Cookaholics Bulletin Board

When you posted about this yesterday I looked for a copy in any Colorado library, but alas didn't find one. Post your favorite recipe please

Amy

I will as soon as I make something! LOL! I only recently got it and have been lovingly going through the book. It's chock-full of photos and anecdotes.

I just got from my library Mollie Katzen's newest c/b, "The Heart of the Plate". From my quick review this one looks really good. I'll report back when I've reviewed more thoroughly.
Nance

Been a while since I updated this.

The Mast Brothers Chocolate Cookbook was disappointing. While the chocolate pictures were mouth-watering, the recipes weren't; they contained omissions and errors, and ultimately the two that we tried completely failed to be chocolatey. This was particularly impressive with the chocolate-oat cookies, which contained cocoa, broken chocolate, and melted chocolate, and yet managed to be bland. Clearly a cookbook which is meant to be read or coffee-tabled without being cooked from.

I have mixed feelings about Lorna Sass's Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure. The good is that she's an impeccable authority on how and for how long to cook stuff in pressure cookers. The cookbook also contains a much broader array of ethnic foods than you'd expect, including things like Lobia and Farrotto. Also, the basic PC risotto is fab. However, many of the recipes suffer from "1970's Vegetarian Palate", and are bland, wierd, or both (which is strange since the cookbook was published in 2006) Certainly it's hard for me to trust Sass on recipes which seem odd; I can't tell if she's using her PC knowledge or just not testing the recipe as written. On the whole, I decided not to buy a copy, but I thought about it a bit.

Very disappointed with "Eat Your Vegetables - Bold Recipes for the Single Cook" by Joe Yunan. We were hoping to gain some inspiration, and at least a few new recipes, for meals for 2 but didn't find one recipe I wanted to try.
Nance

Nance,

Really? I was intrigued by a bunch of his recipe ideas. But maybe I'm looking for more unusual stuff than you -- or maybe I just didn't look at them too closely.

Yup Josh, but I'm going to hold onto it and review again with fresh eyes. To be fair (to the CB), I reviewed it while having lunch at a local diner, and after negotiating a lease for our next car. So, perhaps the mood/timing weren't quite right to review this CB.

This week: There's No Pretty Like Brazillian Pretty

D.O.M. Rediscovering Brazillian Ingredients is Alex Atala's picturesque omnibus, published by Phaidon of course. Atala is Brazil's answer to Ferran Adria, and the recipes are equally complex, weird, deconstructed, and make stunning full-page full-color photographs. If you put this on your coffee table, it will immediately tell people what an incredible foodie you are. It will also push everything else off your coffee table.

The book has recipes, but it might as well not; outside of Brazil most of the ingredients are impossible to obtain -- one calls not just for ants, but for a specific species of ant, found only in the northern Amazon. Heck, inside of Brazil many would be hard to obtain without extensive travel. However, the little capsule descriptions of specialty Brazillian ingredients are good breakfast reading.

http://www.phaidon.com/store/food-cook/ ... 714865744/

Hmmmmm...I know some people that would love to read about ants during breakfast.

I got my copy of Preserving by the Pint this week, by Marissa McClellan. It is the follow up to Food in Jars, and specifically covers very small batch canning. I made her Blackberry Preserves with warm spices with a couple of minor modifications this morning. There is a photo on my FB wall.

I seeded my blackberries (I hate seeds above all else), and I cut the cinnamon in half, replacing with allspice, ginger and a pinch of clove. Asher is not fond of cinnamon in sweet things because he didn't grow up with it.

As I removed the seeds I got a smaller yield. My two flats of fresh blackberries yielded perfect 2 half pints, so I suspect you would get the three she indicates if you left the seeds in. I canned them both to make sure I got at least one with a seal, but will try them later in the week over some yogurt for breakfast.

Incidentally, my husband is strange. He ate the seeds, dumped out of the food mill into a bowl for breakfast. On the other hand, I guess I can make fondue for dinner tomorrow, since he has had his fiber content for the week.

--Lisa