A birthday cook book

My parents have always been under the impression that I have no cooking skills what so ever. Whilst my skills in the kitchen may be limited I certainly don’t think that Mr C and I are going to starve. Over the last few years I have been trying to extend my cooking repertoire and I have certainly been more adventurous in what I choose to try from cook books, as well as having more confidence when I try new things.

For my birthday last month my gifts from my family seemed to focus around the kitchen. My sister H bought me a copy of Tessa Kiros’ Apples for Jam: Recipes for Life which I have been desperate to get my hands on since reading about it on Soulemama’s blog last year. I’m yet to try a recipe from it (one is planned for the weekend though), but have just loved looking at the fantastic colour co-ordinated pictures so far.

My parents bought me something that looks somewhat more sensible though and I was delighted with two packages from them. The first contained some fantastic kitchen implements: a spaghetti measure (you have no idea how many times Mr C and I have ended up with either too much or too little spaghetti on the plate!), measuring spoons, a basting brush and a fantastic heat-resistant plastic spatular in a magnificent blue colour. The second was an amazing food bible: Good Housekeeping – Step-by-step Cookbook. How I had not come across this book before I just don’t know. It contains all the basics for success in the kitchen (everything from chopping vegetables to preparing meat and fish) as well as some fantastic recipes.

For last night’s dinner I made the ‘One-pot spicy beef” and served it with tortillas, salsa and sour cream. It tasted amazing, and after making the standard portion for four Mr C and I were able to enjoy it for dinner for two nights running (as well as there being some more left over that we can use as part of tomorrow’s lunch). The recipe was incredibly easy to follow and turned out exactly as expected. The dish was incredibly tasty and had a good consistency to it. The only place where I had to deviate slightly from the recipe (due to the inadequate stock at St Albans’ Sainsburys) was to use all red kidney beans instead of mixed beans, but it still tasted incredibly tasty.

I would have taken photographs to share with blog readers, but to be honest it was so good that Mr C and I just concentrated on eating it!