Continuing Adventures in Cookbooks
Aug. 2nd, 2021 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
writerkitTheoretically I am supposed to be finding recipes in cookbooks I haven't used yet, since part of the Great Bookshelf Cleaning of Summer 2021 is testing the cookbooks so I can get rid of the obviously bad ones. (Like the children's playdate book that included things like seared scallops with very pretty dinner-party plating pictures. It's not so much about the kid appeal-- I know children who would eat such things; indeed I was such a child-- as it is the question of what parent has the time and money to cook this stuff for a large crowd of children on the regular. Certainly no one's managing that plating for it.) I have gotten rid of probably five or six at this point simply by skimming through them and determining that I can't find a single edible recipe, either because nothing looks like I would want to make it or there's nothing I can modify to be safe for me. River Cottage Preserves, for example, looks like a lovely book, well-written, pretty pictures, tasty-sounding recipes... and I can't eat any of them because it's all fruit. So that one goes into the donation pile, and book by book the Little Free Library on the bike path gets some nice donations.
I will note that "can't eat any of them as written" isn't necessarily a dealbreaker; Cowboy in the Kitchen is going to be work to modify but the recipes look good enough that I'm willing to make the effort. (And eventually it will wind up being one of the more heavily annotated ones, as I experiment.)
Mathfriend wishes to induct me into the world of cheesecake now that we've established lactaid works, since it's one of his go-to dessert categories, and suggested I find a recipe from one of the cookbooks. Which was a good idea... and I wound up returning to my beloved standby Wintersweet for a cheesecake recipe that was neither overly complicated nor obviously a bad idea. (Any cheesecake that calls for low-fat cottage cheese is automatically suspect.) I know it will be good; it's the source of two recipes I love and make regularly-- cranberry cobbler and cranberry torte-- and it's generally clear and straightforward.
Baking by Flavor is going to be fine once I acquire cake flour and superfine sugar from wherever one acquires cake flour and superfine sugar-- I've struck out at two grocery stores now. But there's no point in even looking at what else I'll need for things until I acquire those; everything in it calls for them.
Sweetness and Light is another one that merits a closer look, but that one merits a closer look because it's the one with the low-fat cottage cheese and I need to check if the recipes are all like that. It passed the first skim because the recipes had appetizing names, but they have to actually look like they'd be good to cook as well.
(Why do I have so many terrible cookbooks? Pre-pandemic the Newton library had marvelous library sales-- likely because their friends group took over the entire basement of a branch library and thus has a lot of space to accumulate donations-- and I bought a lot of stuff just because I wanted more X without paying a ton of attention to it. Now that I'm starting to actually use my cookbooks more... well.)
I will note that "can't eat any of them as written" isn't necessarily a dealbreaker; Cowboy in the Kitchen is going to be work to modify but the recipes look good enough that I'm willing to make the effort. (And eventually it will wind up being one of the more heavily annotated ones, as I experiment.)
Mathfriend wishes to induct me into the world of cheesecake now that we've established lactaid works, since it's one of his go-to dessert categories, and suggested I find a recipe from one of the cookbooks. Which was a good idea... and I wound up returning to my beloved standby Wintersweet for a cheesecake recipe that was neither overly complicated nor obviously a bad idea. (Any cheesecake that calls for low-fat cottage cheese is automatically suspect.) I know it will be good; it's the source of two recipes I love and make regularly-- cranberry cobbler and cranberry torte-- and it's generally clear and straightforward.
Baking by Flavor is going to be fine once I acquire cake flour and superfine sugar from wherever one acquires cake flour and superfine sugar-- I've struck out at two grocery stores now. But there's no point in even looking at what else I'll need for things until I acquire those; everything in it calls for them.
Sweetness and Light is another one that merits a closer look, but that one merits a closer look because it's the one with the low-fat cottage cheese and I need to check if the recipes are all like that. It passed the first skim because the recipes had appetizing names, but they have to actually look like they'd be good to cook as well.
(Why do I have so many terrible cookbooks? Pre-pandemic the Newton library had marvelous library sales-- likely because their friends group took over the entire basement of a branch library and thus has a lot of space to accumulate donations-- and I bought a lot of stuff just because I wanted more X without paying a ton of attention to it. Now that I'm starting to actually use my cookbooks more... well.)
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Date: 2021-08-08 03:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-08-08 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-08-11 07:44 pm (UTC)Huh -- I would at least tend to expect places like Whole Foods to carry them. I'm sure that King Arthur makes a cake flour; gourmet aisles might be the place to look.
Note that superfine sugar at least used to be called "bar sugar" (since it dissolves more quickly), and is apparently sometimes called "caster sugar" -- Domino's is probably the easiest brand to find. (But they apparently ship it in a plastic flip-top container these days, so it doesn't look obviously like sugar.)