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Cookbook Project, Books #107, 108, and 109
Nov. 1st, 2009 04:00 pmStill playing catchup - last week wasn't much for cooking, but it also left me with no time to write anything up....
"The Frugal Gourmet," Jeff Smith
This is one of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
umbran's books, and I'm ashamed to admit that I've never used it before. I know I have a tropism for shiny books with pretty pictures, and if there's anything that this project has taught me it's that I need to appreciate the more textbook-y books more, and be willing to give them as much love and attention as my pretty books.
To give you an idea of how far behind I am on writing these books up, I pulled this one off the shelf at the end of garden season, because I was desperate for a way to use up our overwhelming supply of basil before the first frost killed it off. I've never been a huge fan of pesto, but I was willing to accept that maybe homemade stuff would be better than the green chemical spread I always find at the store, and I figured this book would be likely to have a simple, straightforward base recipe.
It did, and words cannot express how glad I was that I tried it. Homemade pesto, with basil picked fresh from the garden, has to be one of the most wonderful things I've tasted. And on a pizza with fresh mozzarella and roasted red peppers, it was even more amazing. Yet another win for the project.
"Real Home Cooking," Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks
And back to the checkout lane booklets. This one is a hand-me-down fromumbran's mom, again, and another one that I glanced through at first and then set aside. It's old, and kind of dull-looking, and I had enough similar books that it never seemed to merit much attention.
Surprisingly, though, on a more thorough look-through, there were at least a handful of recipes that looked like they were worth trying. But I was picking out recipes just as the weather was well and truly settling into fall, and so I was craving fall food, and wound up making... well, they call it "Bean And Bacon Combo," which just sounds atrocious, but it looked like a fairly interesting, fairly quick take on homemade baked beans - another dish that I've never been too fond of, but was willing to try a non-instant premade variant of.
And again, I'm glad I tried it, because this stuff was impressively good. Easy and quick with canned beans, and good enough that I'm hoping to try it with dried beans, taking the time to soak them and see if that makes it even better. And it makes me want to try some of the other interesting recipes I've flagged in the booklet....
"Cooking With Stored Foods," Carlene Tejada and Carroll Latham
Okay. I kind of had high hopes for this book. It's old, and cheap, but it's from the same line of old, cheap books that have turned out to be surprisingly useful, so I've started to expect... if not great things, at least significant quality from them. I wasn't exactly excited about using it, but I was at least anticipating finding a few good options to choose from. I'm not quite sure where it came from - it's a hand-me-down, but I'm not sure whose mother passed it on to us, and I haven't really perused it at any great length until now.
Alas, it wasn't near as useful as I had hoped it would be. After looking through it twice, the only recipe I could find that looked even vaguely appealing was Mexican Style Poached Eggs (which qualified as a stored-food recipe because they apparently recommend using frozen eggs, which we decided was unnecessary).
They weren't bad, and made a pretty good breakfast-for-dinner - eggs poached in a quick homemade tomato sauce. I'd make it again, and probably for dinner rather than breakfast. But I'm a bit sad that nothing else in here looked like it was worth eating. Oh, well. Some are winners, and others not so much.
"The Frugal Gourmet," Jeff Smith
This is one of
umbran's books, and I'm ashamed to admit that I've never used it before. I know I have a tropism for shiny books with pretty pictures, and if there's anything that this project has taught me it's that I need to appreciate the more textbook-y books more, and be willing to give them as much love and attention as my pretty books. To give you an idea of how far behind I am on writing these books up, I pulled this one off the shelf at the end of garden season, because I was desperate for a way to use up our overwhelming supply of basil before the first frost killed it off. I've never been a huge fan of pesto, but I was willing to accept that maybe homemade stuff would be better than the green chemical spread I always find at the store, and I figured this book would be likely to have a simple, straightforward base recipe.
It did, and words cannot express how glad I was that I tried it. Homemade pesto, with basil picked fresh from the garden, has to be one of the most wonderful things I've tasted. And on a pizza with fresh mozzarella and roasted red peppers, it was even more amazing. Yet another win for the project.
"Real Home Cooking," Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks
And back to the checkout lane booklets. This one is a hand-me-down from
umbran's mom, again, and another one that I glanced through at first and then set aside. It's old, and kind of dull-looking, and I had enough similar books that it never seemed to merit much attention.Surprisingly, though, on a more thorough look-through, there were at least a handful of recipes that looked like they were worth trying. But I was picking out recipes just as the weather was well and truly settling into fall, and so I was craving fall food, and wound up making... well, they call it "Bean And Bacon Combo," which just sounds atrocious, but it looked like a fairly interesting, fairly quick take on homemade baked beans - another dish that I've never been too fond of, but was willing to try a non-instant premade variant of.
And again, I'm glad I tried it, because this stuff was impressively good. Easy and quick with canned beans, and good enough that I'm hoping to try it with dried beans, taking the time to soak them and see if that makes it even better. And it makes me want to try some of the other interesting recipes I've flagged in the booklet....
"Cooking With Stored Foods," Carlene Tejada and Carroll Latham
Okay. I kind of had high hopes for this book. It's old, and cheap, but it's from the same line of old, cheap books that have turned out to be surprisingly useful, so I've started to expect... if not great things, at least significant quality from them. I wasn't exactly excited about using it, but I was at least anticipating finding a few good options to choose from. I'm not quite sure where it came from - it's a hand-me-down, but I'm not sure whose mother passed it on to us, and I haven't really perused it at any great length until now.
Alas, it wasn't near as useful as I had hoped it would be. After looking through it twice, the only recipe I could find that looked even vaguely appealing was Mexican Style Poached Eggs (which qualified as a stored-food recipe because they apparently recommend using frozen eggs, which we decided was unnecessary).
They weren't bad, and made a pretty good breakfast-for-dinner - eggs poached in a quick homemade tomato sauce. I'd make it again, and probably for dinner rather than breakfast. But I'm a bit sad that nothing else in here looked like it was worth eating. Oh, well. Some are winners, and others not so much.
