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Cheesy, Spicy Gnocchi with Greens & Beans from Zariz (Adeena Sussman), with Potato Gnocchi from Turkuaz Kitchen (Betul Tunc) - this was fantastic!! Very hearty with a rich umami-packed flavour. I used Parmesan instead of cheddar. The gnocchi were great too - my first time making them and I don’t have a potato ricer, so they looked rather lumpy when raw, but it wasn’t noticeable at all after cooking.

Unscrambled Menemen with Leftover Bread from Sebze (Ozlem Warren) - delicious breakfast. Mine came out drier than the picture so the bread didn’t have much to soak up, but still great. Would make again, which is saying something because I hate cleaning the cast iron pan with a burning passion

Chraime from The Jewish Cookbook (Leah Koenig) - also amazing!! I used frozen cod - was down to the last two pieces, so I had leftover sauce for lunch the next day. It tasted even better a day later. This entire book is surprisingly good, Leah Koenig‘s recipes seem to always work for me.

Orange and Black-Olive Raddichio Salad from Madaq (Nargisse Benkabbou) - this was a good salad, but I find raddichio just too bitter. I really enjoyed every forkful with an orange slice in it, but not so much otherwise.

Amba Butter Beans, Sage & Garlic Crisp from Centrepiece (Helen Graham) - I made the beans per the recipe but topped with store-bought chilli crisp oil, fried onions, and a gremolata from Tahini Baby. It was an extremely quick and filling meal, tasted great and worked well as a cold dish. I thought a teaspoon of amba wouldn’t be enough but it was bright and fresh and cut through the richness of the cream.

The library’s big annual book sale doesn’t start for another two weeks, so their bookstore shelves have been pretty bare. I popped in today and found this for $10, so had to take it home!

This lovely, light cake came together pretty well! The cake recipe was clear and easy to follow, but I found the diplomat cream recipe a little light on details (which seems to be a pattern in this book). It was really difficult and messy to slice the cake in half and I lost some of the almond topping while doing it. Also, it was hard to tell if the cake was done cause of the topping and the fact that it was in a springform pan. I baked it for the full 30 min just in case and it came out nicely brown all around.

I recently got Dessert Person out of the library and this is the first thing I made, for a neighbour’s 95th birthday. I unfortunately did not have time to make the crust, but the mousse was fantastic and tart and fruity. There was some left over, it’s great by itself.

Damenkapritzen from Viennese Bakery (Bernadette Worndl) - buttery cookies topped with orange marmalade and Swiss meringue. A lot of work, and they were less flavourful than anticipated. These were the first thing I made from Viennese Bakery and my impression is that the instructions are pretty sparse. In this recipe, for example, it says to whip the meringue for 20 min ”until it reaches meringue consistency”🙄 I browsed the rest of the book and this seems like a pattern. The book might be a better fit for an experienced baker or someone already familiar with Viennese desserts.

Cranberry-Pomegranate Mousse Pie from Dessert Person (Claire Saffitz) - I did not have time to make the crust, but the mousse came out great! Wonderfully tart and a unique way to use cranberries.

Nutella Cheesecake from Golden (Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packet) - so good I didn’t manage a photo before half of it was gone!! The cake was delicious and creamy. There was a large and very wobbly bit in the middle after baking, so I let it cool in the oven for a couple hours and it came out perfect. The crust was amazing and I’ve since used it for a different mousse cake.

Piri-piri Tofu Over Crispy Orzo from Mezcla (Ixta Belfrage) - fantastic dish with excellent flavours and textures. I used arugula and firm tofu instead of spinach and silken tofu. The orzo had some excellent crunch on the bottom. This was surprisingly fast to make too, and I’m impressed that everything came together within the exact timelines the recipe specified. I feel like Mezcla is underrated!

Ultimate Shroom Shawarma from Tahini Baby (Eden Grinshpan) - this is on repeat at our place. The spice mix is delicious.

Spiced Split Pea Stew from The Jewish Cookbook (Leah Koenig) - not much to look at but amazing flavour thanks to a really great Berbere spice mix.

Aubergine Kjufte from Doma (Spasia Pandora Dinkovski) - nice veggie ćufte (as my people would call them), but I think these would have held together better if I’d chopped the eggplant even smaller. I baked these instead of frying.

Roasted Rainbow Bell Pepper Salad from Balaboosta (Einat Admony) - simple dish with a great sweet/tart flavour.

Braised Red Cabbage and Apple from The Jewish Cookbook (Leah Koenig) - I didn’t have red cabbage, clearly. This was another surprisingly tasty dish and a great way to use cabbage, but probably better for fall/winter.

Hot Sauce Chickpeas with Turmeric Potatoes from Full of Beans (Amelia Christie-Miller) - mine didn’t turn out very spicy, but the flavours were really interesting with curry leaves, mustard seeds, and turmeric. Quite hearty and my partner was a big fan.

I continue to be confused by this book. I tried the poppy seed cookie recipe and got something that looks nothing like the accompanying photo. I tried to see if I could get closer to the book photo - in my second pic, from left to right, we have: cookie baked exactly per the recipe, each ~20g, baked for 14 min; 12 g cookie baked for 8 min; 12 g cookie refrigerated and baked for 10 min; 12 g cookie refrigerated and baked for 10 min, but this time with fan turned off. As you can see, none are even close.

The cookies in the book photo are much lighter, thicker, and cracked on top. For that reason, I was expecting more of a shortbread, but this recipe definitely won’t achieve that regardless of baking time.

Still tastes good though!

Colorful Vegetable Kugel from Shabbat (Adeena Sussman) - this is one of our favourite dishes (and a great way to use up zucchini!). I use a spiralizer and/or julienne peeler for the veggies…it’s still time-consuming and a PITA, but helps! The recipe calls for a huge amount of oil (1/3 cup + 1/4 cup); I’ve never used this much, I just eyeball it and it seems to work 🤷 the flavour as written is quite mild so I usually add more/different spices. This time it was leftover ranch spice from TJ’s, tasted great.

Jam and Poppy Seed Kugel from The Jewish Cookbook (Leah Koenig) - super simple recipe that came together very quickly. I didn’t have poppy seed, so mine was just classic apple and cinnamon.

It’s beet season and I had quite a few to use up from my CSA box! The recipes called for roasted, boiled, and raw beets. Boiling in the InstantPot was the easiest method. I can‘t say I love beets (I’ve mostly had them in borscht), but these were all great and I’d happily eat them again.

Roasted Beets with Grilled Halloumi and Parsley Walnut Gremolata from The Arabesque Table (Reem Kassis) - I loved this one. The combination of textures and flavours worked really well and it was easy to prepare.

Beet and Walnut Salad from Balaboosta (Einat Admony) - excellent, love the orange zest in this one. A really nice summery dish.

Lentil Bulgur Salad with Marinated Beet from The Arabesque Table (Reem Kassis) - another excellent dish. This one was the most meal-like of the bunch. I used canned lentils instead of cooking dry ones. It looked much more like the photo on day 2, when everything got pink!

Green Beans with Black Bean Sauce from To Asia, With Love (Hetty Lui McKinnon) - the sauce was freaking amazing and the dish came together really quickly. The green beans had just the right amount of snap. There was lots of sauce left over and I used it for stir-fried veggies the next day.

Scruffy Aubergine Parmigiana from Proper Healthy (Calum Harris) - I love a tofu-based sauce but this was disappointingly bland (despite the mustard, balsamic, and miso?!). The ratio of eggplant to zucchini felt off and slicing the zucchini lengthwise made it unwieldy to eat.

Sautéed Greens with Yoghurt, Fried Onions and Turmeric Oil from Lugma (Noor Murad) - I made this to use up curly kale, collard greens, and beet tops, but it would work with any greens. It was really tasty and simple to prepare, excellent desk lunch!

Fennel, Kohlrabi & Cilantro Salad from Boustany (Sami Tamimi) - refreshing, summery salad with unique vegetables. I appreciate the yogurt dressing. The kohlrabi needs to be sliced very thin (on a mandoline) but I think matchsticks would also work. Personally it came out a little too salty for me as written - I used table salt and perhaps kosher salt was intended (it didn’t say).

ETA: the typo in the title is driving me crazy but I can’t edit it 😂

I followed the recipe for the dough but shaped it into 16 smaller rolls and baked at 350F for 40 min. I also used much less butter than called for - I didn’t really measure it, just smeared to cover each piece of dough before rolling, and then more on top. Smells and tastes amazing!!

These tasted fantastic - licorice and chocolate are great together and the brown sugar gave a depth and richness to the meringue.

The texture was not good. The recipe calls for 25 min at 300 F, then remove from the oven to cool on a wire rack. I know that this is not how meringue is made, but I did it anyway because I thought maybe it would work this time, especially given the author’s good reputation. It didn’t. The cookies are barely holding together and their tops have cracked. Per the recipe, this is not intentional as they should “firm up” and “be chewy”. They definitely needed more time in the oven (at a lower temperature) followed by cooling in the oven overnight.

Generally, I’m not sure about this book. There are a heck of a lot of recipes, but many of them are for very similar cookies. Some countries are overrepresented (Italy - 18 recipes) while entire continents are barely represented (sub-Saharan Africa - 9 recipes). Also many cookie names are needlessly translated - macarons are called “almond meringue cookie sandwiches” for reasons that are not immediately apparent to me.

Anyone else cooking from this? I have lots of recipes flagged but am sceptical.

Very tender, soft, fluffy rolls that, per the recipe, “have to look like butts“. These were fairly straightforward to make. I didn’t have barley malt syrup so used honey, which I think accounts for my much lighter colour. The recipe calls for 12-15 min baking time, but my rolls were in there for 23 minutes even though I made them smaller than the recipe calls for (mine were ~97 g for 10, recipe is 105 g for nine).

Onion Brioche from Dobre Dobre (Laurel Kratochvila) - these came out very tender and soft. Personally, I find the dough a little sweet for an onion bun. The recipe even calls for a tsp of vanilla, which I left out - I get that it’s a base dough with multiple applications, but it seems better suited to dessert buns.

Green Zucchini Fritters from Zaytinya (José Andrés) - fritters were delicious and light (for fritters!). I didn’t love the orange blossom water in the sauce.

Poppy Seed Sticks from Dobre Dobre (Laurel Kratochvila) - I didn’t have poppy seeds so mine were topped with Maldon salt. Very soft and pillowy! They did not keep well.

Tuna Filling from Golden (Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich) - a nice non-mayo tuna salad. This is one of those things that seems obvious but I never would have thought to combine. I didn’t have harissa so used ajvar.

Gram Flour Shortbread from Golden (Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich) - I love Persian chickpea flour cookies and these are very much in the same vein. They are very crumbly with a subtle rose flavour. I convection baked on 375F for 18 min total, which was my mistake, so they came out quite a bit darker than intended.

Rosemary and thyme farinata from OTK Extra Good Things (Noor Murad and Yotam Ottolenghi) - I’m so impressed that chickpea flour and water alone made a bread?! 🤯 That said, I didn’t love the texture of this (not a problem with the recipe, just don't think I like farinata). Also, this looks lovely decorated with sprigs of rosemary, but don’t use woody branches like I did!

Cabbage, pea and dill fritters from Kapusta (Alissa Timoshkina) - this was freaking amazing, like Eastern European okonomiyaki. Served with tzatziki sauce from Tahini Baby (not pictured).

Chocolate and Sour Cherry Brownies from Sabzi (Yasmin Khan) - this was a bad recipe, unfortunately. It calls for adding vanilla extract to melted chocolate, which absolutely caused my chocolate to seize. The recipe doesn’t specify whether to use dried or fresh cherries; I had fresh but 55 g is like 10 cherries, so the author probably meant dried. I baked for 10 min longer than called for and still got an incredibly mushy brownie. And I’m not sure the almond meal added anything.

Ijjeh from Golden (Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer) - this was delicious. Making it in a non-stick pan and flipping halfway through was much faster than a traditional baked frittata.

Soft egg cookies from Crumbs (Ben Mims) - quick and easy sponge cookies. The texture is really lovely - crisp, crunchy edges with a soft middle. I made the vanilla version this time, but suspect cardamom would be even better.

Romano beans with tahina and egg from Berber&Q: On Vegetables (Josh Katz) - this was alright, tasted mostly of tomato. (Where are all the really great Romano bean recipes?!)

Creamy Mushroom, Tofu, and Kale Pasta from Sabzi (Yasmin Khan) - the silken tofu sauce was really good! I made mine with kohlrabi greens and spinach and that worked too.

This is my first bake from Dobre Dobre. I followed the recipe exactly, weighing all ingredients. There was just too much cake for the 9”x9” pan called for in the recipe and 9”x13” would have been more appropriate (as I should have known when the recipe called for 1.4 kg (!!) of fruit). As a result, both the meringue and pinched layers were above the level of the pan and it was impossible to remove the cake without it breaking. My cake looks chunkier and the bottom layer much thicker than the book photo, which makes me suspect the author used either a larger pan or a smaller quantity of dough.

There were no instructions about how to place the pinched dough layer. I ended up flattening the pinched dough in my fingers and tiling it over the top of the meringue, leaving gaps.

The recipe called for a 15-20 min blind bake and 25 min final bake. I did a 20 min blind bake but could have gone longer is retrospect. I did 40 min at the end to get closer to the colour in the book.

In the end, the cake is alright. I love the different textures but it’s too sweet for my palate - possibly the blueberries I used were quite sweet to begin with - and might be more to my liking with a tart fruit like cranberries.

Three dishes made lately from the vegetables in my CSA box:

Green on green on green from Sesame (Rachel Simons) - delicious and crunchy and filling. The almond dukkah is great. My partner thought it was delicious despite being healthy 🙃

Raw courgette salad with mint, basil and toasted almonds from Oren (Oded Oren) - not bad but underwhelming and basic for a cookbook recipe. Would have made a good side but I wanted it for lunch and it didn’t work for that purpose.

Grilled Romano beans with walnuts and tzatziki from Tahini Baby (Eden Grinshpan) - this was also delicious, love the charred beans (made them in a George Foreman grill!)