I have a wall of books in my house…. and they are all cookbooks!
Some call it an unhealthy obsession, I call it my wall of wonderous! The collection started with just one bookcase and then the Cookbook Challenge hit (see below) and with a noisy neighbour on one side it was a natural sound barrier and a reason for me to cook!
I have learnt so much since this wall appeared, I have made many firsts – paella, gnocchi, whole roasted fish, perfect roasts and the trickiest of them all baking cakes!
The cooking from one cookbook every week was a bit intense so now I have a whole month to enjoy and it is making cooking a real pleasure!
The 2012 F.A.T Cookbook Challenge
At least one recipe from one book, every week for a whole year!! The Challenge is 52 Books!
We did it!!! 52 Books, 52 Weeks, 205 Recipes!
I learnt to cook and crack crabs! Make Paella, Bake much better, learnt much more about food, ingredients and flavour! We avoided visiting super markets for a whole month and re-discovered markets, tried to macarons, mastered curry, embraced veggies and made our waistlines a little bigger!!
Though it was fun and we have a LOT of cookbooks now there were times I wanted to go back to a book or just cook from whatever I felt like! So 2013 will be less of a challenge and more of an adventure in cookbooks!!
Off to celebrate, Happy New Year and may 2013 be full of food and smiles!! 🙂
2012 Cookbook Challenge :- Recipe counter: 205
Week 52 – Book 52 – Veggies with Simon Bryant
Recipe count 1 (Total 205)
Week 51 – Book 51 Lantern Classics Matt Moran Great little book packed with flavour!!
Recipe count 3 (Total 204)
Week 51 – Book 50 – Hairy Dieters Such a cute book from the big boys who have shrunk!! Be a good one to go back to in the New Year!
Recipe count 1 (Total 201)
Week 50 – Book 50 Simple Pleasures
Love this lady and this book is another brilliant one stop shop for fantastic recipes that you will use for a multitude of occasions and will go back to time and time again!!
Recipe count 3 (Total 200)
Week 49 – Book 49 Big Book of One Pot
HEaps of great recipes, will have to go back to this one soon!!
Recipe count 1 (Total 197)
Week 49 – Book 48 Lemoncello & Linen Water
Gorgeous book, wish I wasn’t flying through in the challenge – will have to come back soon!!
Recipe count 3 (Total 196)
Week 48 – Book 47 – Swedish Cakes
Great little book!!
Recipe count 1 (Total 193)
Week 48 – Book 46 – Big Book of Salads
Salads aplenty! Pretty much anything you desire!
Recipe count 2 (Total 192)
Week 48 – Book 45 – Burgers
Everyone loves a burger!! This is the burger book! Fish, Chicken, Beef, Mexican… its all here!!
Recipe count 2 (Total 190)
Week 47 – Book 44 Greek Cookery from the Hellenic Heart
Amazing book packed full of real family cooking for everyone to enjoy! We had a fantastic urban family mezze!
Recipe count 5 (Total 188)
Week 47 – Book 43 – The Big Book of BBQ
Anything you can put on a BBQ including some great salads, dressing and sides! LOVED these burgers they were AMAZING!!
Recipe count 2 (Total 183)
Week 50 – Book 42 – Womens Weekly Little Squares & Slices
Great little book, I reckon you could cook anything from this and it would be fab!!
Recipe count 1 (Total 181)
Week 46 – Book 41 – 15 minute meals
AMAZING! Mr O you have done it again!! Will be back to make everything from this one!
Recipe count 3 (Total 180)
Week 45 – Book 40 – Ultimate Cookery Course with Gordon Ramsey
Brilliant book! Loved the TV Series and this has all the good stuff ready to go!
Recipe count 9 (Total 177)
Week 38 – Book 40 OMG I Can Eat That
A journey is reduction of boombah!!
Recipe count 1 (Total 168)
Week 37 – Book 39 Maggie Beers Cookery Classic
Verjuice anyone!? Amazing little book of great Maggie basics!!
Recipe count 7 (Total 167)
Week 36 – Book 38 Two Greedy Italians
LOVE these boys! Totally amazing week of cooking, glorious food and didn’t spend much!!
Recipe count 10 (Total 160)
Week 35 – Book 37 Food Safari
Love this book, amazing curry adventures from all around the world! There are lots of other recipes but we were in a curry mood!!!
Recipe count 7 (Total 150)
Week 34 – Book 36 Gizzi’s Kitchen Magic
Amazing book! Totally loved cooking from this baby, learnt to make really good scrambled eggs!
Recipe count 10 (Total 143)
Week 34 – Books 34 and 35 Macaron and Bake
Macarons are tricky!! But we make some other fabulous treats!!
Recipe count 4 (Total 133)
Week 34 – Book 33 Guillaume Food For Friends
Amazing food! Love Chef Guillaume and love his food! Finished off the week with a trip back to the Bistro!
Recipe count 7 (Total 129)
Week 33 – Book 32 Masterchef 3
So good dishes from the Masterchef peeps!
Recipe count 2 (Total 122)
Week 32 – Books 28, 29, 30, 31 Lots of books! Nigella, Gordon and Stephanie!
All my favourite Xmas books for Xmas in July! Amazing dishes!
Recipe count 6 (Total 120)
Week 31 – Book 27 Slow Cooking with Margaret Fulton
Love Slow Cooking and this has a few different recipes including the best pie filling ever!!
Recipe count 3 (Total 114)
Week 26 – Book 26 Sophie Dahl Miss Dahls Voluptous Delights
Gorgeous book from an unlikely cook! Really easy and wholesome food!
Recipe count 1 (Total 113)
Week 26 – Book 25 Sally Wise Slow Cooker 2
Fantastic books, love all of Sally’s book and even though there are no pictures she is my go to for slow cooking.
Recipe count 3 (Total 112)
Week 24 – Book 24 Jenny Craig Healthy Living for the Family
Still trying to keep it healthy! Another great book for simple, quick, no fuss healthy cooking!
Recipe count 7 (Total 108)
Week 23 – Book 23 The Biggest Loser Cookbook
‘Kilo’July’ – trying to eat a little better and this book is a great one to refer to to remember how to get good flavour without the fat! Didn’t cook as much as I would like from this one but we will be back!
Recipe count 1 (Total 101)
Week 22 – Book 22 Best Ever Recipes Slow Cooking
Love the slow cooker and with a stock of great sausages we have some good ‘one pot wonders’ on the way!!
Recipe count 2 (Total 100)
Week 20 – Book 21 Poh’s Kitchen with Poh Ling Yeow
Very excited! I have been meaning to try this book for ages since we watched the tv series and I wanted to try every recipes! Selecting the weeks worth has been really hard as there are so many good ones to try! Cannot wait!!
Recipe count 5 (Total 98)
Week 19 – Book 20 Jamie’s Great Britain with Jamie Oliver
Had to try this book for the 12 hour rabbit recipe, cook low and long until every falls apart and you just pull out the bones and you have the best ragu ever!! Well it was a great book and there were some highs… and some high temperatures and some burnt rabbit!! But we will try again another time!!
Recipe count 8 (Total 93)
Week 17 – Book 19 Cook like a Rock Star with Anne Burrell
Great book for the week with wonderful roast pork, rich chicken and yummy soup!
Recipe count 3 (Total 85)
Week 16 – Book 18 Garden to Table with Annie Smithers
Such a gorgeous book with fail safe recipes that deliver the best flavours for the season.
Recipe count 7 (Total 82)
Week 15 – Book 17 Matthew Evans – Winter on the Farm
Such a wonderful book of amazing winter warmers!
Recipe count 2 (Total 75)
Week 13 – Book 16 Jamie Oliver – Jamie’s Italy
Best pizza dough recipe ever!!
Recipe count 1 (Total 73)
Week 12 – Book 15 Pete Evans My Kitchen
Absolutely brilliant book of really easy and super tasty meals – loved!
Recipe count 9 (Total 72)
Week 12 – Book 14 Rick Stein – Seafood
The seafood bible from the master! Step by step techniques for all fish great and small and beautiful recipes.
Recipe count 1 (Total 64)
Week 9 Book 13 – Janelle Bloom Fave Food For all Seasons
Gorgeous book of simple and flavoursome cooking!
Recipe count 6 (Total 63)
Week 8 – Book 12 Balance and Harmony with Neil Perry Only a short dabble in this amazing book packed full of the art of Asian flavour!
Recipe count 2 (Total 57)
Week 7 – Book 11 Simple Dinners with Donna Hay
Gorgeous, Gorgeous, Gorgeous – loved cooking from this book, everything was pretty easy and came out so well…. well most of it!! Fabulous – totally recommend!
Recipe count 8 (Total 55)
Week 6 – Book 10 Veg Everyday with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Such a beautiful book with fantastic recipes, brilliant!
Recipe count 5 (Total 47)
Week 5 book 9 Free Range in The City with Annabel Langbein
Annabel does it again! A fantastic book filled with fabulous recipes that all good home cooks can serve up and wow the table!
Recipe count 9 (Total 41)
Week book 8 – Super Natural Everyday with Heidi Swanson
I love this book! Amazing recipes, simple but really effective techniques to serve up wonderful food and I didn’t even notice no meat!! I was also lucky enough to do a little Q&A with Heidi and learn even more!
Recipe count 9 (Total 32)
Week 3 Book 7 Quiches and Frittatas
Nice, easy book packed full of all those eggy recipes!
Recipe Counter 1 (Total 23)
Week 3 – Book 6 Kitchen by Nigella Lawson
Absolutely adored this book, I could keep cooking for many more weeks but next week is a new book! If you want a quick, simple, tasty packed recipes then this is definitely the book for you!
Recipe count 7 (Total 22)
Week 2 Books 3, 4, 5 & 6
Big day in the kitchen and a few more books to try with Eat Fresh from Annabel Langbein, How to be a domestic Goddess from Nigella Lawson and Vegetables.
Recipe count 4 (Total 15)
Week 2 Book 2 Paella with Alberto Harraiz
Amazing book, so many great recipes and really easy!
Recipe counter 2 (Total 11)
Week 1 – Book 1 – Best Of Bill with Bill Grainger
Loved cooking with The Best of Bill – lots of lovely everyday recipes with simple, effective techniques and readily available ingredients. There was a great mix of recipes for all different times and occasions including some great breakies and sweet treats. The recipes all worked really well…. except when I strayed from them!
Recipe counter 9
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Twitter #2012cookbookchallenge
Sounds like quite a challenge. Are you buying new books as you go, or relying on oldies? The food-related reading material is already out of hand in our household – read more about that littler matter here – http://thefoodsage.com.au/2011/09/13/stop-the-food-press-please/
I’m looking forward to following your challenge.