A Cauliflower Salad

Cauliflower, Feta & Preserved Lemon Salad

from The Country Cookbook, Belinda Jeffery, Lantern, 2010.

The ingredients of this salad all sounded as though it was going to be delicious: cauliflower, feta, olives, rocket, preserved lemon rind and a tasty lemon flavoured dressing.

The instructions, as always in this book, are clear and easy to follow. I have complete confidence when using the book, gained from the style of the writing, which is friendly and generous in its information, and from the successful results from previous recipes tried.

Consequently the salad turned out as I had anticipated. I served it still slightly warm but, oddly, the lemon flavour had a tang to it that was not as pleasant as it should have been. Possibly it was the lemon pressed olive oil which I was using. There was quite a bit of salad left over. This was placed in the refrigerator.

Next day at lunchtime I took it out and took a few pieces out of the bowl to try. They were delicious and I kept going back to the bowl to have a little more. It was a reasonably large bowl but I finished it off by myself in two days of picking at odd moments. I suspect that much of the dressing had sunk to the bottom of the bowl and the oil had set and so its flavour had diminished.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Parsnip Soup with Roasted Pecans and Persian Feta

Parsnip Soup with Roasted Pecans and Persian Feta

from The Country Cookbook, Belinda Jeffery, Lantern, 2010.

Parsnips are one of those root vegetables that don’t always appeal to me. Sometimes, when the mood hits me, I just love them and can’t imagine why I haven’t been eating them more often. Other times the thought of them is really negative. So I hesitated when I looked at this recipe, but whenever I have used one of Belinda Jeffery’s recipes I have always been well pleased.

This book is proving to be one that I turn to much more frequently than others. The recipes are generally moderately difficult but the resulting flavours usually well repay the effort. I seem to be trying at least one recipe each month from each month’s selection. I do enjoy cookbooks arranged under a seasonal pattern so that you know what produce should be fresh at the time you are cooking.

While the recipe called for chicken stock I substituted it with a vegetarian one. Otherwise the instructions were followed as laid down.

The parsnip soup turned out to be wonderfully smooth and subtly flavoured. Parsnip has an odd taste to me, difficult to describe. In this soup it was not overly strong but it was there holding its own. Every so often you caught a burst of flavour from the Persian feta. I had never tried this particular type of feta before but it has a real zing to it. And then there were the pecans adding a pleasant bit of crunch. Or else you caught a little piece of olive to chew on. Good stuff.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Middle Eastern Double Lentil Soup

Middle Eastern Double Lentil Soup

from The Country Cookbook, Belinda Jeffery, Lantern, 2010.

I keep returning to this cookbook as everything I’ve tried from it has worked and usually turns out to be a tasty and satisfying meal.

I hesitated a little over starting this recipe because I had already made a double soup and, while I enjoyed it, it was really like making two different meals and then combining them. Nevertheless, this looked as though it might be worth a try.

It was a matter of making two soups but the method for both was the same. The basic savoury elements and spices were cooked and then divided between the red and the puy lentils in two saucepans to make the two soups.

I deviated from the instructions at the serving stage. The recipe calls for the two soups to be put into two jugs and then poured simultaneously into the bowl. Thinking of washing up, I just poured from the two saucepans. The result was quite reasonable though with a bit of a bow in it.

The taste was wonderful. It was rich and bursting with flavour. Totally more-ish. I loved it.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

A Double Soup and a Simple Spaghetti

Parmentier (Potato and Leek Soup)

Zucca (Pumpkin Soup)

from The Vegeterranean: Italian Vegetarian Cooking, Malu Simões & Alberto Musacchio, Simon & Schuster, 2008

Cooking two different soups for one dish seemed a little over the top but when the two were poured into the one dish the result was a visual delight. 

I managed holding a saucepan in each hand pouring the two soups at the same time into the plate to make a reasonably straight line down the middle of the plate where they met. But my partner, much more creative, took a spoon and turned it into a yin and yang design.

The two soups went together well taste wise. The pumpkin was slightly sweet while the savoury parmentier complimented the other with its overlaying flavour of the green olives cooked in it. Of the two the parmentier was my favourite.

I had cooked plenty of soup so on the night after we had just the pumpkin and on the night following that the potato and leek.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

A Satisfying Pasta Supper

from The Country Cookbook: seasonal jottings and recipes, Belinda Jeffery, Lantern, 2010

Pasta is one my favourites meals so this easy recipe appealed. It does have anchovies in it, but I left them out. I did however make two sauces, one without for me and one with anchovies for my partner.

The ingredients were simple: parsley, chillies, capers and breadcrumbs plus parmesan. It was all very straightforward though I do think I did something wrong in the last stage as I tried to separate things and add the anchovy to one. I suspect that the fish flavoured one had more of some elements than my plain one did.

It all went down well nevertheless.

Taste: ✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔