The Silver Spoon

I think I'm already bored of mediocre food. maybe it's my cooking. Maybe it's the books I'm using. Maybe it's from watching too much of the Food Network and Top Chef. Either way, I find myself having violent cravings for top quality cuisine...shellfish, gourmet French cooking, etc. So to satisfy myself I think next I will be turning to the Silver Spoon...the Italian Bible of cooking. It's a book I don't run across all that frequently, and I stumbled across a used copy for just $8 at a library book sale last year. Apparently every self respecting Italian has this on their bookshelf, and from what I've tried out of this book so far, so should every American. 

I should probably interject at this point that I have a very strong propensity to love mainly French and Italian food so I suppose I was already predisposed to love this book. I'm wondering if those tastes will change this year or only intensify. 

The Silver Spoon is a book I could get lost in. There are easily over 1000 recipes in this, and each one makes my mouth water desperately. I could easily spend a year with this book alone. A year. Or two. Or three. 

Each recipe in this is classically Italian...simple, fresh ingredients, basic instructions, nothing overly complicated, and very, very accessible. It will make you love food if you don't already. 

For example...brussels sprouts. I've hated them my entire life. They're stinky, they're bitter, and they look like little green brains. I originally made the Parmesan Brussles Sprouts recipe for my husband as he loves the nasty things. Of course,  I tasted my own cooking to make sure it was edible. It was delicious. Now I must have made this recipe 3 or 4 times since, and I usually make it just for me. It's simply boiled brussels sprouts that are then sauteed in browned butter with a little nutmeg and a lot of Parmesan. I think the trick that makes it so delicious is that they cook long enough to kill any bitterness, and that browned butter. Mmm. 

The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook

I adore this book. Everything I've made out of it is delicious, and it's one of those books you just know you can rely on the recipes...they always turn out perfect even if you mess them up! Jack Bishop must be a genius if he can write a recipe that still works even if ingredients are missing, due to cook error. I must make a note to grab whatever else he's written. 

I'm debating making this blog public. I really can't decide, but am starting to figure there's not really much of a reason to keep it private if I'm not including a ton of personal information in it. I guess the only thing really stopping me at this point is if I wanted to somehow make a book out of it at the end, then I'd probably want to make sure all of this information was kept a little more proprietary, you know? 

This all brings me to another point. If I do decide to take it public, I really need to work on the organization factor. Rather than keeping a done list going on here, I've decided to just make an alphabetical one in an Excel file. That way I can reserve this for reviews and such, and don't have to worry about making a master list also somehow fit in. 

I do have a small fear about the project, though, that I don't think I've yet mentioned. I'm starting to have a bit of trepidation that if I start cooking and eating and exploring all this fabulous food, that I'm going to become a very picky eater and not settle for just ok food anymore. That's fine and all, and I suppose part of the whole point of things...to develop my palate...but you know, things can start to get pretty expensive when you won't put up with eating crap. Or even eating mediocrity. So we'll see. 

But back to The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook. This book has the single best recipe for butternut squash soup that I've ever eaten. It's freaking fantastic, and very easy, and the purchase price of the book is worth it for this recipe alone. Seriously, even if you're not a Vegetarian, if you even remotely like Italian food or cooking, you should probably buy this book!

Silver Palate The New Basics

9. The New Basics Cookbook - Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins

Most everything I've made out of this book is freaking delicious. The organization of the book definitely leaves something to be desired. The two big standout recipes though, were the Spaghetti Squash Casserole and Salmon With Sesame Butter. The squash casserole was a bit of a weird microwave everything process, and used about a million plates to cook everything, but it was so good I could probably eat it every day for the rest of my life. The salmon was absurdly easy...all you have to do is make the butter, broil salmon, and voila...you have a company ready recipe. 

More Recipes From a Kitchen Garden

Recipe #3 from this book was Julia's Carrot Tzimmes. It's essentially a baked dish of sweet potatoes, carrots, and prunes in a honey-stock-spice sauce. I picked it partially because I had some sweet potatoes and carrots to use up, and partially because I'm not sure that I'd ever eaten prunes before. Let's just say, I was scared of the prunes. The recipe was incredibly easy and surprisingly delicious. It's super sweet and tastes kind of like pumpkin pie. 

Pre-January 1st done list

1. Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone - Deborah Madison

2. Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook

3. Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites

4. 1001 Low-Fat Vegetarian Recipes

5. Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons - Nava Atlas

6. Simply Vegetarian - Nancy Mair and Susan Rinzler

7. Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook Celebrating the Promise (the pink edition)

8. The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook - The Original Classics

There are more done books. But I can't get to them right now because the Christmas tree is in the way. I'll add those in later as I run across them. 

The beginning

I don't really make New Year's resolutions. Before the start of every year, I make some goals for things I want to accomplish during that year. This year, one of the things I want to do is to work through all my cookbooks.  My collection is out of control.  It's not like normal peoples' cookbook collections. It has overflowed beyond an entire bookcase.  Yes, that's a 5-shelved book CASE.  I don't have a total count on them. I know it's beyond 500...probably somewhere closer to 1000. I don't really want to know. I think it's too many. But for the most part they've all been handpicked, or were gifts and I am hesitant to just discard them without a second thought. So this brings me back to the goal. 

My plan is to cook 5 recipes out of each book before I consider it "done".  I figure just cooking one or two doesn't really give you a feel for if the recipes work well or are to your taste. And any more than that and good god I'd never finish working through them. 

Working through the books will serve a number of purposes. Mainly, I'm doing it to whittle down my collection. If I make 5 recipes out of a book, and the majority of them are bad (or maybe even mediocre...we'll see if I need to pare down further), I'll sell/donate the book. Otherwise it stays. I'm also hoping this will keep me cooking at home more, which *ideally* will have me spending less money on eating out. Also, it will increase my repetoire of what I can cook, I'll learn new skills, techniques, etc., and I'm hoping it will make me more adventurous in what I'm willing to eat. 

I've been trying to figure out a way to track the books...the number and titles that I've gone through, and figured what better way than through a blog. This way I can also track the recipes I've made and be able to reflect on if I've actually met my goals. I have a number of books that are already "done", which I'll start a list for, and will help me feel like I've already got a head start on the task before me.  Essentially, it's my very own Julie/Julia experiment.