cooking

Welcome to my fave books of the year series of posts. Over the next week I will be showcasing my favourite books of the year, last week I discussed mine and my kids fave book and this week I will be looking at my favourite cooking and food books, sewing, yarn and general craft books too.

Also I have a few books for whipup readers, so keep reading to find out which ones. Entries are open for 48 hours, winners will be chosen at random and will be notified via email. winners will be notified via email

Baking for me is different from cooking, baking is therapeutic, creative and fun, while cooking tends to be a laborious and thankless task. Cooking dinner day in and day out for fussy ungrateful eaters can be a debilitating experience. I see-saw between forcing everyone to eat it no matter what their opinion, to letting them off the hook if I just can’t be bothered arguing. Sometimes, rarely, a dinner comes along that everyone agrees is delicious and is eaten without fuss and even with everyone asking for seconds. What is that magic dinner you ask? Well to be honest it tends to be unrepeatable, depends largely on the phase of the moon and how much sugar has been consumed earlier in the day.

A couple of my current batch of favourite cookbooks have some recipes in them which have become firm favourites (I may be overdoing them though). Jamie’s Food Revolution has a section of curry pastes which is just fantastic, also some fabulous one-pot dishes which I am always on the look out for. His recipes are no-fail, they are simple, have excellent fresh flavours and his casual voice resonates strongly throughout. It is obvious he is passionate about food and cooking and that is why I keep coming back to his books again and again.

The Commonsense Kitchen by Tom Hudgens, is a new addition to my book shelf and a very welcome addition at that. I was intrigued to read about the Deep Springs College and their philosophy which resonated strongly with me. This book is all about good honest food, with 9 different types of beef stew (it is very important to buy quality grass fed beef that has had a happy life), delicious baked goods (these choc chip cookies for example) and along with 500 recipes are some lovely stories about life at the Deep Springs school. I wish I had gone to that school (but alas its boys only.) [Chronicle are kindly offering a copy of this book to a whipup reader - so please leave a comment telling us your all time favourite, no-fail, dinner dish to make for the family - if you have a link to the recipe include that too!]

Firm favourites in my kitchen, now and forever, include Apples for Jam and Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros. Both of these books are brim full of recipes gathered from all over the world, but suitable for family style cooking, full of glorious colourful images and what appears to be un-styled real delicious food, these books are accessible and easy to follow, with a great mix of easy recipes and extravagant exotic baked goods too.

When it comes to baking, I am in heaven, croissants, bagels, cakes, shortbreads cookies – its relaxing and fun, making something that everyone wants to eat, and everyone is crowding around waiting to taste test, lick the bowl or grab a bit of uncooked dough, wanting to help, watching in anticipation, it becomes a whole family experience. The Craft of Baking by Karen DeMasco was my favourite baking book of last year, with its salty sweet peanut brittle recipe becoming a firm favourite. Of course Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook has become sticky and stained from use, her croissants recipe has never failed me. But new to my kitchen this year is a beautiful book, Gran’s Kitchen by Natalie Oldfield, full of simple, delicious and traditional recipes. Yes there is a dinners section, but we skipped over that in favour of the chapter on morning tea. See my shortbread excursion which has some pics of the insides of this book too. [Hardie Grant has very kindly offered Whip Up readers a chance to win a copy of this book - which as it is not yet available in the US might be your only chance to get a copy before Christmas - so please leave a comment telling us your old favourite recipe to bake]

And because I like to know what I am eating, we try to eat as much local food, sustainably produced and/or organic food as possible. While this is not always easy or cheap, I find it so much more satisfying and tasty. So to that end, lately my husband and I have been researching and reading up about food politics and have found a few books to be better than others. What to Eat by Marion Nestle is extremely easy to read and understand without dumbing down the facts or glossing over the nasties. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan is also fascinating reading. I urge you to be more aware of what you are eating, where you are buying your food and what the ingredients are in those packaged foods you buy.

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