Eats (enjoy all the seconds) – 135 colourful recipes to savour and save
Mary Rolph Lamontagne (Random Struik, R250)
The author confides that the inspiration for the book was a lightbulb moment while working for a bush camp in Botswana. They were low on stock and leftovers were building up in the fridge. High-paying guests were expecting an enjoyable meal.
But apart from good recipes, the book also provides practical solutions for reusing ingredients to create exciting meals. Leftover is a word that has many roll their eyes, but if working wisely and imaginatively, it doesn’t have to be that way.
She has divided the book into colours to make it simple for the user. Wading through the index it is divided into greens, purples, reds, yellows and whites.
Starting with green, she has zucchini (baby marrow) and offers three recipes. She also adds health benefits like the fact that zucchini is beneficial in keeping cholesterol down, a buying and storing guide, as well as green-finger pointers which tells you how to grow this particular veggie.
Eggplant is the obvious purple veg, but there’s beetroot, red cabbage, blueberries and plums too. Beetroot could present you with a tart with baby rocket, health benefits that include a reminder that the folate in this particular veg is good for pregnancy, a storing tip that includes facts like frozen, canned or pickled are all options, and a green finger tip to advise you that beetroot stains everything yet salt and lemon juice are effective to remove stains from your hands.
Is there anything prettier than a strawberry. This is the preferred red fruit and the recipes include balsamic strawberries, a muesli breakfast special and strawberry tiramisu. Strawberry vodka lemonade is a refreshing drink and quick strawberry jam is perfect served with scones and cream. I could as easily pick watermelon, which is one of my favourite fruits. Serve it simply with mint, as a watermelon and lemon spritzer, as granita or as a watermelon gazpacho and one of my best salads, watermelon, feta and rocket with a balsamic dressing.
For the yellows it’s hard to move past an old South African favourite, corn on the cob or mealies made as we love it most. There can’t be a more comfy meal than mealies thickly spread with farm butter, but Lamontagne gives it an Asian twist with a contemporary touch of olive oil, chilli powder and lime juice.
White foods naturally include cauliflower, mushrooms, bananas with a decadent peanut butter and banana smoothie and pears.
It’s a great way to create a cookbook and for the author it’s also about celebrating each step taken to to create new dishes from leftovers or recycling certain food items.
Take baby steps, she warns, and you will be surprised by the outcome. But I also think she would be surprised by South Africans who are not such a wasteful society as she might have been familiar with in Montreal. We probably live closer to the soil with our beautiful climate and yet, with her fresh eye, her ideas are handy as she stretches those groceries fresh or otherwise to go as far as they can.
Boere Chic – a fresh take on traditional foods
Nicky Brecher (Metz Press, R235)
To this day, the author still uses her grandmother’s handwritten recipe for rusks. The flavours of her granny’s scrumptious boerekos and her mother’s home-made breads are among her earliest memories.
As the winner of the Top Ten Home Cooks, she realised that she did have something to offer and, for her, it had to come from the home. She’s a popular caterer and known for her innovative party ideas.
Her husband Laurie is a master braaier and that also plays into her menus and recipes. Just a few glances and reading some of the snippets, it’s clear that this is someone who does whatever she does well. If something fails it wouldn’t be for lack of trying, but I suspect it doesn’t often happen.
Her food was offered to family and friends and countless batches would be made before she would give it the go-ahead. The dishes – from the venison and pork rilettes to the French toast with berries and yogurt, lemon and garlic chicken, baked cheese ramekins – all feel like food that can be served at home or tarted up a little for a fancy do.
Condensed Milk – everyone’s guilty secret
Cleta Joannou (Human and Rousseau, R225)
I once went to a family birthday party where the hostess, who was celebrating her 50th, said that all 20 puddings had condensed milk as the main ingredient. It was what she loved and on this special occasion that was her dream.
The title of the book suggests that most of us fancy this sweet decadence even though sugar is now the big evil.
This author has no such qualms. She knows there’s a passion out there, and if this is an ingredient that makes your heart flutter, go for it. From baked cheese cakes to fridge tarts, cakes, tartlets, rusks, truffles, brownies and a whole chapter on ice creams, with chocolate fudge, Italian kisses and pistachio all part of the list. The author is of Greek descent and this book is a testament to her passion for the sweet things in life.
Best Bakes – Foolproof Recipes for Every Occasion
Clover (Lapa, R194,95)
This is the 15th book in this particular series, which says they’re getting it right. It also means that they have to keep abreast of the trends out there on the tea tables.
From disarming Greek-style shortbread, coffee and macadamia biscotti, nutty pecan and brown sugar rusks, pear and ginger muffins, a sour cream and blueberry loaf to an old-fashioned but beautiful poppy seed pound loaf, decadent cherry-choc brownies, chocolate fudge cake with caramel filling and pistachio cake... the list doesn’t stop, and it sounds magnificent.
With 15 books already in their arsenal, I would say go for it if baking is what you enjoy or if you simply need one to reach for when you have to do something for the bazaar or for one of the children at school.
Yum Mo – Fun, fresh food for students and beginners
Carina Truyts (Human and Rousseau, R200)
This is exactly when you want to start. It’s probably something that you will have to do for the rest of your life, you might as well get it right as quickly as you can. Boere Chic’s Nicky Brecher says she taught her three sons to cook and they were huge hits in their varsity digs. I can just imagine.
It’s also a time when students can experiment with food and friendship, when we gather around the table with food the meal becomes much more than just that. Ordinary meals can be turned into feasts with the right enthusiasm and energy
“If food is sustenance, then the kitchen is the home of our hearts, the place of cups of tea and coffee and long chats; for laughs, and collective sighs at heaps of dishes.” So says the author, and sets out to teach students to cook with a huge element of play. “Do not be afraid of food, Tackle it, embrace it. Touch it, taste it. Explore, engage and experiment.”
That’s what she hopes her readers will do, and she has packed this book with advice that will get them off to a good start.
I would have loved it if someone had given me that head start. It would turn later kitchen experiments into much easier efforts.
Pretoria News