Weekend Cooking: Cookbook Review Tupelo Honey Cafe

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish at Beth Fish Reads and it is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.

Tupelo Honey Cafe by Elizabeth Sims, Chef Brian Sonoskus

We’ve tried one (well kinda three) recipes out of this book. For dinner one night we had the Nutty Fried Chicken with Smashed Sweet Potatoes and Milk Gravy.

The Nutty Fried Chicken tasty and quite easy to make. The recipe calls for mixed nuts for the coating of the chicken, I ended up using a mixture of cashews and peanuts, I wanted some pistachios as well but the only ones they had in the store were in shells and I didn’t really fancy de-shelling them (all the pre-mix nuts had almonds or raisins in them and I wasn’t sure how the almonds would work). My parents and I could all really taste the peanuts in the the coating, it was actually a bit overpowering so next time I will probably use less peanuts and more other nuts, possibly go with some almonds as well. I did have some problems with cooking some of the chicken bits, next time I will make sure they are cut a bit smaller. I ended up sticking them in the oven at 400F for about 15 minutes to make sure they were cooked all the way through. The chicken was really moist and tender though.

The Smashed Sweet Potatoes were also easy to make but here I also had to do some substituting, maple syrup around here is frightfully expensive so I used the Swedish “sirap” which is syrup. I also had some equipment issues as my hand mixer went belly up recently and I haven’t had a chance to replace it yet. You really need the mixer to make the potatoes all fluffy. The recipe calls for baking the potatoes for 1 1/2 but mine only took about 45 minutes so keep an eye on them (I might have cut the potatoes a bit smaller than called for ).

With the milk gravy I added a bit more cayenne pepper than the recipe called for (I didn’t measure exactly) since my dad and I like our food on the spicy side (dad on the VERY spicy side) and I felt that without this it would be a bit bland. It did complement the chicken really well though.

The recipe serves six, I halved it for three and still had leftovers of everything but the sweet potatoes. The chicken kept really well but the gravy wasn’t as good the next day.

What I really appreciated about the book other than the incredibly yummy recipes was the fact that at the back of the book they had a conversion table between imperial and metric. It makes it so much easier for me!

Overall this is a beautiful cookbook that I highly recommend!

It is out in spring 2011 but you can pre-order it from:

Tupelo Honey Cafe itself

or

Andrews McMeel Publishing

I get nothing for promoting this book, but I’m going to buy it myself when it comes out! Thank you NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for allowing me a chance to try out this book.

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Weekend Cooking: Food to go with Mystery Books

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish at Beth Fish Reads and it is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.

A couple of months ago on what would turn out to be one of the last really warm days of the year (It SNOWED here last Friday and again this Friday) I was laying in the garden reading Gaudy Night when I had this overwhelming craving for scones and tea. It got me thinking of food that goes well with mystery books. For me it is definitely some good freshly baked scones with marmalade and a BIG cup of tea.

My favourite scones recipe is from Choice of Pie which I found out about from Jade at No Longer 25 earlier this year. I like to make mine with a little bit of vanilla extract and raisins. I often eat my scones with orange marmalade but now I’ve got plum and cinnamon marmalade that I made with my abundance of plums this year. Cinnamon to me is a very Autumn spice which makes it perfect for mystery reads

Plum Marmalade with Cinnamon

1 1/2 kg fresh or frozen plums

1/2-2 dl water

1 cinnamon stick

12 dl sugar

2 tsp citric acid

 

Wash off the plums (defrost frozen ones) and cut them into quarters. Keep the stones and tie them into a piece of gauze or thin cotton.

Use 2dl of water if the plums are barely ripe less if they are more ripe. Cook plums, water, cinnamon and the bag of stones in a lidded pot on a low heat for approximately 30 minutes. Then let the mixture cook at a high heat for about 5 minutes.

Remove the pot from the stove. Remove the bag of stones. Add the sugar slowly while stirring. Put the pot back on the stove and let it start boiling. Allow it to boil without a lid for about 15 minutes. Check if it starts to thicken.

Once it starts to thicken remove from stove and allow it to cool a bit. Remove any foam. Add the citric acid mixed in a table spoon of water.

Pour the marmalade into clean warm jars all the way up to the edge. Put lids on immediately. Store in a cool place.

Now what mysteries do I recommend with these goodies?

Well I’ve already mentioned Gaudy Night which I highly recommend, as well as Strong Poison and Have His Carcase which are the two books before Gaudy Night in the Harriet Vane series. I still have one book left to read in this series as well as all the Sir Peter Wimsey books. I’m looking forward to this!

For me you also can’t go wrong with the In Death series by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts pseudonym). Some people will probably balk at this series as many of the crimes are sex related and often quite gruesome but for me the banter, love and friendships in it more than make up for the blood, gore and general misery.

Finally I want to recommend an author who’s next book I am waiting for with a great deal of impatience truth be told. Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alsytne series completely bowled me over earlier this year I completely devoured it (link goes to my review of the last published book as it has links to my reviews of the previous books). The next book (and I think it might be the last but I could be wrong) is due out in April and I so want to lay my grubby little hands on an ARC of that it is insane!

What are your favourite mysteries?

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Weekend Cooking: Thyme Scented Tomato Pie

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish at Beth Fish Reads and it is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.

My farmers market started up a few weeks ago and one of the stands had all these great looking tomatoes, which enabled me to try a recipe I have had in my recipe collection for years. It is called tomato and thyme pie and it looks and sounds amazing.

Thyme Scented Tomato Pie

For 6-8 (all measurements are in metric)

BASE

2 dl white flour

1 dl whole wheat flout

150 g cold butter

2 tbsp ice cold water

1 yellow onion

1 glove garlic (I use more because we like garlic)

2 tbsp oil (I use olive oil)

5-6 medium tomatoes or 1 400g tin chopped tomatoes (I used fresh tomatoes)

1-1 1/2 dl roughly chopped basil

2 tbsp tomato paste

salt, pepper

FILLING

1 kg fresh tomatoes (a mixture of shapes, sizes and colours is great)

salt to taste

2 tsp dried thyme (I used fresh because I’ve got loads of it in the garden)

1 tbsp olive oil

some fresh thyme for decoration

DIRECTIONS

1. Start with the dough. Chop the flour and butter together to a grainy mixture. Add the cold water and work it into a dough. Let the dough rest for at least an hour in the fridge.

2. Peel and chop onion and garlic. Let it soften in the oil in a pan without going brown.

3. Remove the peel from the tomatoes. Cut them into four parts each and put them into the pan with the onions and garlic.

4. Add basil, tomato paste, salt and pepper to taste. Stir. Let the sauce cook on a low temperature for about 30 minutes. Taste (add more salt and pepper if you want). Let it cool off and leave in a cold place.

5. Heat the oven to 200C. Take the dough from the fridge and quickly press it into a pie dish (approximately 27cm in diameter)

6. Use a fork to prick the bottom of the dough and let it bake for about 15 minutes, it doesn’t matter if the edges fall down.

7. Take the dough from the oven and spread the sauce on the base.

Cut the tomatoes into smaller pieces (halve cherry tomatoes etc) and add them to the pie dish in an even layer. Sprinkle thyme, oil, salt and pepper over the tomatoes.

8. Bake in oven for 30-45 minutes until the tomatoes have a nice colour and are bubbling.

I served it with a mixed dressed salad. It was enough for dinner for three adults and two lunch boxes.

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Weekend Cooking: Jelly, Jam and Juice Oh My

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish at Beth Fish Reads and it is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post. 

This has been an incredibly good berry year here. Our currant bushes and gooseberry bushes as well as our elderflower tree have given us loads of berries and blossoms so I decided to make jelly, jam and juices (and one or two pies or cobblers)

Elderflower Cordial is incredibly easy to make. All you need is:

40 clusters of elderflowers

  3 lemons

50 g citric acid

2 litres of water

2 kg sugar

2 ml sodium benzoate

Putt the flowers in a large bucket or pot (one you don’t need for 5 days).

Wash lemons in warm water and then slice them finely add them to the flowers.

Add citric acid to flowers and lemons.

Boil water and sugar until sugar has melted.

Pour sugar and water mixture over flowers and and lemons.

Let stand for 5 days in a cool place.

After 5 days allow juice to filter so you separate the liquid from the other ingredients.

Mix the sodium benzoate with a little bit of the juice, then add it to the rest of the juice.

Pour into well cleaned bottles.

The juice freezes really well. If you don’t freeze it you need to use it fairly quickly.

So apart from drinking the elderflower cordial what can you do with it? Well I found two different recipes in Delia’s Summer Cookbook which I reviewed a few weeks ago. The first one was English Gooseberry Cobbler. It was really good, but needed more sugar. The cobbler topping was perfect though. Light, fluffy and just right. The second one was:

Gooseberry and Elderflower Preserve

A few comments on this recipe. I tried the butter at the bottom of the pan and it didn’t work. It still burned. I was able to salvage the preserve but next time I will skip that step and just make sure I stir often.

I tried the jam on waffles (in Sweden we eat waffles with jam/preserve and whipped cream or ice cream). And it was really yummy. Quite tart so it needs the sweeter ice cream or whipped cream.

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Weekend Cooking: Cook Book Reviews

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish at Beth Fish Reads and it is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post. 

My offering for this weekend is a review of two cookbooks that have been in print for quite some time but I finally got around to buying now. They are Delia’s Winter Collection and Delia’s Summer Collection both by Delia Smith. I first discovered these cookbooks through my college boyfriend whose mother loved them (and I adored her).

Delia’s Winter Collection by Delia Smith

This book has a lot of comfort food in it. In my experience British food tends to run towards the comforting meat and two veg variety and this cookbook is no exception. And it makes no apology for it. The book is divided into 13 chapters that cover everything you need for lunch and dinner, from starters to desserts to sides. All of the dishes look absolutely yummy (and way to heavy for summer, but more on that later).

It also includes a handy table with times for when to start cooking the different dishes in order to have them ready for the One O’clock Sunday Lunch. I like this because I am rubbish at knowing when to start things to have them ready in time for dinner, and although my family never eat one o’clock lunch it is handy because this way I can use her times and just adjust.

Now the recipes in this cookbook are, as previously stated all of the hearty variety, and we are currently in the middle of a heat wave so they aren’t actually appropriate to make right now, but I have made one recipe before and eaten another so I thought I would comment on those two (both recipes are available on Delia Smiths website so I have just linked to them rather than write up the recipes here, just click on the recipe title). First up the one I have made myself:

Oven-Baked wild Mushroom Risotto

Image Credit

This recipe gives yummy creamy risotto without having to stand around and stir the risotto. It is however quite fiddily as it includes dried porcini mushrooms that need to be soaked and then chopped. It has been a while since I made this but I do remember it being a bit time consuming and that it created quite a few dishes. THAT said, it tastes absolutely divine so it is well worth making.

Black Bean Chilli with Avocado Salsa

Image Credit

This one I haven’t made myself but the aforementioned mother of boyfriend made it for us once and I absolutely loved it. She was a bit sceptical because in Britain Chilli is made with minced beef but this recipe calls for braising steak chopped finally (again with the fiddily) but it really works! We all loved this recipe and all went back for seconds :D

Delia’s Summer Collection by Delia Smith

This book contains recipes that are far more suitable to summer. Still very British but less on the heavy cream. There are several fish recipes that I am dying to try but my little brother is home for the summer and does not eat fish so I will try those once he goes back to college in a few weeks. This cookbook is responsible for me finally getting around to making elderflower cordial (more on that next week) as several of the recipes call for elderflower cordial and I have a large elderflower tree out back. I will definitley be trying the English Gooseberry Cobbler when our gooseberries are done in a few weeks.

This book contains 12 chapters again covering starters to desserts. It also includes a couple of recipes for preserving and chutney making. It also includes a short chapter on baking breads that fit with summer.

This week I tried Chicken with Sherry Vinegar and Tarragon Sauce.

Image Credit

It was yummy, but there are definitely some changes I would make to the recipe. First off I should admit that I couldn’t find any Sherry vinegar in the store (and I went to the biggest supermarket around) so I will have to do some sleuthing and find it somewhere else. Now to the changes I would make no matter what: 1) I would start making it much earlier, you are supposed to reduce the liquid and I just didn’t have time to let it reduce more, it meant that the sauce was a bit boozy still. 2) I would use more than 2 tablespoons of fresh tarragon leaves to enhance the flavour. I would probably double it. Other than that, this recipe was awesome. The chicken was super tender and falling off the bones

Although many of the recipes from these books are available on Delia Smiths website I recommend buying the books. Somehow there is nothing like looking at recipes in a cookbook.

Purchase Delia’s Summer Collection and Delia’s Winter Collection from BookDepository.co.uk

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Weekend Cooking: Chocolate Squares or An Old Favourite

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish at Beth Fish Reads and it is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post. 

  I love finding new recipes I really do. But sometimes I also like to go back to old favourites. This recipe is written down in my book of recipes and I don’t know where I got it from. I do know I’ve been making it since junior high. I especially love the icing on it. This time I made it with egg substitute. It was okay, but in this case I think real eggs would be a lot better, wish I could use them.

 

Recipe (all measurements are metric):

Butter and breadcrumbs for the pan

50g butter

2 eggs

2dl sugar

3dl all purpose flour

2tbsp coco powder

2tsp baking powder

1dl hot water

Icing:

3dl powdered sugar

1tbsp coco powder

3tbsp melted butter

5tbsp strong cold coffee

2tsp vanilla sugar

coconut flakes

 

1. Turn the oven to 225C

2. Butter and breadcrumb the pan (I use a rectangular pan)

3. Melt butter and let it cool. Whisk eggs and sugar until well. Mix in flour, coco powder and baking powder. Add to egg and sugar mixture.

4. Add butter and water. Pour the mixture into the pan.

5. Bake the cake in the middle of the oven for 10-12 minutes or until the cake is firm when tested (my oven required a lot more time). Let it cool in the pan.

6. Mix all the icing ingredients until the sugar melts. Pour it over the cake and sprinkle it with the coconut flakes. Cut the cake to appropriate squares depending on what you want.

The icing and coconuts are really what make this cake and I would use the icing for other things than this cake. It is so incredibly easy to make and is very yummy!

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Weekend Cooking: Fika

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish at Beth Fish Reads and it is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.

So it seems that the third book in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy came out in the US in the past week. I found this article in the New York Times. The author of the article comments on the drinking of coffee:

“Larsson’s is a dark, nearly humorless world, where everyone works fervidly into the night and swills tons of coffee; hardly a page goes by without someone “switching on the coffee machine,” ordering “coffee and a sandwich” or responding affirmatively to the offer “Coffee?”

I haven’t read the translation so I don’t know if it is a translation issue or not, but when reading the original I did not notice the incessant coffee drinking that the article author comments on. I was thinking about it and I wonder if it is a cultural thing. Swede’s drink the most coffee per capita in the world (according to some sources, others have us at fourth). Talking it over with some co-workers and family members we came to the conclusion that the most uttered phrase during the day is “ska vi ta en kaffe (shall we have a coffee)” or “nä nu tar vi en kaffe (let’s have a coffee)”.

These phrases (or variations thereof) are uttered at least once an hour, around 9am and 2pm they are probably uttered at every single place of work around the country. So the “verbal tic” isn’t noticed by use Swede’s because we suffer from the same tic. We all utter that phrase, weather we drink coffee or not (and if we don’t say kaffe, then we say fika which is the best thing ever).

Fika is really the cup of coffee with something to eat. The something to eat can be a sandwich (open faced usually), or a cinnamon bun or seven types of cookies (which was the minimum amount of cookies that could be served at polite afternoon coffee soirees). But fika is much more than the foods served. It is a time when you sit down and talk. It is about relaxing and enjoying the company of those around you. It is our version of the water cooler.

Traditionally the coffee here is drunk black, often with a sugar lump (or four), some people also add a bit of milk or cream. However, the fancy latte is growing especially amongst the younger crowd (I prefer a latte to a black coffee). But coffee is almost always drunk.

So for those of you who were annoyed, or merely found it confusing, when Mikael and his colleagues had a coffee and a sandwich at every turn, I hope this helps to explain that it wasn’t necessarily a tic with the writer, but rather a way of life for most of us 9 million Swedes. We like our fika! :D

If you are interested in Swedish baking and recipes I suggest you check out Anne’s Food which is one of my favourite food bloggers. She is a Swedish girl but she blogs in English. 

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North.This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Weekend Cooking: Raspberry Muffins

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish at Beth Fish Reads and it is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.

Okay, so, apart from all my Jamie cookbooks my current favourite is 1 smet 100 muffins (1 batter 100 muffins) which is a rather miss leading title if you ask this almost English teacher. The recipe in the book is not the same for 100 different types of muffins (obviously) and the batter does not give 100 muffins. But despite the semantic issues it is a great little cookbook. It does provide 100 different versions of muffins, from the wildly indulgent to the savoury dinner versions. I have not yet made all of them but I have tried a few different versions and am quickly coming up with a few favourites. The feta cheese and leek one was great with soup (adapted from the feta cheese and scallions one) as were the cheddar cheese ones (pictured to the left) and the seed and oatmeal one made me feel virtuous, but I have to say, the raspberry one has quickly become my favourite. Even without the topping.

These muffins are lovely moist but still firm. They just make me happy.

For 12

280 g all purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda

a pinch of salt

115 g white sugar (I am going to try a bit less next time I make them as they are quite sweet)

2 medium eggs (I use Orgran egg substitute)

2 1/2 dl plain yogurt (1 cup)

6 tbsp oil or 85g of melted butter (I usually use 5 tbsp of oil however this last time I used 6 tbsp of home made apple sauce and it worked great plus it is healthier)

1 tsp vanilla extract

150 g frozen raspberries.

Instructions:

Turn the oven on to 200C (392F)

Mix the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.

 

 

 

 

Mix the wet ingredients in a measuring jug (or a bowl).

 

 

 

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients (this is why I use a measuring jug).

Add the raspberries.

Roughly mix all the ingredients together

Put into a muffin pan (or paper muffin cups) (you can spray or butter the muffin pan to make the muffins less likely to stick)

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes (my oven needs 25 minutes)

Let rest in pan for 5 minutes. Eat hot (they really are the best hot but they are fine cold and heat up nicely if you freeze them, 180C (356F) for 20 minutes)

 

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North.This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Weekend Cooking: Jamie’s Mushroom Risotto

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish at Beth Fish Reads and it is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.

This is my first Weekend Cooking post but I have been thinking about joining in for a while. I thought I would share one of my family’s favourite comfort foods: Jamie’s Mushroom Risotto. Jamie is Jamie Oliver of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, but he has been Jamie and our favourite celebrity chef for 10 years now, ever since he was The Naked Chef. We use recipes from his cookbooks and tv shows several times a week (the roast potatoes from his Christmas show are divine). This week I made his mushroom risotto

Now I use Jamie’s recipe as a base but I change things around quite a bit as well :D.

Here is Jamie’s recipe for the Risotto base. And when he says it smells gorgeous he means it!

Now for the mushrooms and other good stuff!

I used chantrelles that my mum picked in the summer and fall (a couple of hand fulls (however much happens to be in the bag)). They have a mild earthy taste and are our favourite mushrooms (see Jamie no button mushrooms). I use rosemary to flavour because it is one of my favourite herbs (a couple of stems). I also use half cheddar and half parmesan cheese because that is what I had at home and I like my risotto extra cheesy.

Am I the only one who loves the smell of frying onions? (I didn’t have any celery at home so I skipped that this time but it does make it better).

Sautéing chantrelles (in the summer we like eating them sautéed on toast with a bit of salt. Yummmy)

I don’t have any pictures of the finished product because I forgot  :(  but trust me it was yummy! We had it with oven baked tomatoes (because the tomatoes are a bit icky right now to eat fresh) but I’ve served it with oven baked asparagus too and that is yummier!

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North.This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.