Kristin's Cookbook Project

As I was fortunate enough to get my hands on udon noodles last week, I ended up making Japanese Yaki Udon for dinner. I did use a recipe from the Norwegian cookbook "Alt asiatisk" (Everything Asian), and the author also has a food blog  with plenty of recipes. For me, Yaki Udon was one of those fairly easy recipes and I did enjoy the taste of the sauce, in addition to the texture of the noodles.It's anyway a recipe I'd love to make again some time due to the taste and how easy it was to make. I can't deny that making more use of my cookbooks has made me realise just how easy it is to make various dishes from the Asian continent, whether it's Chinese, Thai, or other cuisines. Sometimes the list of ingredients might be a bit intimidating by the length, but it's really tasty.

Recently, I had some chicken I wanted to use, so I went through some of my cookbook and wanted to try Chicken Cilantro from The Kitchen Without Borders cookbook. It was a fairly easy recipe to follow with the added bonus of some veggies to make it a little bit more nutitious. I've been a bit wary of cilantro, as some feel it tastes like soap (if I remember correctly, it's a gene thing or something), but it turned out I actually liked cilantro once I tried it. Oh, by the way, the cookbook itself is worth checking out, as it has roughly 70 authentic recipes from immigrant and refugee chefs. I've tried a few recipes before starting this blog, including the Cake Baklava, and it's a fun cookbook.

As I've been a bit busy, I've totally forgotten to write a blog post, but last week I made a chicken stir-fry with green veggies and I used a recipe from a Norwegian cookbook called "Vidunderlig kinesisk" (roughly translated as Wonderful Chinese). I had to visit an Asian grocery store to get my hands on Chinese five spice for the recipe, as the regular grocery stores and supermarkets didn't have it, but then I had an excuse to actually visit an Asian grocery store, which is always a bit fun. The recipe was fairly easy to follow and the end result tasted really good in my opinion. I've also fallen a bit in love with Chinese five spice as a result and I'm now in search of more recipes containing that spice blend. I think it's one of those spice blends that gives a bit of warmth to a dish in a sense and I bet it tastes really good on a cold autumn day. It's also highly likely that I'll make this recipe again some time. One can't go wrong with...

As I was craving some seafood, specifically salmon, I found a recipe in a Norwegian cookbook for oven baked salmon with dill sauce. The cookbook I used is called "365 sunne middager på en halvtime" (roughly translates as 365 healthy dinners in 30 minutes) edited by Ingrid Espelid Hovig, and in my opinion it was a fairly easy recipe to follow. Yes, I needed to use a couple of pots, as well as a mixing bowl for the sauce, and something for the salmon in the oven, but having a dishwasher helps in the clean-up. Now, even with the pink pepper, in addition to the dill sauce, I did find the dinner overall a little bit too plain for my taste. Good? Yes, but still a bit too plain. Perhaps I'm a bit spoiled as I'm a bit used to food with a bit more spice to it, but if you're one that struggles with too much spice, whether it's too flavourful or hot, it might be something for you though. I might make it again though, even if I struggled with the lack of spice.