Category: Duck

29
Sep
2024

September 2004 – Feeling Fruity

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Asparagus, Avocado, Champagne, Delicious, Duck, Grapefruit, Orange, Prawns, Raspberry, Strawberries

Hello friends and welcome to September 2004. Today, we’ll be exploring a fun fruit-forward menu via Delicious Magazine. But as usual, before we dive into the menu, let’s take a look at what we were watching, reading, and listening to in September 20 years ago.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t rushing to the Cinema in September 2004. Resident Evil: Apocalypse was #1 at the box office, followed by Hero with Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow at number 3. However, all of these titles are drawing total blanks for me! On the other hand, I am very well aware of the number one book on the best seller lists – it was The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, which I think has been number one on the charts since I started doing these Twenty Years Ago posts!

While I may not have been greatly enamoured with the books and films of 2004, the music was another matter. 1985 by Bowling for Soup was #7, and American Idiot was #8. Finally, something for me!”

Speaking of other things for me, let’s get it started in here (BTW, that was #2 in September 2004) with our feeling fruity menu!

The Menu – September 2004

I designed my September 2004 menu using AI. It was a hard slog, and there were times when I was ready to throw my laptop against the wall. However, in the end, it was worth the effort. Even if I do say so myself!

Wicked Champagne Cocktail

This Jamie Oliver recipe was very simple – pomegranate juice with sparkling wine. But it was also a great way to start our fruity theme for September 2004!

Wicked Champagne Cocktail Recipe

Prawn, Grapefruit and Avocado Salad

This was divine!!! All my favourite flavours!

Prawn, Grapefruit and Avocado Salad Recipe

Duck Breast with Raspberry Vinaigrette

Another winner! I had some pink pickled onions from something else I had made in the fridge and I added them to this recipe. I think they worked well with the rest of the ingredients but, they could easily be left out.

Duck Breast with Raspberry Vinaigrette Recipe

Raspberry and Strawberry Mousse Cake

Oh. My. Lord. This was heaven!!!! And for something that looks so gorgeous was very easy to make!

Raspberry and Strawberry Mousse Cake Recipe

Orange and Rosemary Tisane

Drinking this made me feel very Poirot! The blend of orange and rosemary was very pleasant and refreshing.

My Nigella Moment – Asparagus Maltaise

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious. In the context of these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that may not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in because it is too good not to share.

This month’s Nigella dish actually fits the theme. It is an Asparagus Maltaise. Now I only learned recently that Hollandaise was the OG way of saying that the sauce came from / was isnpired by Holland! It’s kind of in the name when you think about about it, but I had never put the two together before. So…Maltaise is a Hollandaise with Orange.. inspired by…Malta?

If you’re wondering why my sauce is pink…well the recipe called for Blood Orange and the Blood orange I bought (not on purpose, I literally grabbed the first blood orange I saw at the supermarket) were the darkest I have ever seen!

The juice looked like red wine!

It was that depth of colour that turned my sauce pink! I thought this looked spectacular! Pink and green are one of my favorite color combinations. And the flavour of that blood orange was spectacular!

This was delicious!!!! One of the dishes that makes me so glad I am going back and exploring these magazines!

Asparagus Maltaise Recipe

What a month!!!! I loved cooking these recipes! They were all amazing!!! And helped me to get my seven a day! Have a great week!

13
Jan
2024

Death Comes As The End – Spelt Salad with Duck

categories: Dining With The Dame, Duck, Leeks, Salad

Hello crime readers and food lovers! I will admit that I was not looking forward to reading Death Comes As The End. Whilst I have read a few historical mysteries, it is not my preferred genre of mystery reading. The 150 years from the late 19th century (Sherlock Holmes) to now a pretty much my reading wheelhouse, mysteries included. So, the prospect of a story set in Ancient Egypt didn’t fill me with joy. And, who on earth knows what people in ancient Egypt ate? And would I be able to replicate something even remotely similar?

Luckily for me, Death Comes as The End is littered with references to items of food and so I was able to form an idea of what ingredients may have been available to someone in that time. Esa, references her favourite dish of reedbirds with leek and celery a few times so that formed the basis of the meal I wanted to make. Cooked celery makes me gag so that was out. But leek and duck…that sounded like something good!

I’m going to shake things up this time and list the foods mentioned first instead of last because I think that will help explain how “I” came to devise this dish.

Food & Drink Mentioned in Death Comes As The End

Roast Duck
Spelt
Barley
Dates
Syrian Wine
Honey
Triangular loaves of bread
Grapes
Quail
Cakes with Honey
Reed birds with leeks and celery
Olives
Pomegranate juice
Wine

From that list of ingredients, I chose duck, spelt or barley and leeks as the things I wanted in my recipe. I then searched through my cookbooks. I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted so I turned to technology to help. “Find me a recipe with duck, leek and spelt” I typed into an AI Chatbot. It delivered two recipes, one a barley risotto type thing and one a Spelt Salad with Duck, Leeks and Pomegranates. Bingo! A bonus is that the recipe also contains honey which is in the above list!

I also love the combination of using modern tech helping me to solve a problem of food from 4000 years ago!

I wasn’t sure if cheese was a thing in Ancient Egypt. Turns out, that Egyptians were making cheese 5000 years ago! How cool is that? I mean, they were also making the pyramids and the Sphinx which for most people probably trumps the fact that they were also making a bit of feta on the side. But for me, that is the funnest fact I have learned all year (13th January at the time of writing).

And, after all that, I forgot to add the cheese to my salad anyway! 🤦🏽‍♀️

Some Fun Facts About Death Comes As The End

This was the FIRST EVER historical whodunnit novel. Even if you dislike the book (I really liked it but I may be in the minority here) that is something!
It is the only Agatha Christie novel not set in the 20th Century
The novel is based on real letters written in Ancient Egypt from a man complaining about how badly his family treated his concubine
The book came about when Christie’s and Egyptologist Stephen Glanville suggested Agatha write a book set in ancient Egypt
It is one of the few Christie novels not (yet) adapted for the screen

Death Comes As The End – The Plot

Because you are truly Egyptian – because you love life, because, sometimes – you feel the shadow of death very near…

Agatha Christie – Death Comes as The End

Renisenb has returned to her father’s home with her young daughter after the death of her husband. Also living in Imhotep’s house are other members of his family including:

His eldest son Yamose, his wife Satipy and their family. Yahmose is diligent but also diffident. His wife constantly henpecks and belittles him.
Middle son Sobek and his wife Kait. Sobek is as hot-headed and rash as Yahmose is careful. Kait is the typical tiger mother, absorbed by and protective of her children
The youngest son, Ipy is arrogant and boastful. He is eager to be seen as an intelligent adult and no longer a child.
Semi blind, Imhotep’s mother Esa rounds out the members of the family however there are two others also living with the family.
Henet is a poor relative of Imhotep’s deceased wife who remains in the family to take care of them. She is obsequious gossip and a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
Finally there is Hori who is Imhotep’s scribe. Later, Kameni, another scribe joins the household.

There is some tension between the brothers and the wives bicker with each other but these troubles are nothing compared to what happens when, after a trip to the North, Imhotep brings Nofret, his new concubine, to live with them. The family is not happy about this. and are even less happy when Nofret begins to drive wedges between Imhotep and family members.

Nofret then falls to her death from a cliff. Accident? Or did someone in the family take matters into their own hands?

And then, there were nearly none!

Several more deaths follow leaving the remaining members of the family terrified. (A lot of people die in Death Comes As The End. The death count in this novel is second only to And Then There Were None! )

Are they being cursed by Nofret’s vengeful spirit or is the murderer far more corporeal?

Death Comes As The End- The Covers

I was able to find French, German, Czech and Portuguese covers along with some English ones for this novel. They are all pretty much as you would expect for a novel set in Ancient Egypt.

The Recipe – Spelt Salad with Duck

Print

Spelt Salad with Duck

Print Recipe

A delicious spelt salad with duck leeks and pomegranate inspired by Agatha Christie’s Death Comes As the End.

Author: Taryn Nicole

Ingredients

Scale

100g spelt

2 duck breasts

1 tsp vegetable oil

1/2 tbs duck seasoning (I didn’t know what this was so used 1/2 tbs ras el hanout for its Middle Eastern Flavours. )

2 leeks thinly sliced

1 tbs olive oil

1 orange, segmented

Handful of walnuts, toasted and chopped

1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese (I forgot to add this and the salad was fine without it so consider it optional)

Pomegranate Molasses

For The Dressing

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp honey

Salt and pepper

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

The AI recipe had no method of cooking the leeks so I assume they had them raw. I do not like the idea of raw leeks so I began by sauteeing the leeks in olive oil for around 20 minutes until they were soft and just starting to caramelise.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Put the spelt in a large saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes. Drain and cool for 5 minutes.

Score the duck breasts in a crisscross pattern. Season with salt and pepper. Then brush with oil and sprinkle with duck seasoning / ras el hanout.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat and fry the duck, skin side down for 5 minutes. Then turn and cook on the flesh side for 2 minutes. Transfer, skin side up to a small roasting tin and put in the oven for 15 minutes. (I found this was too long, my duck was overcooked. I would check for doneness after about 8 minutes in the over and then every 2 minutes from there.)

While the duck cooks, toss the cooked spelt with the leeks, orange segments, pomegranate seeds and walnuts.

For the dressing, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, honey, salt and pepper.

Slice the duck and arrange on top of the salad. Drizzle with the dressing and crumble the goat cheese over the top. / Mix the dressing with the spelt mixture. Slice the duck and arrange on top of the salad. Drizzle some pomegranate molasses over the duck.

Serve Immediately.

Enjoy!

Notes

Items in italics are those added by me, the rest is the recipe generated by AI

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @tarynnicole198 on Instagram and hashtag it ##retrofoodformoderntimes

Fear is everywhere

Death Comes As The End – Agatha Christie

Links To The Christieverse

None that I could find.

February’s read will be Towards Zero.

11
Feb
2023

Girl’s Night – February 2003

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Cocktail, Duck, Fish, Magazines, Tuna, Vodka, Watermelon

Hello Friends! This week we are stepping back in time to February 2003 via Delicious magazine. It just so happened that the topic that came up in my random generator was Girl’s Night. So it seemed like a perfect opportunity to tie this into Galantine’s Day.

Before we get into that, let’s set the scene for February 2003. The month started with “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera topping the charts. This was replaced by Avril Lavigne with “Im with you” for the remainder of the month. Number one in the box office was “How to Lose A Guy in Ten Days” and the best-selling book this week was The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

My menu has somewhat of a pink theme which seems fitting for a Girl’s night but the content is definitely adult, starting with a watermelon vodka cocktail!

Watermelon Vodka Cocktail

This was so simple! I added a little squeeze of lime into the watermelon and vodka mix as I felt it was a bit too sweet / one note without it. It was super refreshing and made the most of our lovely summer produce! Be careful though…too many of these and you’ll be slurring

I am beautiful no matter what they sayWords can’t bring me downI am beautiful in every single wayYes, words can’t bring me down, oh noSo don’t you bring me down today

into a pretend mic and telling all your gal pals how much you love them before dessert!

Watermelon Vodka Recipe:

Beetroot Confit and Marinated Goat’s FetaTarts

I didn’t make these because I pretty much hate beetroot. To me, except for one Beetroot Tzatziki which I love, it tastes like dirt. The funny thing is though, it is something I really want to like. So I keep trying to make things with it in the hope that I will find the magic recipe that turns that switch in me from off to on. In this instance, I love the look of the pastry dotted with poppy seeds, the shape of the tiny little black dots echoed in the round of the goat’s cheese, and the gorgeous crimson of the beetroot in between.

Confit Beetroot and Goat’s Cheese Tarts Recipe:

Tuna Carpaccio

I loved this!!! It was so good! (one thing, I completely forgot to add the cucumber to this!). Also, I had no mixed baby cress so I subbed in watercress. When I was in Darwin recently, we went to a restaurant called Pee Wee’s at the Point for the Fussiest Eater in the World’s birthday. There, I had a buffalo carpaccio which was one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life! That dish came with a Hot English Mustard Mayo which inspired me to add my own mayo to this carpaccio. I made a Wasabi Mayonnaise (you can see a little dab of it front and centre in the above photo).

Here is a pic of that buffalo carpaccio. Just looking at it makes we want to go all the way back to Darwin so I can eat it again!

Tuna Carpaccio Recipe:

Baby Tiramisu

These look adorable! And despite not being pink, they are the perfect way to end the evening…or to snack on as you are settling on the couch to watch a dvd or two! And because they are tiny, you can eat one and still fit into a dress just like Kate Hudson’s in “How To Lose A Guy in Ten Days”!

Baby Tiramisu Recipe:

My Nigella Moment – Duck with Berries

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious. In the context of these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in either because I made it and it was really good, or I just didn’t have time to make it!

This month, my Nigella dish is Duck with Berries which came from an article on romantic food to cook for Valentine’s day. It was so good! Timing is so important when cooking duck and this recipe nailed it!

Duck with Berries Recipe:

Delicious Magazine certainly delivered on the Girl’s Night Menu!

Please let me know if you make the Beetroot Tarts. I am so intrigued by them! And also, if you are old enough to have had a girl’s night in 2003, would this have been the menu you would have chosen?

If you would like to contribute a theme, please let me know, I’m up for any challenge you can throw at me!

And happy Valentines, Galentines or however you want to spend the coming Tuesday!

14
Aug
2016

REPOST – Future Classics – Australian Table – August 2001

categories: Australian Table, Berries, Cocktail, Desserts, Duck, Magazines, Rhubarb, Vodka

Remember how I said I had a fab idea for a whole new series of blog posts whilst on holiday? Here’s the thing, along with hundreds of cookbooks, I also have a huge collection of food magazines, most of which sit on shelves in my back room doing nothing. Once a year, I grab a handful of the oldest, take them on holiday and cut out the recipes I want, throw away the magazines, and cook the recipes over the next 12 months.

Currently I have a few mags from the late 1990’s but they are most from the early noughties onwards. So they are not quite but well on their way to becoming formally vintage. My thought on holiday was….”These are the things that will shortly become the vintage recipes of the future. So, instead of ripping them up, I’m going to start cooking from them. Once a month, I’ll revisit one of these magazines, cook a thing or two and decide if these are future vintage classics – or just junk taking up space in my backroom. Here are the early years to 2013:

And here are 2014 to the present day:

so, to start, we are stepping back in time 15 years to the August 2001 edition of Australian Table:

I also thought it might be fun to revisit some of the content of these magazine as well as the recipes, so without further ado, here are the:

Flavours of The Month – August 2001

This section spoke about what was in season. I thought I might give it a little Retro Food For Modern Times Twist!

Sweet Potatoes

Huh….my plan was to insert a recipe or two from the blog. However, apparently I have made nothing with sweet potatoes. I’ll link to some recipes below.

Baby Bok Choy

Or anything with Bok choky. What have I been cooking in for the last four years?

Cumquats

Hooray – Finally!

Click here for my Four Kumquat Canapés For Four Food Heroes recipes

Pineapples

Melbourne Cup Crab and Pineapple Appetizer and MC Cocktail

Pineapple soufflé

Movies of The Month

Oh man. August 2001 was a GOOD month for movies! I would quite happily watch Bridget Jones’s Diary or Along Came a Spider today. I don’t recall ever seeing Evolution but I am definitely putting that to rights, pronto. I know it’s probably a little late with the picky picky however, Australian Table, I would like to point out that the chocolate-voiced, sloe-eyed maverick investigator is actually called Alex Cross. The ACTOR is Morgan Freeman. And what a difference a letter makes. Slow-eyed which I typed at least a dozen times in the above paragraph makes you sound like you should be taking special classes. Sloe-eyed…hello sexy!

Music Of The Month

Well, I guess you can’t have it all. I listened to none of these at the time nor do i have any real desire to seek out any of these. Maybe the Elvis Costello.

The Food

I chose two recipes from an article on fool proof party food starting with:

Vodka with Crushed Limes

These are my flavours…this was so good! Tangy, sweet delicious!

Crispy Duck with Green Scallion Pancakes

No, these are my flavours! Spicy, seductive!

Berry and Rhubarb Crumble

This recipe came from an advertisement for a 3 in one hand blender. Crumble is pretty much already a classic but the addition of rhubarb instead of the more traditional apple? Genius!

Everything I made from this mag was SUPER! My view is that this is a definite future vintage classic!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little walk down memory lane! I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with a mag from September 2001. I hope it’s as good as this one!

Have a great week!

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23
Sep
2015

My Year Of Cooking Slow

categories: Book Club, Books, Cheese, Duck, Slow, Soufflé, Soup, Truffles, Valli Little

It’s done, fini, that’s all folks. Nearly a year to the day I have made all of the recipes I selected from Valli Little’s book Slow. I bought this for our very first Tasty Reads bookclub meeting way back in August of 2014 and cooked the last recipe I had selected on 1 September 2015.

Recipes in book: 60

Recipes marked to cook: 34 38 39

Cooked to date 12 22 38 39

Recently Cooked

p6 Braised Beef Cheeks With Salsa Verde

Can you believe that I have lost the photos of this? I was so proud of having cooked Beef Cheeks. However, I deleted a whole heap of photos from both my camera and phone before we went on holidays and I think the Beef Cheeks and the Truffle Oil Mac and Cheese fell victim to some overzealousness on my part.

I have no really ooky factor about beef cheeks although I know many people do. My only concern with cooking mine was that everything I have read about them says you have to trim them really well. I feel I might have been a bit too meticulous in this area as I there seemed to be an awful lot of “trimmings” and not a lot of beef cheek by the time I had finished.

Also, In homage to one of my favourite Melbourne restaurants, MoVida, which does an amazing beef cheeks in red wine, I replaced the mashed potatoes suggested by Valli with a cauliflower puree which was delicious – mine was not as good as the one at MoVida but that one is sublime!

Anyway, I was so glad I made this, the beef was meltingly tender and mellow and the Salsa Verde was zingy and bright. The creamy smooth cauliflower puree contrasted beautifully with both. This was amazing. Here is Valli’s picture:

p8 Braciola

Because I am not a millionaire, I did not buy a fillet of beef for this. However because I am obsessed with little food, I made a mini version of Valli’s Braciola and it was super! I used thinly pounded steaks, rolled up the filling and quickly seared them. The stuffing, which is salami, cheese and sundried tomato is to die for. This would make a lovely canapé.

p10 Steak with Wild Mushroom Sauce

This is exactly what it says on the box. Steak with Mushroom Sauce. If you like Steak with Mushroom sauce, you will like this.

p22 Lamb & Apricot Tagine

One of the dishes Dani has brought to the bookclub meetings was a Lamb and Apricot Tagine. In my mind, it was the one from Persiana and when I made that one a while ago I was very disappointed as it was not nearly as nice as my memory of Dani’s. I mentioned this the next time I saw her and she said said had made the Valli Little one. I made this one a few weeks later and it was maybe still not as good as Dani’s but better than one in Persiana. Kudos to Valli Little for an amazing delicious recipe. Just no one tell Sabrina Ghayour. Because I love her.

p24 Massaman Curry Lamb Shanks

This is such a good dish for winter! Slow cooked, fragrant, hearty. Magnificent! I swapped out the peas in the recipe for beans and served with bread instead of rice.

p28 Lamb En Croute

This was the last recipe I made from Slow and it was a lovely way to finish. I was a little disappointed as even though I followed the recipe to the letter, by the time the pastry cooked, the lamb was over cooked for my taste. Next time I make this I will cut down the sear time on the lamb. And pray. p36 Macaroni Cheese with Truffle Oil

Sorry, this is another photo from the book. There is a story attached to this though. I went to…ok…in Australia we have two main supermarkets, and then we have the IGA’s and then we have the European Cheap Supermarket. Now I am quite fond of the European Cheap Supermarket except for one thing. The people who shop there, in my locale anyway are….ok….I’m going to sound elitist and snooty here but just between you and me…they’re all kinds of trashy.

To wit – the other day I went in there and was nearly barrelled over by some dude stealing a pack of biscuits. I think he thought that my going in through the turnstile would negate his charging out but no, Einstein, it doesn’t work like that and you triggered all the alarms anyway.

If I was more like a commando instead of totally living inside my head I could have taken him down and been a citizen’s arrest hero. Then again, he was stealing fake Tim Tams from Aldi. Hardly a master criminal. I like to think that if I was going to launch myself into a life of crime, I’d at least go for the real Tim Tams.

Anyhoo, all this is just cotton candy. I went into the cheap European….oh, WTF, I’ve already outed it as Aldi, a few months ago and they were selling truffles.

Only thing was no price on the truffles and, being Aldi, no one to ask. So, I took it up to the counter, along with my six slabs of their Fair Trade Dark Chocolate (amazing) and my six bottles of their Tudor Pinot Noir (even more amazing) and asked the price. Because you know…truffles…that bottle could be a thousand dollars. I’m kinda doubting that in Aldi but you know…c’est possible.

“Seven ninety nine” drawls the sales clerk.

“I’ll take ’em” I say.

And that should have been the end of it. Buyer. Seller. Agreement. Capitalism at it’s finest.

Until some toothless old hag who was behind me in line decided to get in on the act. I almost expected her first line to to “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes” But instead she snatched the bottle from the cashier’s hand and began shrieking

“Why are you paying eight dollars for such a small jar? What’s in that?”

“It’s truffles”

“So what’s that then?”

“Well…they’re…they taste kind of like the most mushroomy mushroom you ever ate but they grow…”

“I could buy a kilo of mushrooms for that”

“They’re not mushrooms”

“You said they were”

“No I didn’t”

“Well, I hope you know how to cook them better than you know how to explain them”.

Well, I hope you fuck off and die you nosey old bag. I’m sorry I’m not buying eye of newt or tongue of dog or any other ingredient I’m sure you are far more familiar with.

I used one truffle for something else then topped up the jar with some olive oil. After about a week it became quite truffle-y Then I used that oil on my Mac and Cheese. And it was good. But you know…Mac and Cheese = comfort food goodness with, or without, truffle oil.

p44 Meatballs with Heavenly Mash

Mmmm..meatballs. And that mash was heavenly. It contains cream, fontina cheese and butter. Need I say more?

p62 Roast Quail with Split Pea Dhal

Sounds very exotic. Tasty pretty ordinary. It was the first time I had cooked quail. It might be the last. I did not care for the curry butter at all.

p68 Duck Cassoulet

I hadn’t originally planned on making this, but I had some confit duck legs and some white beans from something else so and I thought why not? A better question would have been why? Not my favourite. By a long shot. I think it was the olives. I normally love olives but I just don’t think they worked in this dish.

p88 Mushroom Soup with Garlic Bread

This was delicious.

p92 Cauliflower Cheese Soup

I found this too much. Too much cream. Too much cheese. Who knew either of those things existed? But apparently they do.

p104 Pumpkin, Goat’s Cheese and Onion Marmalade Jalousie

This was very tasty. I am already thinking about how to do mini versions which I think would be adorable. My only problem with this is that I find most bought onion marmalades too sweet. This one was no exception. I think I will have to start making my own. Sigh. Another thing to add to my increasing list of things I need to cook from scratch!

This is one of my favourite photo’s. I think it turned out really well.

p106 Twice Baked Souffles

The Francophile in me really wanted to like these. The rest of me found them a bit heavy. Which reminds me. Back when I used to work in the hell-hole, the area I was in merged with another department. And as part of the two groups getting to know each other we had to do this dumbarse thing where we each had little cards printed up with a picture on one side and a fact about you that no one might know on the other. And you had to swap them with everyone you met. Because we were all five. I mean really? REALLY? We’re playing SWAP CARDS? FFS people! Anyway my “fun” fact was “I am a Francophile and have just read Harry Potter in French”. And I thought that was kind of cool until one of the biggest dumbarses looked at my card and said “Francophile? Is that like a Pedophile?” For a vague second I knew exactly how those people who mow down their work mates with machine guns must feel like. It was the kind of event that made me want to re-evaluate every choice I had ever made in my life that had lead me to be in that place, at that time, swapping dumbarse cards with the terminally stupid.

p110 Mushroom & Potato Tarts

These. Were. Awesome.

Damn, they were good! I need to get these on high rotation.

p116 Bagna Cauda with Baby Vegetables

Mmmmm…salty creamy dip with vegies AKA – All the good words. I loved this. And the dip with the eggs? Out of this world good.

p118 Instant Fondue with Roast Vegetables

And just when you thought the best was past, Valli goes and saves the best to last!

I went totally over the top with this. Valli’s suggestion is roast vegetables. Which I had but I also had grissini sticks, twiggy salami, roasted olives, potato chips…anything that can be dunked, should be dunked in this. This is not only super tasty but so much fun. What a fabulous appetiser, give everyone a fork and allow them to tuck in!

I don’t think it’s any surprise that I have loved cooking from this book and there are so many recipes I will cook over and over. My favorites? The fondue above, the beef cheeks, the radicchio and gorgonzola risotto, the fish pie, the feta baked mushrooms, the recipe that made me like carrot soup. This may be a little book but it is jammed with great recipes.

Hmm…our December book club was going to be a recap on all of the books we have cooked. I am so tempted to do the instant fondue….

What do you think? Anything grab your fancy? What would you make?

Previous recaps of Slow are

Here

and

Here

I feel like I have been a bit more vitriolic this time. I’m putting it down to reading that Marie Kondo book on The Magical Art of Tidying Up. Don’t even get me started on her particlular brand of insanity but I think maybe I am cleaning out my closet mentally as well as physically.

Next up, I will be focussing on cooking through Persiana which is still, to my view, the best book we have ever done at Tasty Reads even though I liked Vall’s Lamb and Apricot Tagine better. See you with the results of that in a year.

Oh, do you have a favourite post on here? In October I will be doing a LIVE reading of a post at a local literary event. I have a couple of posts that I think might go down well in front of a live audience but please let me know what you think. And if you are local, please don’t come, I am terrified enough about doing this as it is.

Have a great week!

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