Tag Archives: soup

Blue cheese sauce

The magnificent microwave book, 159pp. edited by Ellen Argyriou Polly Book Publishing, no date Cooking on page 32 This book was commissioned/developed by Toshiba, and I assume it accompanied one of their microwave products. This copy belonged to my mother-in-law. … Continue reading

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Roasted beetroot soup with a dollop of yoghurt

Fabulous food, minus the boombah, 196pp. by Jane Kennedy Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2009 Cooking on page 32 Jane Kennedy has a wonderful premise for this cookbook. She loves food—to the tune of about a kilo of weight gain a … Continue reading

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Mushroom, almond and garlic soup

All new meals in minutes, 192pp. by Ainsley Harriott BBC Books, London, 2003 Cooking on page 32 I’d never heard of Ainsley Harriott until I moved to Australia. Turns out he is a well-known UK chef and rather famous as … Continue reading

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Asparagus soup

Soup, 190pp. by Pippa Cuthbert and Lindsay Cameron Wilson New Holland Publishers, Sydney, 2011 Cooking on page 32 Not so long ago, Poor John and I drove from Canberra to Perth and back. It took us just over a month, … Continue reading

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Vichyssoise (potato and leek soup)

The essential Digby Law, 352pp. compiled and edited by Jill Brewis Hodder Moa Beckett, Auckland, 2001 Cooking on page 32 For many years, Digby Law was New Zealand’s food guru. In 1987, he died too young at age 51, but … Continue reading

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Swiss barley soup

Chicken, 400pp. recipes selected by Jonnie Legér Transatlantic Press, United Kingdom, 2011 Cooking on page 32 This cookbook came home one day with Graeme, who lives in the flat at our house. He’s the saint who minds our house, beasts … Continue reading

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Bone and vegetable soup

Where to next?

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I have cookbooks—hundreds of them, bookcases of them. I read them like novels. Today, there are 10 cookbooks and food magazines lying on the floor beside my bed. Another 10 are on the kitchen bench, and still more are stacked on a chair in the dining room. A little while ago, I tripped over a few propped up against a cupboard in the hall.

Do I cook out of them? Sure! But not nearly as much as I should.

So I’ve set myself a challenge, a plan to get me—and you—into my cookbooks.

To get me started, I ran a pick-a-number competition. Emma Bickley won—oven mitts down—with her choice of the number 32 (in conjunction with 33). See why!

So that’s where I’ll be cooking—on page 32 of my many cookbooks and magazines.

But, I hear you ask, what if there is no recipe on page 32? Sometimes there are pictures, or explanations of ingredients or background on a country’s cuisine.

Not to worry. I’ll move on to page 132, 232, 332 or beyond.

If all those pages have no recipes, or if a cookbook doesn’t go up to page 32 or 132, I’ll try page 16 (half of 32) or page 64 (32 doubled and also Poor John’s age). I might also try other pages because I’ve already made too many recipes of the same type, such as appetizers (a common dish in the front of cookbooks).

Fortunately, I like almost all foods, so I don’t plan to back out of making a recipe simply because of the ingredients.

That said, there will be ingredients I simply cannot find. For example, I bought a 48-page cookbook in Kyrgyzstan. The recipe on page 32 calls for airan (a beverage that I’m unlikely to find). The recipe on page 16 calls for grease from a fat-tail sheep!

Plenty of American recipes will have me struggling. I can’t get refrigerated biscuits, concentrated orange juice, Bisquick, Cool Whip,

When, after all attempts, there is no recipe to make, I’ll write about what I find on the relevant page or pages. Heck, it may be too good not to share. 

An entry will include the name of the cookbook/magazine and publication details. I’ll transcribe the recipe as it appears in the book (but will remove any errors I detect), and will explain what, if anything, I did differently. I’ll also add a verdict—namely, what we thought of the end result.

I plan to include a photo of the book/magazine cover and of the completed recipe (unless the quality is sub-standard). I’ll add interesting notes too.

So I hope you will have fun getting to know my cookbooks. I think I will.

In addition to posting recipes here, I will re-post the best ones to Food.com, so they get even wider exposure. When I do that, I’ll add a link to the recipe.

Feel free to add comments and questions. You can even ask me to try my hand on certain cuisines or ingredients. I’ll do my best to accommodate.

And if I ever run out of cookbooks, I can always go to the library or get you to submit recipes from your page 32s.

Happy cooking
Peggy Bright

 

P.S. Please check out my other blog. It’s on my overland travels.

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