A Lot on Her Plate

A Lot on Her Plate – Rosie Birkett
Hardie Grant – 2015
Photography: Helen Cathcart

There’s something about a book that comes from a cookery blog. The recipes are always well tested and usually have great alternatives, the style is personal and consistent and the photographs are always wonderful. It’s a hard sell – a book where many of the recipes are online but I happen to think blogs and books have two very separate purposes even when they are written by the same author. Blogs tend to be found when you are looking for something specific and read on a daily/weekly basis. Books are for leafing through on quiet afternoons, piling up to flick through quickly looking for what to do with leftover roast chicken, for keeping close. And I’ll certainly be keeping A Lot on Her Plate close as I work my way through all of the recipes.

The book is beautiful and passionate. Birkett is an experienced writer and it shows in both the recipes and the pages of prose. She tells a story with her food. The chapters all start with extended notes but they are fun and easy to read rather than being long explanations of what you’re about to read.

A Lot on Her Plate is exciting. The recipes are simple but the ideas are grand. It’s hugely original without being complicated or faddish. The balance between fish, vegetarian and meat dishes is so good that it feels deliberate. There is a wide range of everything used here, you’re bound to find something you want, something you need, something you can cook with what’s already in the cupboards. The images are sublime, they make you want to cook and want to eat.

My favourite recipes are the Oxtail French Dip Sandwich, the Maple Glazed Pear + Hazelnut Tart, the Warm Salad of Roasted Aubergine + Broccoli with Anchovy Lemon Dressing and the Radicchio, Gorgonzola + Walnut Break-Up Lasagne. My favourite section overall was the little chapter of essentials at the back of the book – spend a day pottering around making all of these cupboard/freezer staples for the week(s) ahead.

The real take-away message from A Lot on Her Plate is that all of the small touches make a huge difference, whether that is shopping at your local butcher, putting the right sauce on the side of your dish or making sure you mix good food and good company.

Grab this book. Make the recipes. Join me in waiting for the next one!

Cantina

Cantina: Recipes from a Mexican Kitchen – Paul Wilson
Hardie Grant – 2014
Photography: Chris Middleton

I’ve had Cantina on my review pile for a while, not being sure how to approach it. So here’s a bullet-point review of this amazing Mexican cookbook.

• Everything is made from scratch, you can try your hand at sauces and doughs and marinades
• As healthy or hearty as you choose to eat, loads of options for all sorts of tastes and diets
• There’s a massive range of ingredients used, some familiar and some hard to find but all wildly inspiring
• The photographs are gorgeous but more are needed, especially as so many of the dishes are regional specialities and so the titles aren’t always enough to represent the dish
• Great balance of meat, veggie and fish but a lot more savory than sweet
• Awesome glossary that comes in very useful when you’re starting out using the book
• Faves: Chia Pudding with Stone Fruit, Agave and Vanilla; Skirt Steak Veracruz with Buttermilk Onions & Salsa Verde; Pumpkin Mole with Pistachio Salsa Picante

All in all a gorgeous and impressive cookbook with a brilliantly insightful look into a cuisine so often badly misunderstood. Cantina will make you want to eat, and then get on a plane to Mexico.

Breakfast: Morning, Noon & Night

Breakfast: Morning, Noon & Night – Fern Green
Hardie Grant – 2015
Photography: Danielle Wood

You’ve got to love a book where ‘On Toast’ is a category! Breakfast is full of great writing that pulls you in and keeps your attention.  The wonderful thing about breakfast is that it can be anything you want – sweet or savory, healthy or indulgent, fast or slow and this cookbook has it all.

Surprisingly the ‘Healthy’ section was actually my favourite – I wanted to try out all of the recipes straightaway. There is plenty throughout for veggies and with the range included probably at least a little bit of something for everybody.

The photography is droolworthy-gorgeous. Full of colour and life and so tempting.

With an idea like ‘breakfast’ the book could very easily have been samey but the ideas are beautifully original and there’s a huge amount of originality as well as comfortingly familiar ideas.

It’s not an absolutely beginners book – things like instructions for substituting buttermilk or more detailed descriptions of how to do some of the dishes, especially baking are missing, but there’s nothing that couldn’t be attempted by cooks of any skill level.

My favourite recipes were the Egg and Bacon Udon; the Eggs on Bubble Cakes with Black Pudding; Blueberry Almond Pancakes with Cinnamon Sauce; the Crispy Courgette Soldiers; Buttermilk Blueberry Hotcakes with Coffee Mascarpone.

Breakfast is easy to read and fun to flick through as well as guaranteed to make you look forward to trying these recipes any time of the day. Or night.

Decorated

Decorated – April Carter
Hardie Grant – 2014
Photography: Danielle Wood

Decorated: Sublimely Crafted Cakes for Every Occasion has lovely mix and match-able recipes so there are far more possibilities than it appears. It’s really good to see that April Carter doesn’t just focus on the decoration but on the cakes as well, it’s no good if a cake looks great but tastes terrible, this is a fab balance of both cake and topping. What is also wonderful is that it’s not just the usual cakes either, everything from honeycomb to stout is used in the recipes, there’s lots of variety and at least a little something for everyone.

The intro section of baking basics is informative without being heavy, and it’s not just for beginners. Then there is a section of key ingredients before you get down to the serious cake business. Everything inside the book from the notes to the recipes are beautifully written and in a legible font too. It’s always great when so much care has been taken to make a book easy to use so that you want to keep going back to it.

The images by Danielle Wood are gorgeous. If you didn’t want cake when you started reading you soon would. The downside of the pictures is that they are usually of the beautiful finished cakes, it would be lovely to see more of them sliced so we know what the cake looks like inside.

After the main section of recipes there is a little bit of schooling, a how-to-do-it section with lots of step-by-step pictures and careful instructions. This book is perfect for beginners or those wanting to improve their technique. Personally I love it because there is a lot of buttercream (yum!) and not so much fondant (yeuch!) that you usually see in decorating cookbooks. There are even sections on how to photograph and transport your cake to really show it off well. My favourite recipes (so hard to choose!) were the Burnt Butter Hazelnut Cake, the Coconut Cake with Scalloped Piping, the Blueberry Cinnamon Swirl Cake and the Gingerbread Cake with Whiskey Caramel.

The thing that makes Decorated really stand out is the adaptability, Carter has given so many hints and tips throughout the book at how to make the most of her recipes that the book is a joy to use, and to re-use.

Green Kitchen Travels

Green Kitchen Travels – David Frenkiel & Luise Vindahl
Hardie Grant – 2014

Oh, it’s a lovely day for a Blog Tour – today we’re welcoming Green Kitchen, David Frenkiel, Luise Vindahl and Hardie Grant books to our corner of the internet.

Green Kitchen might sound familiar, you might already have their first book or you might be one of the many people addicted to their blog, Green Kitchen Stories. The cookbook opens with a section of their food philosophy and a bit about travelling with kids. Their daughter, Elsa, is dotted throughout the book and as the dedication states – the book wouldn’t exist without her.

The layout of the book is based on the type of meal and helpfully each section has a mini contents rundown at the start. There are introductory notes in bold, ingredients in italics which makes it easy to find what you need when you are flicking through. Green Kitchen Travels is not just recipes but a viewfinder on a world of travel experiences that happen to be based around food. The focus of the book is on healthy, unprocessed foods without forbidding anything – there are lots of Gluten free and vegan recipes (which are noted at the top of each dish). They like finding ways of making regional favourites with healthier or vegan ingredients and most are adapted so it’s easy to make them at home. There are a few bits and pieces that might not be so familiar if you don’t regularly cook vegan and gluten free but a lot of the recipes also have substitution suggestions.

Green Kitchen Travels is packed full of pictures – wonderful images of their travels as well as pictures of the recipes. Even if I wasn’t using this everyday it is the type of cookbook that I want to come back to month after month and each time would find a new favourite recipe. It will be great to use seasonally.

My favourite recipes were the Pumpkin and Almond Waffles, The Paruppu Dhal Curry and the Indian Cardamom and Sesame Laddu. The desserts section was probably my favourite, really inventive and very tempting. The balance is definitely on the savoury side in the book as a whole.

This is a brilliantly original cookbook due to the combination of vegan ideas, travel stories and adapted recipes. There are lots of different dishes that appeal to everyone from vegans to the most ardent of bacon-eaters. It makes me want to cook, and really makes me want to travel!