Cookbook #9: Cooking School Chinese

I actually have no idea where I got this cookbook, but I’ve always found it a pretty useful one when it comes to making Chinese food, which is kind of my go-to cuisine. I decided on a simple turkey based stir fry because I hadn’t cooked much with turkey lately.

Adaptations: Apparently this recipe called for several hours of meat marinading. Yeah, I didn’t do that. I also used less bamboo shoots than required and thickened the sauce with cornstarch at the end.

What I learned: I like turkey as a stir fry protein; it has a bit more texture than chicken.

Recipe results: A solid, simple stir fry recipe. I’d like a bit more sauce, maybe.

Cookbook verdict: Useful, with almost universally tasty recipes.

The recipe: See beyond the jump.

Cookbook #8: Barefoot Contessa Back To Basics

Barefoot Contessa is my favorite on Food Network. She’s so calming, and lives such a fantasy life. I have kind of a Liz Lemon-esque fascination with her. I’m kind of surprised I never had one of her cookbooks until last year, when Steph and Jerry got me this one for my birthday.

There were so many recipes I could have made out of this – they all look so good. I decided on Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Warm Vinaigrette and Indonesian Grilled Swordfish. We had butternut squash on hand, so that’s how I selected the salad, and the swordfish just seemed like it’d be a good match. I also threw in (pan)grilled lemons, which I saw featured on another recipe in the book.

Adaptations: For the swordfish, I cooked in a cast iron pan rather than grilling outside. For the salad, I subbed candied walnuts for pecans, onions for shallots and dried cherries for dried cranberries.

What I learned: Not a lot of new technique here, but I’m not sure I would have put squash in a salad before this.

Recipe results: Both are terrific. The salad is really well balanced and the fish is addictive. The fish marinade would work equally well on chicken or flank steak, I bet.

Cookbook verdict: A total winner. Straightforward recipes, everything looks delicious and I love the conversational style.

Recipes: See beyond the jump.

Cookbook #7: Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen

I got this cookbook from my in-laws for Christmas last year (or maybe the year before?), and was super excited, as Rick Bayless is one of my favorite celebrity chefs. It took me awhile to break into it (there are a lot of ingredients required that I don’t keep on hand), but once I did I really went nuts with this cookbook, making several recipes for my birthday party, and continuing to experiment from there.

I made one new recipe for tonight’s dinner, though I revisited another from the cookbook that I’ve made before: red chile rice (one of my favorite new recipes from last year). The new recipe: crispy black bean and bacon taquitos.

Adaptations: I used less bacon than the recipe called for to save on calories, and swapped sherry vinegar for cider because I was out of the latter.

What I learned: Though par-cooking tortillas helps with taquito rolling, I still needed to use a taquito to keep them from falling apart when I fried them.

Recipe results: Really delicious. The vinegary romaine really offsets the taquitos, and the bacon really adds another dimension to the taquito filling.

Cookbook verdict: I already knew this one was a winner, even if the recipes can be complicated and time consuming. But hey, if you have tons of different varieties of chiles on hand, Rick Bayless can tell you how to use them!

Recipe: See beyond the jump.

Cookbook #6: Weight Watchers, Now and Later

John bought me this cookbook during my early years on Weight Watchers. He thought the concept behind it – make one meal, apply the leftovers towards another different meal – sounded a lot like the way I normally cook, which is accurate.

I’ve made a handful of recipes from this cookbook – saltimbocca/saltimbocca salad, penne with sausage and broccoli/tuscan pasta and bean salad. I decided to go with one of the vegetarian sets of recipes here: it starts with edamame salad, and then puts that salad into a soup for an Asian inspired soup with both edamame and tofu.

Adaptations: I really played loose with the edamame salad, given I didn’t realize I was out of frozen peas, swapped bok choy for celery and substituted cilantro for watercress because what I thought was watercress from the Asian market turned out to be a bitter herb. For the soup, I swapped turkey stock for veggie stock since I had it on hand, added additional mushrooms and omitted the extra scallions because I ran out.

What I learned: I forget how hearty and filling edamame is sometimes.

Recipe results: Solid. I’m glad I chose to make the salad a side dish rather than building a meal around it. I actually was more impressed with the soup than I thought I’d be; it had a nice, subtle flavor to it.

Cookbook verdict: A lot of the recipes feature ingredients I’m not huge on (hoison sauce, etc) but overall it has a lot of decent weeknight recipes. Nice for when I’m really sticking to Weight Watchers, though the Points Values on it are outdated since they modified the program.

Recipes: See beyond the jump.