The Cookery Calendar Challenge

February's book for the Cookery Calendar Challenge was Leon: Family & Friends by John Vincent and Kay Plunkett-Hodge. I believe I bought this in Waterstone's in a post-Christmas sale and, if I remember rightly, it was pretty cheap. Although the RRP was £25 I'm sure I only paid five or ten pounds for it - something made me buy it on a whim, anyway.

Things about this book I liked:

• the high production values; nice graphics and illustrations, thick pages, good photography and not one but two ribbon bookmarks
• many recipes have a photo of the finished dish (I have realised that this is really important to me - I am far more likely to skip past a recipe that doesn't have a photo)
• easy to read recipes - by easy, I mean a nice clear font that you can glance at rather than having to squint over while cooking

This book has a charming written style and it's very much a family cookbook with a mixture of traditional British and Thai recipes, drawing on the writers' childhoods and cooking influences. Full of memories and family history, it contains recipes like "Katie's Tartiflette", "Auntie Qing's Sushi Roll" and "Gardener John's Roasted Vegetables". It's pretty comprehensive, covering breakfasts, lunches and weekday dinners, slow weekend cooking, Christmas, birthdays and desserts. It's gorgeous to look at and leaf through and often made me smile.

And yet it's sat unused on my bookshelf for five years. I think it's partly because it tries to cover so much, and I have so many other books that perhaps do the same job. So I was keen to delve into this book and see what the recipes were like.

The first was "Storecupboard Daube", a rich and delicious beef stew containing garlic, red wine, anchovies and olives. This is not a weeknight meal, but something I'd cook on a Sunday for us to eat together as a family. I have to confess here that John cooked all of this meal as I was unwell, but I did eat and enjoy a little of it. We ate it with mashed potatoes and spring greens. 

Both John and I loved the deeper, saltier flavours the red wine and anchovies brought to the stew but the kids were underwhelmed. Angus was frankly appalled by the olives and made a big fuss about picking them out. Bella loved the olives but found the flavours too rich. (She didn't articulate it quite like that, more "I prefer your normal beef stew Daddy.") I actually enjoyed it more when we ate the leftovers a few nights later, reheated and served with brown rice and sour cream. That was amazing. So perhaps not a family favourite, but definitely a meal John and I both enjoyed. John said the recipe was a "bit of a faff", with various ingredients needing to be browned in a particular order, before being removed and the pan de-glazed. He said he'd make it again but next time just bung it all in together and shove it in the oven. John is a very good cook but has no time for faffing. 

My second choice was "Easy Pad Thai". It's one of those recipes that contains forty seven ingredients (ok, slight exaggeration) and takes ages to chop and prepare, but actually cooks in less than ten minutes. Despite the long list, it contains all my favourite flavours; lime, garlic, coriander, peanut...I was really excited to try it. 

I really wasn't sure how this was going to turn out. All I could smell was fish sauce, or Nam Pla and, while we all know that fish sauce tastes fantastic, it smells pretty terrible. Molly didn't even come into the kitchen to investigate during cooking, it was that bad. It also looked very beige, what with the noodles, prawns, eggs and beansprouts. 

But it was so good; light, zesty and full of texture with the peanuts and beansprouts providing just the right amount of crunch. Not a meal the kids would eat, but something John and I can eat together when they are in bed. Next time I might tone down the fish sauce though. 

I'm sorry about how horrible these photos are. They are all taken in electric light and food never looks the same that way, but until the clocks go forward that's all I can do. 

Continuing with an Asian theme, March's choice will be The Wagamama Cookbook. 

Do visit Penny at The Homemade Heart and find out more about her brilliant Cookery Calendar Challenge. Only two months in and it's already making me re-visit so many under-used cookery books, plus I am eating a lot of really nice food too and that's no bad thing.