I didn’t want my Tasty Reads books to be something I only used for the book club meeting. So I set myself the challenge of cooking the recipes I liked the sound of even after we had had our meeting and discussion. This is where I will keep a tally of what I have cooked to date and what is left and what I thought about what I made.
August Selection – Slow: Valli Little
RRP – $19.99
Recipes in book: 60
Recipes marked to cook: 34
Cooked to date 12
Reason/s for Choosing
We only arrived back from holiday ten days before the Book Club meeting. I am a fan of Valli Little and Declicious Magazine and knew, without even looking through the book that there would be lots of things I could and would make.
Recipes Chosen
- p6 Braised Beef Cheeks With Salsa Verde
- p10 Steak with Wild Mushroom Sauce
p16 Chinese Braised Beef (made)
This wasn’t great, I will probably not make it again.
p20 Oven Baked Lamb Curry (Made)
I liked this. It was very tasty and easy. He didn’t like the rice being cooked into the dish.
- p22 Lamb & Apricot Tagine
- p24 Massaman Curry Lamb Shanks
- p28 Lamb En Croute
p30 Radicchio and Gorgonzola Risotto (made)
This was Deeeee-licious. Tasted much better than the photo looks! I have always been a bit scared of radicchio – i thought it would be too bitter for my taste. I loved it!
p32 Deconstructed Lasagne (made)
This was average. I wouldn’t make it again. Not sure what happened to the photo. Maybe I didn’t take one.
- p36 Macaroni Cheese with Truffle Oil
- p44 Meatballs with Heavenly Mash (who can resist anything called Heavenly Mash?)
- p60 Roast Chicken with Pan Roasted Romesco
- p62 Roast Quail with Split Pea Dhal
- p64 Oven Baked Thai Chicken Curry
- p66 Moroccan Chicken with Olives
- p70 Massaman Roast Chicken
p72 Chicken with Butter Bean Puree and Crispy Chorizo (made)
This was really good. I am now in love with white bean puree!
- p 74 Fish Pie
p80 Salmon Poached in Olive Oil and Vanilla (made)
Certainly the weirdest dish in the book. I was strangely ambivalent about it. He LOVED it…apparently the best salmon he’s eaten in ages! There’s possibly an element of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” about both of our responses.
p82 Mussels in Cider (made) – Loved them!
- p84 Fish Tagine
p86 Thai Style Tomato Soup (made) – Super!
p90 Spiced Carrot and Lentil Soup (made)
The Carrot Soup for People who hate carrot soup. This is going on high rotation!
- p92 Cauliflower Cheese Soup
p100 Eggplant & Chickpea Curry (made)
No photo. Probably because I didn’t like it.
- p102 Baked Mushrooms with Pine Nuts & Feta
- p104 Pumpkin, Goat’s Cheese and Onion Marmalade Jalousie
- p106 Twice Baked Souffles
- p110 Mushroom & Potato Tarts
- p116 Bagna Cauda with Baby Vegetables
- p118 Instant Fondue with Roast Vegetables
p120 Autumn Rosti with Hot Smoked Salmon (made).
Yummy! See Post here.
p122 Warm Barley and Mushroom Salad with Taleggio (made).
Soooo disappointed with this. It was quite expensive to make and despite lovely tasty ingredients such as taleggio was fairly tasteless.
- p124 Deep Fried Brie with Sweet Chilli Sauce
Twelve down, 22 to go.
As you can probably tell I am enjoying this book. I also really like that in most instances the food resembles the picture in the book!
So tell me…what is left on the list that you like the sound of?
Have a great week!
7 Comments on Book Club October Update: Slow – Valli Little
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I’m so impressed with your industry! (And your photography-yum!) Despite my best intentions, I usually only make a couple of recipes from a book before I’m on to the next one.
Baked Mushrooms with Pine Nuts & Feta sounds fantastic.
Thank you so much! You always hear about people on the internet being horrible to each other. I’m constantly amazed at how kind and generous and just generally awesome people are.
I will definitely make the mushrooms this month so I can let you know how they were for the next update.
Let me know if you want the recipe.
Thanks again.
xx
I know what you mean. I’m always surprised and happy when people are interested in my weird little food blog and leave lovely comments.
I would love the recipe! Unfortunately, the book wasn’t available at my library (or any library in the US). 🙂
Well I never, last week I made the Massaman Chicken recipe that is on the cover of this book, it was featured in a British cooking magazine called Delicious and that is exactly what it was DELICIOUS! We had the roast chicken between two of us, and I made a wonderful curry with the leftovers for the next couple of days – highly recommended!
Thanks Jenny, so good to know that something on my list is tried, tested and delish!
Valli Little who is the author of this book is actually the editor of the Australian version of Delicious Magazine. Funnily enough, one of the issues that had people riled up in the book club discussion of this book was that some of the recipes had been “recycled” from our version of the magazine. People felt they had been a bit cheated by not having all new recipes. Interesting to know that they are also being recycled across the pond!
I was going to do the Oven Baked Thai Chicken curry this week…I’m now thinking I might do the Massamam instead! xx
Aha, it’s all becoming clear. I was so in love with that recipe that I wanted to get in touch with Valli Little and tell her! I googled her and it came up that she was Editor of Delicious Magazine but I didn’t realise it was Delicious in Australia.
So much good food writing and recipes coming out of Australia at the moment. My current favourite slow cooker cookbook is Australian – can’t remember the author off the top of my head but I know it’s an Australian publisher.
I do admire you cooking lots of recipes from the same book. I am guilty of buying many cookbooks that I only cook one or two recipes from. I might take your example. Starting with my Yul Brynner cookbook 🙂 xx
Haha, one or two ( or sometimes none) is my usual style with cookbooks too. Which is why I thought I would cook through the Bookclub ones. I am LOVING Persiana which was our October choice, will post on that soon. And getting ready for a total submersion into the world of Paleo for our December choice. xx