budgeting tips can be found at the Table Tucker website. Registered users of the website can have their weekly grocery lists sent by email, so anyone with a compatible phone or other email-friendly mobile device can simply take their email shopping list with them (Yet another reason why I really need an iPhone).
Serving sizes vary with meals, so I would recommend that if you want to embrace the Table Tucker menu planner you try it out for a week or two so that you can get an idea of how the meal sizes work with your family before racing out and purchasing the monthly shopping list.
I have been using this book for the past couple of weeks and I love that I no longer have to face the What will we have for dinner? decision each night.
Related Links
Review of Table Tucker at Suite101
1
Book Review – Wild Sourdough by Yoke Mardewi
1Title: Wild Sourdough
Author: Yoke Mardewi
Publisher: New Holland (224 pages)
Grab: an apron
As the owner of a brand-spanking new bread maker (oh, how I love it), I was looking forward to getting Wild Sourdough to expand my bread making repertoire.
After a brief moment of disappointment when I discovered that these sourdough recipes aren’t bread maker friendly, I rallied to become quite enthralled with the approach Mardewi has to making sourdough bread.
In addition to more than 45 sourdough recipes, Wild Sourdough includes information about the use and benefits of a variety of flours (wheat, spelt, kamut, emmer, einkorn, durum, rye, oat, barley), discussion of gluten and gluten-free grains and detailed instructions on establishing a sourdough starter. Mardewi uses three different methods of making sourdough depending on the recipe: Straight, Starter or Dough Retardation.
I really liked Mardewi’s practical, back-to-basics approach adapted for home cooks. Her instructions are clear and she has included a contact email address should anyone require further assistance. The recipe layout includes the time needed for each step and throughout the book as Mardewi explains what to do, she includes information on why particular techniques or ingredients are important and what role they play in the overall bread making process.
In addition to standard sourdough loaves, there are recipes for grissini, brioche, panettone, pastry, chapatti, ciabatta, Turkish bread and crispbread. There are even sourdough cake recipes including a sourdough Christmas cake and sourdough chocolate cake (which I can’t wait to try).
While I’m not quite at the stage of milling my own wheat, I do enjoy spending time baking and I’m looking forward to trying out several of the recipes in this book.
