Kristin's Cookbook Project

It's after all soup season, so why not make soup? Recently, I made the vegetable soup that's a nod to Waverly Hills Sanatorium from the cookbook Food To Die For by Amy Bruni. It's one of those recipes that's almost stupidly easy to make - just chopping a few veggies, measure a couple of things, and let it simmer on the stove for an hour. I think even a teenager could make it, perhaps with some supervision from a parent depending on the teen's skills. It's that easy. As it takes an hour on the stove, I can't say it's a quick weeknight dinner, but it's still an easy dish to make. It's tasty too, especially if it's a chilly night where you need to warm up a bit.

When it comes to cakes, I can't deny I've got a weak spot for chocolate (alright, I like chocolate in general), so I couldn't quite resist making a marble pound cake I found in the cookbook named "From Dill To Dracula" by A. M. Ruggirello. The recipe itself was one of the easier ones in my opinion and although it was very much similar to other types of marble pound cake, it had lemon zest in it, which was a nice change. An added bonus for me, as I'm rather terrible when it comes to cake decorating, there's no need for frosting and/or other "fancy" stuff. At least it shows that cakes don't need to be a daunting project.

Sometimes a pizza is in order, and I found a fairly easy recipe for pizza with fresh tomatoes in the Norwegian translation of 500 Pizzas & Flatbreads by Rebecca Baugniet, so I had a go at it. As mentioned, it was a fairly easy recipe to follow, and I got three pizzas out of it. They may not have been perfectly round, but that's on me, not the recipe. Something else that I really enjoyed, was the fresh tomatoes in it, both as a topping and in the actual tomato sauce. I didn't have any fresh basil around, so I had to use died instead, but it tasted good anyway. Yes, the pizza was something of a Pizza Margherita, with thin Italian crust. Although I'm one of those who enjoy spicy hot foods, I do enjoy food with fresh and simple ingredients too. As this is a vegetarian pizza with few ingredients, a lot of them basic ingredients, it's a fairly cheap dish to make too.

I do love a tasty chicken dish, so when I came across a recipe for chicken kebabs in Parwana: Recipes and Stories from an Afghan Kitchen by Durkhanai Ayubi, I wanted to try it. The recipe itself was fairly easy to follow and a rather quick dinner to make too. The sauce was really flavourful, which is always a good thing (can't go wrong with a tasty sauce). The only thing I really missed was perhaps some leafy green salad or something, but that's just me. If you've got picky eaters (kids) who don't like to eat veggies, there's some tomatoes in the sauce, pureed in a blender, so they probably won't notice there's veggies in the sauce. As a small stroke of luck, I found liba bread for £1 a four-pack at the local supermarket last week, which was rather fitting as I planned to make this dish sooner rather than later.

As it's autumn and thus soup season, I looked through my cookbooks and decided I wanted to make a Thai-inspired chicken soup I found in a Norwegian cookbook named "Matmisjon - Ekte mat fra ti matbloggere" edited by Hanne Stensvold. The recipe I used was one of those that's fairly easy to follow, and the only adjustment I needed to do was not using as much stock/water, as I didn't quite have enough room in the pot, but it produced several portions of soup anyway, so it wasn't a big deal really. The soup itself had some warmth and kick to it, as I used both red curry paste and a chopped chili in it, which is rather nice on a cold autumn day. A big bonus is that as it's made from scratch, rather than being one of those soup-mix things, is that it was a bit filling too (I feel that a lot of times, those soup mixes doesn't quite cut it). I dare say this is one of those recipes I'd love to make again.

As I've got a weak spot for Thai food, I ended up making beef satay with peanut sauce recently, thanks to a Norwegian cookbook called "Fristende Thai". I didn't have any skewers, so I didn't bother with those, but overall it was a fairly easy recipe, even if the beef needs to marinate for a little while. I also served it with some chopped spring onions for some more flavour and texture. While it may not look too fancy, it was tasty and I'll probably make it again some time.