Cookbooks

For Christmas I received Yotam Ottlolenghi's Plenty. I'm a bit behind the times as it was first published in 2010! It seems like a good classic book to have though and will hopefully inspire me to try some new fresh flavour combinations with vegetables.

AD told me that a friend of ours goes through a new cookbook, writes down all the recipes she wants to try and clips this into the front of the book. I think that's a fantastic idea so I'm going to do this with Plenty. I'll let you know how I get on with the recipes.

Quinoa is something that I've been cooking quite a lot recently. It's a super quick healthy (generally) meal and you can pretty much add any combination of vegetables, herbs and protein that you like. For two people I cook one cup of quinoa in two cups of water although recipes generally say this serves four. Last night I fried up some chorizo which I added to the cooked quinoa. I had some fennel and red cabbage leftover from Christmas that I wanted to use up! Added half a shallot, two sticks of sliced celery, a grated carrot, a handful of cherry tomatoes, a squeeze of lemon, a good drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper ... et voila! ... a simple and delicious dinner was served in around 15 minutes. I think some chopped parsley or coriander would have been nice served with it as well.

Hope you all have a great weekend.  I have got my daughter's birthday so will be posting about her cake next week!  MP

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