And Here It Is...

Welcome to The Edible Library, everyone! A place where I will review cookbooks, attempt to cook from each one at least once (I have over a hundred, so it's a challenge) and go on about cooking and everything around it in general. Bookmark me, link me, it's going to be fun!

New Blog Title Needed!

Without going into too many details, I must apologize for this blog's absence; I have been writing, but it is mostly at this blog, and not about food at all.

Now then - where was I?

There is another blog/book/tv show with the same name - one that is about encouraging those who have bad or no eyesight to cook, a noble thing to do - and I don't want to confuse this blog with that one, so I am going to re-name this blog. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

What have I been doing these last few months? Accumulating cookbooks, that's what. Cooking from them when I can; thinking about food. I now live somewhere where I have my own small kitchen with few 'mod cons' besides a small fridge, an electric stove with a grill, a toaster and a kettle. Something, as the British say, to 'blitz' or 'whazz' food will be acquired rather sooner than later, and perhaps a popcorn maker as well. Other than that I have no interest nor space for much else; the boombox is staying right where it is.

So I will continue to write and review recipes I come across that don't take much gear or time, because that is where I know a lot of people are coming from. I know I certainly am!

Thanks for reading - more soon!

Pumpkin Pie Sauce and BOOKS

Firstly, apologies to anyone who wondered if perhaps I had had an accident in the kitchen and was therefore unable to write; what happened instead was I applied for a job, was interviewed, patiently waited to find out if I was hired and was, indeed, hired. Thus I am working towards getting a laptop, so I may write after I cook (and eat, of course) about what I have made, and perhaps, God willing, post photos to prove I have done it.

In the meantime, here are some books I've got recently and am reading; I can't say enough things about them besides get 'em if you don't have them already, and also, if you're making a pumpkin pie from semi-scratch and you put all the condensed milk in by accident instead of some and then mix it up (a little), you can just spoon the extra milk out and hey presto, instant sauce for the pie for the week (just pretend it's French food and it will look quite elegant).

BOOKS


Fieri, Guy - More Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives
This book makes me want to visit and revisit my home country in the best way possible - always hungry, always on the road.



Kapranos, Alex - Sound Bites

Rock 'n' roll memoirs from behind the scenes and on the street, all over the world.



Lawson, Nigella - Kitchen

La Lawson will eat anything, as long as she doesn't have to work too hard at it - most of the time. Great hints in the front section, and she has almost 4,000 cookbooks & books about food in her library. I want the list!




Oliver, Jamie - 30 Minute Meals

Sure you have to hustle, but these meals are worth the hustle and are doable with a helper (or two).




Ottolenghi, Yotam - Plenty

Vegetarian food for those who thought they had seen/eaten it all, no tofu required. Already judged a classic, and it just came out this year.

Jeepster Pasta

The other day I was dreaming that I was listening to "Jeepster" while making a tomato cream sauce; so of course I had to make this:

Jeepster Pasta

First, get some plum tomatoes (canned, peeled) and put them in a saucepan and heat them up, mooshing away until they look a bit saucy; while doing this get some water boiling for plain and spinach tagliatelle (yes, you need both; this is the surprise in the dish - paglia et fieno, aka straw and hay pasta is awesome*). Slice up some mushrooms while the tomatoes cook (don't boil them but don't leave them at a low heat either) and cook them in some good oil; they will be added to the pasta when it's almost done.

Once the tomatoes are ready, add some cream (double to cut the acidity of the tomatoes) and also a little red chili ("Jeepster" is a hot song, there has to be some heat in here!) and taste and add more cream if it's too hot, more chili - it won't take much - if it's too mild. Once the tagliatelle is done you can put it right in the saucepan and mix, adding the mushrooms in once the pasta is well coated. Serve immediately and eat with garlic bread and a good salad. Good Eats!

*This pasta is available at Sainsbury's and is quite worth it.

Summer Salad pt. 2 Foxy Salad

If you don't like the idea of a summer salad with lots of tomatoes, then you should try this - it's good and it's good for you, just because of the walnut content, though salad is always good for you, in my opinion. This one comes from Jamie Oliver's newest book, Jamie Does, and it's from his French chapter, one of utter contentment and satisfaction, which this salad most certainly brings. (It's not called this in his book, obv.; it comes from the story as to how Roquefort cheese was invented, haphazardly.)

Foxy Salad

First, get some interesting salad (no bitter leaf stuff though; rocket is not needed here, though radicchio is okay) and some smoked bacon, preferably lardons. (If you don't have lardons on hand, just get some smoked bacon anyway and cut it into chunks with a knife or scissors.) Also needed are walnuts (the more the merrier, a good handful at least), Roquefort cheese (a little goes a long way) and of course our good friend stale bread (the recipe calls for sourdough, though any basic strong-minded bread will do). Fry up the bacon in some olive oil, cut the bread up into managable pieces and once the bacon fat has come out and mixed with the oil, put in the bread and get it nicely friendly with the fat. Chop up some walnuts in the meantime, and also make a basic dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper. (Dijon mustard is ideal here, but American mustard works well too - you should have this dressing be a little more acidic than usual, by the way.)

Then it's a matter of getting it all into a bowl and mixing it up with the dressing, putting it bowls and then and only then slicing pieces of Roquefort and putting them in the salad, not just on top. The nut and cheese combination here is awesome, of course, but the bread and bacon make this a meal to itself; have it with something lemony to drink and praise the French, again!

Summer Salad Pt. 1: Panzanella

For those of you who think (as I do) that you really, really don't want to boil water on an already-boiling day, the answer, plainly, is salad. And not just any salad but a bread salad!

There are two salads I've made recently that went down (so to speak) really well, one for fairly warm weather, the other for blazing hot. Considering it's nearly July, here's the blazing hot one:

Panzanella

First, get some tomatoes and chop them half - little cherry ones, ones on a vine, heritage yellow ones if you want - and some basil (though a bit of mint w/your standard 'fancy' salad will do just as well in a pinch). Then get some bread - stale* says the normal recipe, but if the idea of 'stale' bread is just too long a wait, simply toast your bread, cool it and then cut it up into reasonably-sized pieces. The only 'cooking' as such you need to do here, if you wish, is in one pan, for pancetta/bacon. You may also want to have a bit of oil/vinegar dressing on hand to unify things here, not to mention cucumbers, which work wonders, as does some mozzarella. Toss it all in a big bowl and then tuck in; there are no hard-fast rules here, save that everything has to be fresh and Mediterranean (the salad is originally from Sicily, which means if you want to put raisins or capers in, be my guest). Giada uses cornbread in hers, which sounds v. good, though the concept of 'leftover cornbread' in my household is pretty much inconceivable.

*The bread should be stale enough to soak up the tomato and cucumber and dressing without becoming soggy immediately.

Cottagers' Pasta

First, I would like to apologize to anyone who has been looking and looking here for new things - I have been busy, in part learning new kitchen ideas (not techniques, just ideas) and of course finding cookbooks I like by accident on a near-regular basis. I'll be back to those soon, but here is a pasta dish (of course) that I made up in honor of Fulham Football Club, who play at Craven Cottage, hence:

Cottagers' Pasta

This began when I found a bottle of chili and garlic pesto (base: tomatoes) by Jamie Oliver in Fulham - and nowhere else. I had some asparagus and broccoli and ricotta to use for a dish and figured out I could do this!

Fry up some pancetta (in smallish cubes if they aren't like that already, or lardons if you're using bacon) and cut your broccoli into florets & add once the pancetta is starting to add fat to the pan. (You could speed this up by adding olive oil, which is never a bad idea, really.) Snap your asparagus, throw away the tough end and cut the spear end so it looks like penne (you could use penne for this, or farfalle, as I did). Add them to the broccoli and cover with a lid so the veggies' own steam cooks them. Make pasta as usual and make sure your veggies cook without getting too well cooked.

Get a big bowl and put in the pesto (if you don't have this particular pesto, don't worry - sundried tomato pesto with a bit of raw chili & garlic in it will do fine). Once the pasta is done, turn it into the bowl and mix up well; then add pancetta and veggies and stir again. If the pesto is too hot, add some ricotta - it will bind the whole thing together. Serve immediately and enjoy!