COOKBOOKS GALORE

Apologies to Cliff.....! We're all going on a summer holiday, No more blogging for a week or two, Fun and seaside on our summer holiday, Going to make Rhys's dreams come true in a day or two..... Thanks to Trekkie for this verse ..... You're going where the rain is warmer, You're going where there's swine fluuuu, You've seen it in the movies, Now let's see if it's truuuuue.. Lots of laughter on our summer holiday, Now back where the sky is really blue, Sun and rainstorms on our summer holiday, Managed to survive the swine fluuuuu, But only for a week or two...!! [we're going back!!]

Picked a lot of plums on Saturday so after making a plum torte, clafoutis and stewing some, I decided to make plum ice cream from a recipe on the Good Food site. Forgot to take any photos as I went along, but this is the finished ice cream and it is delicious. Plum ice cream - makes 1 litre 450g ripe plums, stoned and quartered 125g light muscovado sugar 4 egg yolks 125g icing sugar 284ml pot double cream Put plums in a pan with the muscovado sugar and 300ml water. Bring ro the boil, cover and simmer for about 10 mins. till plums are cooked. Pass the stewed plums through a sieve. Chill the puree in the fridge for 20 mins. Put egg yolks and icing sugar in a bowl and stand it over a pan of simmering water. Whisk with an electric beater till the mixture has just warmed through. then take bowl off the heat and keep beating till the mixture hasd tripled in size. Chill in the fridge. Whip the cream with 2 tbspn iced water till just holding its shape. Churn in an ice cream maker or pour ...

I am a great fan of Nigella, so when I decided to make an apricot crumble today, I looked in her 'Forever Summer' book and found this one. It's a bit different from the norm, as she adds grounds almonds and flaked almonds to the crumble. I doubled the quantity of crumble as we love it thick! serves 4-6 750g apricots [or any other stoned fruit] - quartered and stoned 75g butter diced 100g sr flour 25g ground almonds 75g caster sugar [I used soft brown] 50g flaked almonds preheat oven gas6/200C/400F Put the apricots in one layer in a shallow dish. Rub the butter into the flour and grounds almonds till it looks like breadcrumbs, then stir in the sugar and the flaked almonds. Sprinkle this over the fruit and bake for about 30 mins. Serve with creme fraiche or vanilla ice cream. From 'Forever Summer' by Nigella Lawson

I decided to make this tart for some friends and neighbours who are coming for lunch tomorrow. It's from a French cookery book called 'Sweet and Savoury tarts' - 'Tartes sucrees et salees' - by Margot Stephan. Serves 6-8 1 pack ready made puff pastry 6eggs 200g cooked and peeled prawns 250g smoked salmon pieces 2 tbspns creme fraiche 150g grated cheese [I used Gruyere] s&p flan tin 28cm [11"] Preheat oven gas6/200C/400F Roll the pastry out and line the tart tin. Spread the prawns and cooked salmon pieces onto the pastry. In a bowl, separate yolks and whites of 2 eggs and beat the whites till stiff. In another bowl, mix the cream in with the 2 egg yolks and the other 4 eggs. Beat together and season to taste. Then add most of the cheese and the beaten egg whites and fold together. Pour into the tin and sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top. Bake for 30 minutes.

I know this isn't anything to do with cooking, but thought I'd show what Bob found on the potatoes [food link!!!] when he was digging them up yesterday. Having done some research, I've discovered that it's a death-head hawk moth caterpillar. It's big - about 11cm long and the biggest one in the UK and here too I expect. Sorry the photo isn't too clear.

I've been a big fan of the great 'Chocolate and Zucchini' blog for a while http://chocolateandzucchini.com/ so when Clotilde published a book of the same name, I knew I had to buy it. I'm ashamed to say that I've never cooked from it till today. We had a lot of courgettes [zucchini] to pick in the garden, so I decided to make her chocolate and courgette cake. It serves 12 110g unsalted butter, at room temperature or 120ml extra virgin olive oil 240g plain flour 60g cocoa powder 1teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 180g light brown sugar 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 3 large eggs 350g unpeeled grated cougettes [zucchini] 160g good-quality chocolate chips I used a bar of 70% dark chocolate and broke it into pieces] Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas4 Grease a 25cm springform caketin/pan with butter or oil. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder...

I live in a village bordering on a lovely area called the Marais Poitevin. It's also called 'Green Venice - La Venise Verte - as there's a network of canals bordered by trees.

Hello and welcome to my blog. I'm a keen cook who loves baking and who has way too many cookery books! Don't we all? I started this blog to encourage myself to cook at least one recipe from all these books, so hope you'll enjoy sharing some of these recipes with me. Thought I'd start with one of my favourite recipes - a bit of a cheat as I've done it many times before. It's from our lovely Delia's site and is her easy wholemeal bread. The reason I love this recipe is that there is no kneading - which is a chore. Mind you, when I was teaching, I used to take all my frustrations out on the bread dough while kneading, instead of on the little dears at school! The resulting bread was very good too! This recipes makes 1 large [as above] or 2 small loaves. 570g wholemeal flour 400ml handhot water 2 teaspoons salt [I use fine sea salt] 1 teaspoon soft brown sugar 2 teaspoons easy- blend dried yeast [1 packet] Put your flour into a bowl,...