Cookbook Case Studies

Recently, I've been thinking more about menu planning. While most of our meals are either quick and simple foods that I can prepare at the end of a long day of work, I decided that I also needed to make use of some of the many cookbooks I have bought, yet sit mostly decoratively on the shelf. Sure I open them frequently to flick through and look for inspiration, but I very rarely cook from them.


Cookbook Shelf


To remedy this, I've made a list of all the cookbooks we currently own. My intention is to make at least three recipes out of each book (two savoury, one or two sweet), and writing about my efforts, before moving on to the next book.

The first book, chosen for it's location on the top of the pile, is Vegetarian Cooking without: Recipes Free from Added Gluten, Sugar, Yeast, Dairy Products, Meat, Fish, Saturated Fat.



When I first started going gluten free, I figured it would be a good idea to get some new cookbooks (really, I never need much of an excuse). I'd previously decided it wasn't really worth buying cookbooks that were not vegetarian, as it seems a waste to buy and store so many recipes I will not use. Additionally, as my experience with restaurant menus indicated that the most common gluten free options were not vegetarian, I wanted to make sure that any cookbook contained something that I could eat. This strategy cut down the number of gluten free cookbooks available to me. This book was one of the three I bought.

The recipes I bookmarked to make were:

Three Bean Chilli
Vegetable and Ginger Casserole with Herb Dumplings
Gingerbread Cake
Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake

In the following week or so, I'll write about each of these recipes