Easter passed in the usual haze of chocolate, running to burn off chocolate, lots of movies, lots of lazy afternoons with a pile of library books, poking about in charity shops in nearby villages for more books (like I need more, see post before last!). Most of my Easter reading involved cookbooks:
I've been wanting to revamp my weekly menu as I've recently got into a bit of a rut cooking the same things week in, week out - it tends to be the same old pesto pasta, tofu stir-fry, lentil dhal or Quorn escalope of late. I love reading cookbooks to get new ideas. Actually, my idea of utter bliss is to be inside on a rainy afternoon, wearing something really comfy, some jazz on the stereo and a big cup of tea and pile of cookbooks to leaf through. I enjoy it even more if I've been for a run first!
I thought I'd share with you my favourites of the ones I've leafed through recently, and seeing as most of them were library books I'm definitely going to get my own copies:
Miss Masala by Mallika Basu
I blame this book entirely for my kitchen now being overrun with Indian condiments - right after reading this book, I went straight down to my local supermarket (which has a surprisingly wonderful and very comprehensive Indian food section) and got gram (chickpea flour), chapati flour, parathas, ghee (I have never had ghee in my house ever!) chilli powder and a spice called asafoetida. I've made some of the curries (Tadka Dhal has been my favourite so far) and last week I even made pakoras, or onion bhajis (Tom's favourite):
The sauce is just good old ketchup with some chilli powder mixed in....brilliant!
If you love Indian food but get put off cooking it because of the long list of ingredients or complicated cooking methods, Miss Masala demystifies this wonderful cuisine and makes it wholly accessible for busy cooks. All the recipes are so easy and most of them very healthy - one of Miss Masala's rules is "no deep-frying at home" (also one of my rules!) so even those lovely onion bhajis you see in the picture above were relatively guilt-free as they were pan-fried.
It's also one of those cookbooks for people who love the stories behind the food and want to know a little more about the writer too - one you can easily read like a novel. I love her hilarious stories of cooking a curry with a shower cap on so her hair wouldn't smell when she went out to a party later...and getting spotted by the neighbour in the process! The recipes are interspersed with cute drawings, cocktails, stories and glossaries. You'll close the book itching to get your spice rack filled! Highly recommended.
The Modern Vegetarian by Maria Elia
I don't own a lot of vegetarian cookbooks because a lot of them can be a bit hit and miss (maybe this should be another post!) and I find it easy (and very pleasurable) to read other cookbooks that might have meaty dishes in them that I can adapt easily. I find a lot of veggie cookbooks very basic, I suppose that's my major gripe with a lot of them - I love my food, I'm an experienced home cook and I like to get new ideas. The Modern Vegetarian fits the bill perfectly and is quite magnificent, where the recipes are imaginative, colourful and sound absolutely divine. Pippa got me on to Maria Elia and now I want to read everything she's written! I wish every chef who thinks mushroom risotto is the only thing vegetarians like to eat would read this book :) If you're a vegetarian foodie, you won't want to miss this one. The miso noodle soup from this book is on the menu this week.
Another really good vegetarian cookbook, by the way, that I got my mother-in-law for Christmas and would heartily recommend, is Celia Brooks-Brown's New Vegetarian.
Nigellisima by Nigella Lawson
Has Nigella Lawson written a bad book, I wonder? I love all her books and was keen to read this one after catching some of the recent TV series. Everyone's been raving about the yoghurt cake but it was the instant coffee ice cream and liquorice pudding that got me intrigued! Like a real saddo, sorry, enthusiast (!) I have now made a list in my Filofax of products to seek out and bring back when I'm in Italy in a few weeks time - Amarelli Rossano liquorice pellets, Castellucio lentils, Tuaca....to name a few! Luckily I am allowed extra hand luggage.
Honestly Healthy by Natasha Corrett and Vicki Edgson
I'd wanted to read this book for ages and now that I have I wonder what on earth I was waiting for.....
Imagine how the ideal you eats and cooks - lots of fresh, healthy, nourishing food that sings with flavour and leaves you feeling energised and cleansed and satisfied. Now imagine a cookbook filled with recipes for the ideal you! This is how I felt leafing through this lovely book. This is exactly the type of food I love to eat and cook. It's just beautiful!
The book is based on the alkaline way of eating, which seeks to balance the alkaline and acid-forming foods in your diet to improve your digestion and energy levels. Eating high acid-forming foods (like meat, wheat and gluten-flour breads and pasta, cows' dairy produce, and all alcoholic and caffeinated drinks) places more of a burden on the liver and kidneys to break them down. Eating more alkaline foods (fruits, non-starchy vegetables, nuts and seeds, gluten-free flours and grains, sea vegetables, etc) is kinder on the body and also helps balance out the acid-forming foods better which, lets face it, most of us like to have every now and then! The book is absolutely jam-packed with healthy and delicious dishes and ideas - smoothies, salads, pizzas, curries, soups....I already made the spinach and chickpea hummus for lunch today for me and Tom and it was divine:
I just loved this book - practical, inspiring, fun to read, informative and the photos are just stunning. Highly recommended!
The Little Paris Kitchen by Rachel Khoo
Imagine Amélie wrote a cookbook and you'll have some idea of how exquisite this book is.
Sigh. I love Paris, it's one of my favourite cities in the world, and this lovely book is filled with glorious pictures of the author cooking in her charming (but very little, she wasn't joking) Paris kitchen, sipping wine in a neighbourhood bistro, shopping at the markets....a life perhaps we all dream of every now and then ;)
The recipes are classic French dishes but with a really fresh approach - some of the recipes are gluten free, for example - and there's lots for veggies and pescaterians too. On my list of recipes to try very soon are: mousse aux éclats de chocolat (chocolate mousse with cocoa nibs); confiture de tomates cerises et vanilla (cherry tomato and vanilla jam, to serve with cheese); terrine forestiére (wild mushroom terrine); and lentilles du Puy avec un fromage de chèvre, betteraves et une vinaigrette d’aneth (Puy lentil salad with goat’s cheese, beetroot and a dill vinaigrette). Sounds like a really nice dinner party menu to me, actually!
Have you discovered any fabulous and inspiring cookbooks lately?
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So, thanks to my recent cookbook reading, I feel very motivated to bring some old favourites I haven't cooked in ages back to the menu this week but also try some some new things.
Conveniently, I also need to keep a food diary this week as part of the Zest Alpro challenge that's happening in June - a bunch of us healthy living bloggers are training for the 5k or 10k adventure race in Henley-on-Thames and after last year's trail half marathon, also in Henley-on-Thames, I think I should be able to manage the 10k...well, let's hope so!
I thought I'd share my food diary this week with you all on here. That should motivate me to stay on the straight and narrow, right?
You might remember I did a little series last year (actually, spookily, exactly this time last year!) called food what I ate, where I wrote a daily post for a week about my eats and drinks - so this week I bring you, food what I ate: the 2013 edition!
Things have changed a little over the last year - I commute to London twice a week now and instead of training for a half marathon, I am training for two 10ks - the aforementioned Zest Alpro challenge in June and also the Half Half Marathon at the Julia Jones Running Festival in Bologna, Italy at the beginning of May. As you know I've been doing the 10k course with Up and Running to get me fighting fit for the starting line of the first race and we're already up to Week 5, I can't believe it. Week 3 and most of 4 was a bit of a struggle but today's run was great!
I hope you'll enjoy a peek into my breakfast bowl, lunch box and dining table this week with food what I ate - I'll be back later with Sunday's eats and thoughts :)