Cookbooks

Last week I stumbled on the blog 101 Cookbooks.  I have seen this blog before but have never really looked at it closely.  Essentially the focus of the blog is that the author had a cookbook buying problem and decided to start cooking from the books she owns rather than buying new ones.  Since I have somewhere in excess of 101 Cookbooks, I recently started taking ones that interested me out of the library and spending some time with them before buying.  This strategy has resulted in a nosedive in the number of cookbooks purchased in the last year or so.

One of the cookbooks I took out of the library and fell in love with is Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi.  After trying a couple of recipes during the loan period, I realized this is one that I had to own.  I made a few recipes from it immediately after buying and loved all of them but the book has been on the shelf for a couple of months.  I pulled it out yesterday and have started exploring it again.  The first recipe in that exploration used one of the heads of red cabbage waiting for me in the garden.  It is called Sweet Winter Slaw and combines the cabbage with sweet elements from maple syrup and mango with asian ingredients of soy sauce, sesame oil, coriander and chilies.  It was absolutely delicious.  I modified it a bit to sub peanuts for the macadamia nuts in the recipe.  I also left out the papaya which would have added a nice touch but the store only had huge ones and since I'm not a big fan knew some would have gone to waste.

For lunch it will be Puy Lentil Galettes.