Welcome to the Cookery Calendar Challenge for July. If you would like to join the challenge this month, please take a quick look at the Cookery Calendar Challenge page, which will tell you everything you need to know.
My chosen book for June was 'The National Trust Cookbook'. Over the years, there have been many National Trust cookbooks; this particular edition is the most recent, from 2016.
The National Trust currently has around 200 cafes, and each café has some dishes or treats associated with the location, for example Churchill's stew is served at Chartwell; Beatrix Potter's family plum cake is served at the café at Hill Top. This makes the book quite fascinating, and as someone who always loves to hear the stories behind food, the stories and recipes combined really appealed to me.
The book is divided seasonally. Within each section there are soups, savoury dishes, puddings, and bakes. There are many delicious, homely recipes within this book, and a high proportion of vegetarian dishes. It is a good, solid, reliable book, which I enjoyed reading, and cooking from, and one which I think is destined to become a favourite.
My first chosen recipe was Roast honey-mustard chicken. Chicken breasts are marinated in a yogurt mix (recipe below), and the marinade is then spooned over the chicken breasts in a roasting tin, where the marinade becomes a sauce, or coating. The chicken is served on a salad of new potatoes, green beans, red pepper, courgette, all of which are steamed or fried, depending on what suits, making a colourful, crunchy, warm salad. There should be chickpeas in the salad too, but I omitted them as they are considered the work of the devil by the carnivores of the family, though personally I absolutely love their flavour and texture.
To me, this was a perfect family dinner; it was healthy, colourful, easy to prepare, and looked, I thought, rather pretty when dished up. It was also ideal for the resident vegetarian (me) as I could eat the warm salad without the chicken.
It enjoyed a lukewarm reception from the family (about the same temperature as the warm salad in fact). I would say a grudging single green tick (single green tick= 'ok, would eat again'). This was a little disappointing, but it wasn't an outright rejection, and I did gain a super-simple, delicious recipe for marinade, which I could happily eat with a spoon, it is so good.
Marinade
This marinade could also be used as a dip, a baked potato filling, or a salad dressing.
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
4 tsp runny honey
1 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp natural yogurt
1 garlic clove, finely crushed
2 tsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp. fresh chopped parsley
salt and pepper
Whisk all the ingredients together until well combined.
My second selected recipe was another seasonal warm salad, though as they were served a couple of weeks apart, this was not quite as repetitive a it sounds!
This dish had lots of winning ingredients as far as the carnivores were concerned: black pudding, bacon, and fried bread croutons, served on salad leaves (nice and easy, just tip them out of the bag), topped with blue cheese, and scattered with quartered hard boiled eggs.
The bacon lardons were fried off with sliced leeks, and the black pudding was meant to be fried too, but I grilled it instead, and only reluctantly fried off the bread croutons in a little oil - just a bit too much frying for my liking.
There was a simple vinaigrette dressing for the salad too; the whole dish presented a variety of flavours and textures, with plenty of protein for hungry carnivores.
Thankfully this dish went down well, and earned a respectable single green tick. I suggested that next time I might bake the croutons in the oven rather than fry, but this was met with emphatic cries:
'No!'
'They're my favourite bit!'
'Don't bake them, they will taste boring'
Quite a successful month for the Cookery Calendar Challenge, thank goodness, I felt I needed a bit of a break after the rejections from May and June.
My chosen book for July is Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall's 'Light and Easy'
I feel I have circled round Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall rather warily for years. He is so fervent about food production and so on (all very laudable of course), that I feel a little overawed by his persona and values (this springs to mind). The Cookery Calendar Challenge is the perfect opportunity to dust off this worthy volume and actually use a couple of Hugh's recipes.
If you joined me last month, thank you. If you would like to join the challenge this month, this is what to do:
The challenge is simple: the first week of every month, select a cookery book from your shelf, and cook two new recipes from it. The recipes can be for any meal. Cakes and bakes are excluded, but puddings are included. Don't worry about photographs; if you haven't taken a photograph of the dish, post a photograph of the recipe book you used. Similarly, you are welcome to share a recipe if you wish, but there is no pressure to do so. This project is more about the process of reconnecting with your cookery book collection, than about recipe sharing or food photography. At the beginning of the following month, blog about the recipes you have used, and announce your chosen cookery book for the month ahead. This is an ongoing project, it's never too late to get involved, and everyone is very welcome.
I would appreciate a link back to this Cookery Calendar Challenge post in your post. Grab the Cookery Calendar Challenge badge to display on your blog too, if you like (just copy and paste the code on to your dashboard to display). You can also join via Instagram using hashtag #cookerycalendarchallenge (you will find me on Instagram @penny.homemadeheart )
