the cookery calendar challenge: looking back at March

Once more I am joining Penny for the cookery calendar challenge.  I am finding it difficult to find time to cook new exiting meals but I do enjoy exploring my cookery books and I do like a challenge. The idea is to dust off a neglected cookery book from your shelves and choose two recipes to cook. I have to admit, I couldn't find any inspiration at all on my shelves instead I gave into the temptation and bought a new one... the latest Nigella Lawson book, Simply Nigella. I am quite fond of Nigella Lawson's cooking, she knows how to enjoy food. I don't watch her on the TV so much but we have three of her books and each is used once every blue moon, which is more often than most of the cookery books we own. Her Malteser cake is unrivalled and the cherry coke ham is to die for. The recipes are generally simple without being boring. The ingredient lists are not so exotic and extensive that you find yourself substituting or omitting, or just giving up. She does shop in Waitrose rather than Asda and some of the ingredients may sound a little posh but luckily we have a small local Waitrose, which I love and where we go shopping every now and then. 

I chose two one pot recipes, both cooked slowly in the oven. I am a lazy cook and an don't like to wash many pans and pots. I also work full time, and any dish that cooks on its own is welcome. 

First I made the beef chilli with bourbon, beer and black beans. I chose it because it doesn't use kidney beans, which I don't like. This recipe asks for black turtle beans, which I had never used before. They don't need soaking, which is good. It is not a tea total recipe! The liquid used is beer and bourbon. The meat is cheap beef shin, which is full of flavour but needs a bit of trimming. Jack had a feast of trimmings for which I hope he is eternally grateful. We all liked the chilli. I really liked the black turtle beans and will buy them again. The leftovers were delicious in baked potatoes. The one negative about this recipe is the unappetizing look of the finished dish, a dark brown lumpy mess. I like my food pretty and it took a little convincing to try this chilli. It didn't photograph well I am afraid, so no pictures here.

The second recipe was the chicken and wild rice. It is an interesting combination of chicken, cranberries and wild rice. I really like wild rice, it is firm and has a lovely flavour. It is often mixed in with plain white rice but this is not what to use for the dish because the white rice would go all soggy. I used a half and half mix of wild rice and Camarque rice, because I couldn't find pure wild rice. The two are not dissimilar in texture and colour so all was good. The dish was wonderfully soupy and flavourful. Everybody liked it, even the fussy teenager. One to copy and stick in my own cookery jotter.  

I have since made the massaman curry and the sweet and sour slaw from the same book, both delicious and both quick to make. I have bought the ingredients for chicken tray bake with bitter orange and fennel and I am really looking forward to eating it. I have left the recipe open on the kitchen counter for Richard to find. Mind you, he is quite good at not seeing stuff....

I should also mention that Sam cooked a delicious meal this month. I appreciate it very much when my teenager cooks but I am always a little very apprehensive because he tends to make an impressive mess and usually chooses to fry everything, thereby covering the kitchen surfaces in a thin layer of grease, and jeopardising our health. His recipe was a very involved recreation of a Chinese take-away dish, orange chicken. I don't know where he found it. The dish was sweet and sour and sticky and delicious and there wasn't even sauce left to soak up with a slice of bread late at night. Sam didn't cook any vegetables because he used an entire bunch of spring onions, that's plenty of goodness he says. He did also used up all the vegetable oil we had.

Annie didn't feel like a cookery challenge in March but she did cook a few simple dishes and her old favourite, coconut lime chicken with roastinis (gnocchi gently fried in a generous amount of butter). She did include vegetables.

I am lucky to have children who like to cook. 

In April, I am trying out a couple of recipes from my one and only vegan cookery book. I am not sure why I bought it because we are not vegans and have no intentions of becoming vegan either. I think the 'cheese'cake on the book cover made me buy it. The biggest challenge will be to get the teenager to eat! I may also have to hunt for the ingredients, some I have never heard off.

What have you been eating lately? Do you have any family favourites that you would like to share? What about favourite cookery books? 

Happy cooking (and eating). xx