Cookbook Project, Books #65 and 66
Jun. 16th, 2009 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladysprite"Big Flavors," Jim Fobel
This is yet another of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
umbran's books. He's had it for as long as I can remember, and it has been sitting unused on the top shelf of the cookbook collection for that entire time. I think I glanced through it once or twice, but I never managed enough enthusiasm to actually pick out a recipe or use it. It's a little too generic to be used for specific purposes, and a little too focused to be a good generic cookbook.
There were a few recipes that sounded interesting, though, and Crunchy Louisiana Catfish won, at least in part because catfish wound up being on sale at Whole Foods. And, while the recipe selection in the book may be a bit oddly distributed, this one recipe, at least, was excellent. Well-written and detailed, straightforward, and the finished project was great. I've had too many catfish recipes where the coating wound up either falling off, dripping, or getting soggy. This was none of those things, and the flavor was pretty darn good. It may be worth finding ways to use the rest of this book....
"Skinny Comfort Foods," Sue Spitler
This was a gift from my mother. When I first went away to school and found that cooking was a barterable skill, I asked her for some cookbooks so I'd be able to figure out some things to make. She gave me this. I glanced through it, did my best not to take it as a veiled slam at my weight, and never used it - it's full of "lightened" recipes that call for fat-free cheese product, Cool Whip, fat-free half and half, and other non-food products.
But a project is a project, and that means not skipping on a book just because it's challenging. And I needed a side dish to go with the catfish. I've found that some of the cookbooks that seem impossible when it comes to finding main dishes are better at yielding up an edible side dish. So we made Corn Pudding, and it wasn't too bad. Nowhere near as good as my mom's corn casserole, which has actual sour cream and butter and stuff, but worth eating. Dunno if I'll ever make anything else from this book, but I'm glad that I found something from it that was good.
This is yet another of
umbran's books. He's had it for as long as I can remember, and it has been sitting unused on the top shelf of the cookbook collection for that entire time. I think I glanced through it once or twice, but I never managed enough enthusiasm to actually pick out a recipe or use it. It's a little too generic to be used for specific purposes, and a little too focused to be a good generic cookbook.There were a few recipes that sounded interesting, though, and Crunchy Louisiana Catfish won, at least in part because catfish wound up being on sale at Whole Foods. And, while the recipe selection in the book may be a bit oddly distributed, this one recipe, at least, was excellent. Well-written and detailed, straightforward, and the finished project was great. I've had too many catfish recipes where the coating wound up either falling off, dripping, or getting soggy. This was none of those things, and the flavor was pretty darn good. It may be worth finding ways to use the rest of this book....
"Skinny Comfort Foods," Sue Spitler
This was a gift from my mother. When I first went away to school and found that cooking was a barterable skill, I asked her for some cookbooks so I'd be able to figure out some things to make. She gave me this. I glanced through it, did my best not to take it as a veiled slam at my weight, and never used it - it's full of "lightened" recipes that call for fat-free cheese product, Cool Whip, fat-free half and half, and other non-food products.
But a project is a project, and that means not skipping on a book just because it's challenging. And I needed a side dish to go with the catfish. I've found that some of the cookbooks that seem impossible when it comes to finding main dishes are better at yielding up an edible side dish. So we made Corn Pudding, and it wasn't too bad. Nowhere near as good as my mom's corn casserole, which has actual sour cream and butter and stuff, but worth eating. Dunno if I'll ever make anything else from this book, but I'm glad that I found something from it that was good.
