Cooking recipe books

I am not a fan of tomato soup but I grew a ginormous courgette and I had deliciously looking tomatoes from the Isle of Wight. I couldn't resist cooking something with both.  This recipe from  www.bbcgoodfood.com   caught my eye I am extremely pleased with it. It is super simple and incredibly tasty. My partner says it tastes like a mild tomato soup. Serves: 8 persons. Ingredients: 20g butter (change to olive oil for a vegan alternative) 2 large onions (450g), chopped 1145 g courgette, peeled and diced 1145 g tomatoes, diced 1 tsp turmeric 1l vegetable stock salt & pepper to taste Method: Melt the butter in a large pan. Add the onions and courgettes and cook for 5 min on a medium heat, stirring occasionally. 1250g courgette! The size of glass coasters!!! Add the tomatoes, turmeric and stock, cover and simmer for 30 min. Blitz the soup and season with salt & pepper to taste.

We had friends for lunch and instead of the usual cooked meal, I decided to have tapas . A couple of salads, hummus and cheese made for the perfect Summer's lunch. This salad is tasty and filling. Serves: 4 persons. Ingredients: 600g salted cod  (after soaked, cooked and deboned) -  about  4  cod steaks 400g cooked chickpeas 1 medium onion (150g), halved and finely sliced 3 garlic cloves, chopped 100ml white wine 1 red bell pepper, diced 1 tbsp paprika 4 hard-boiled eggs, sliced 30 black olives, pitted parsley to taste, chopped olive oil to taste salt & pepper to taste Method: Fry the onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add the cod and the wine and let it cook for 5 min. Keep stirring so that the cod breaks down into smaller pieces. Add the chickpeas, red pepper, paprika and salt & pepper to taste. Stir. Remove from the heat and add the olives and parsley. Stir. Garnish with the egg slices and a bit of olive oil.

I bought another box of quail's eggs and decided to make a salad as the weather is getting warmer. Although the recipe called for whole green beans, I think the beans should be sliced in half as they were too big to eat and also were not very aesthetic in the serving bowl. The recipe did not ask or salt and pepper but I can't really cook without them. It's a quick and easy recipe but it was lacking anchovy flavour. I doubled the quantities that the original recipe called for but I wonder if it needs more? Perhaps if I had chopped them very finely and let the salad stand for an hour, then the flavour would have spread to the remaining ingredients. Another recipe from  www.bbcgoodfood.com . Serves: 3 persons. Ingredients: 12 quail's eggs 300g green beans, trimmed and halved 300g new potatoes, skin on, halved or quartered if large 6 anchovies, finely chopped parsley to taste, chopped chives to taste, chopped juice of 1 lemon (8 tbsp) salt & pepper to taste Method: Bri...

According to Wikipedia, Bouillabaisse was originally a stew made by Marseille fishermen, using the bony rockfish which they were unable to sell to restaurants or markets. There are at least three kinds of fish in a traditional bouillabaisse, typically red rascasse, sea robin and conger. It can also include gilt-bream, turbot, monkfish, mullet or hake. It usually also inludes shellfish and other seafoods such as sea urchins, mussels, velvet crab or octopus. When I set out to cook this dish, I didn't realise that it would be so difficult to get hold of the fish described above. I had to compromise and found the following: sea bream, monkfish, halibut, hake and mussels . Cayenne pepper and saffron are typical Bouillabaisse ingredients. I don't have cayenne pepper at home and I didn't remember to use chilli plus paprika instead but it would have been a good compromise. Saffron is extremely expensive and I have never bought, however, on hindsight, I buy vanilla pods and they are...

I bought quail's eggs but I have never cooked with them before. All I know about them is that they are small, have a pretty shell pattern and if you want to have a proper meal you'll probably need to eat a dozen of them. They also taste the same as chicken eggs. I found this recipe in  www.bbcgoodfood.com and decided to give it a go. It is tasty and I can see it being a popular starter. However, the nests stuck to the muffin tin and I had to scrape a lot from the tin. Washing up was a complete headache as it wouldn't come off even after an overnight soak. I ended up having to forcibly scrub the tin and destroyed the non-stick coating. Maybe I need a new and better muffin tin? Or perhaps butter and flour the tin next time? I want to re-do this recipe but I am dreading the washing up. Perhaps I'll leave it a few months. Time makes you forget, right? Serves: 6 persons (starter) or 3 persons (main). Ingredients: 10g butter 200g chestnut mushrooms, sliced 2 garlic cloves, ...

I bought sausage meat from the butchers a while back but I wasn't sure what to do with it. One day my partner says 'Why don't you make sausage rolls?'. Of course! Why hadn't I thought about that? It's relatively easy to make and it's really delicious. It doesn't taste like a cheap sausage roll, it tastes like a gourmet sausage roll. This is a Paul Hollywood recipe and he called for caramelised onion chutney but I used my onion & apple chutney that I had in the fridge. However, I can see the strong caramelised onion flavour matching heavenly with the meat.  Serves: 6 large rolls. Ingredients: For the rough puff pastry : 225g plain flour ½ tsp salt 20g chilled unsalted butter, cubed juice of ½ lemon (4 tbsp) 180-200ml cold water (I used only 150ml) For the filling : 450g sausage meat 1 tbsp chopped thyme 60g caramelised onion chutney salt & pepper to taste To glaze : 1 egg, lightly beaten Method: To make the pastry, put the flour, salt and butter ...