Cookbook Review: Zoe's Ghana Kitchen: An Introduction to New African Cuisine – From Ghana With Love

Now that the holidays are over, and we have our health under control (fingers crossed real hard) I am excited to break out of the struggle meals rut I had been in through most of last year.

#FoodAndLit is a challenge on the Litsy app that I love, so of course it was that challenge that sent me back to the cookbook aisle at my library. This month we’re reading and eating from Ghana, and I was thrilled to find Zoe's Ghana Kitchen: An Introduction to New African Cuisine – From Ghana With Love by Zoe Adjonyoh.

This whole book was a pleasure to read. The recipes were well laid out, and the pictures were vibrant. I really enjoyed my time with it.

I ended up making two recipes: mango & pineapple salad and veggie jollof rice. This is such a great combination! I loved the spice mix in the rice, and the salad was so refreshing on a cold winter’s afternoon. (Full disclosure I am somehow out of paprika so my spices were different from the original recipe.)

I packaged up the rice and the salad for my lunches this week. Is there anything better than a week of rice? Maybe two weeks of rice?

Give this cookbook a try! It’s a winner!

Note: links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Fat

Growing up in the 90’s we were told fat was a villain, but of course we know now that it’s actually essential to human survival. In Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat we’re given the good advice to not add fat to your cooking, but to make better use of what you do have.

I had two good takeaways from this chapter:

1. Pair your fats from the region you’re cooking from

2. All good texture comes from fat

I haven’t decided yet what I want to cook inspired by this chapter, but now that Lent is over there’s a good chance it might be pie crust.

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SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT: Ceasar Salad

My first cooking experiment from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat was Caesar salad. One of my cooking rules is to not spend hours in the kitchen, but there’s also something decadent about leaving work on time during a busy week and making your own mayonnaise.

That’s how the recipe started- with homemade mayonnaise. It was just an egg yolk and olive oil, but it took a while. The recipe called for wrapping a bowl in a towel and whipping 3/4 of oil a drop at a time. I have my limits. I used an immersion blender. I was rewarded by a yellow liquid that looked nothing like mayonnaise. My bad, but I had used so much olive oil I wasn’t about to give up.

For the dressing the recipe called for whole anchovies mushed up, but I relied on my trusty anchovy paste. Other than that I made the recipe as written still using my immersion blender. The salad itself was simple- just some romaine with croutons. SFAH had a crouton recipe, but I was trying to clear out my kitchen and just used some leftover burger buns, more olive oil, and a garlic herb mix.

I didn’t have high hopes, but this was delicious! There was leftover dressing and it is being jealously guarded as a chicken marinate for later. I will be making this all summer!

Note: Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Salt

The first chapter in Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat is all about salt. Nosrat says In almost every case, anything you cook for yourself at home is more nutritious, and lower in sodium, than processed, prepared, or restaurant food.” and I like this book already.

This chapter was like a very delicious chemistry lesson. I loved the reminder that salt isn’t just what’s in the shaker. It’s also cheese, capers, and anchovies. Yum. I’ve been a vegetarian for a bit now, but I’m not ready to give up anchovy paste yet.

This chapter didn’t have any recipes in it, but it did make me hungry for a Cesar salad. So, that will be my experiment tomorrow. (I assumed making Cesar dressing from scratch would break my money and time budgets, but it doesn’t sound too bad. In theory. We’ll see.)

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Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat

Last year when my cooking felt stagnant I went back to basics and cooked from The New York Times Cookbook. I was feeling bored in the kitchen again lately so I decided to read and cook through a book I got as a gift a few years ago- Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat.

There are a few mental ground rules I’ve had to set for myself when I do something like this:

1. No pricey one time use ingredients

2. Adaptable for vegetarians

3. Can’t take hours to cook

I can’t wait!

COOKBOOK REVIEW: Mastering The Art of French Cooking by Julia Child

So glad my library has a good collection of cookbooks!

In July we did France for #FoodAndLit on Litsy. I didn’t even have to think about it- I was finally going to cook from Mastering The Art of French Cooking. Despite being a devoted fan of the Julia and Julie project back in the 00’s I’ve never cracked the spine of the book that inspired that brief national obsession.

Tomatoes from a stranger’s garden

I expected this to be hard to cook from, but it was actually really approachable. I marked several recipes that I had stuff on hand to try, but ended up going with Sauce Tomate because of the big bag of beautiful tomatoes someone gave us. I’ve never before put bacon in my tomato sauce, but it sounded amazing.

It was! I cooked the sauce down all day and then froze it with some beef strips. I reheated the whole thing yesterday in my crockpot. This will be a repeater!

For the Lit part of this #FoodAndLit challenge I ended up with two books. I re-read All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (holds up), and and in the middle of Black Water Lilies by Michel Bussi (gripping so far.)

Next month we’re on to Japan!

Back To The Library: The Essential New York Times Cookbook

I’ve had so much fun taking a deep dive into this book, but alas it’s due back at the library this week. I never even got to desserts! That’s a sure sign I should buy my own copy at some point.

All in all I made 14 recipes from this book. None, except for the mint julep, were terrible, but there are three that I really can’t wait to make again:

1. Yette’s Garden Platter

2. Boston Baked Beans

3. Elizabeth Frink’s Roast Lemon Chicken

Elizabeth Frink’s Roast Lemon Chicken

My love of recipes from the New York Times remains strong!

Next month I’m Mastering The Art of French Cooking!

Legumes, Legumes, The Magical Fruit: The Essential New York Times Cookbook

The New York Times Essential Cookbook Five Bean Salad

We’re a bean eating family. Even the meat eaters expect some kind of bean and cornbread meal once a week. It’s just what we like. And then come to find out that Amanda Hesser has a whole chapter on Potatoes, Corn, and Legumes? Be still my carb loving heart.

We tried three recipes from this chapter. Italian Roasted Potatoes were a good, basic potato dish. My son put them together for us one night when we were having sausages and peppers. He didn’t complain so they were probably pretty easy to make. We ate the five bean salad with sandwiches. I think I liked it more than anyone else. I made it with the garlic scapes that my friend rejected from her crop share instead of the scallions the recipe called for. Last but not least was the Boston Baked Beans which we all loved! I made it half with meat and half veggie. There was not a complaint that night. These beans were so good, flavorful without being syrupy. These will be on repeat for the rest of the summer. We ate them with hot dogs and corn bread - a cheap meal if you’re feeling pain at the grocery store like I am!

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Eat Your Vegetables! The Essential New York Times Cookbook

Yette’s Garden Platter from The Essential New York Times Cookbook

Amanda Hesser said that the first half of the 20th century was a black hole for vegetables in the New York Times food section. I can see that she struggled because there wasn’t a lot in this chapter. HOWEVER! I “discovered” Yette’s Garden Platter, a casserole of various vegetables on a potato base, and I will definitely be cooking this ALL SUMMER LONG. It was so simple and good. This is definitly one worth looking up. I cooked most with sausage to make it a main meal, and cooked about 1/3 as written for my vegetarian. Next time I’ll add chickpeas for her to give it some protein. There was not a single speck of food left in either dish after dinner that night.

NOTE: I used cherry tomatoes instead of the whole peeled tomatoes. You know I look for shortcuts wherever I can. I am not peeling tomatoes.

I also made the tomatoes vinaigrette from 1963, and they were nothing special. Just tomatoes in dressing. I did appreciate that the recipe used some of my capers though. I have a lot of capers for some reason.

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

My Salad Days - The New York Times Essential Cookbook

There’s nothing I love more in the summer than having a variety of salads in my fridge for packed lunches, but I admit I did get to this chapter and immediately wonder how much mayo this will involve.

Hesser defines salad as an adaptable composition of loosely related ingredients ( not necessarily vegetables) unified by a dressing.

I tried two salads from this chapter.

Spicy Orange Salad Moroccan-Style

This was a great food waste reducer when I made a different recipe that called for orange peels. I used the naked orange insides for this salad and really liked it. I ate it for lunch along with rosemary bread from another favorite cookbook Kneadlessly Simple. It called for fresh parsley, but my garden isn’t there yet so I used mint.

Spicy Cucumber Salad

I sent this in my daughter’s packed lunch, and unfortunately it got a thumbs down. She said the sesame taste was way too strong. Oh well!

Two salads, no mayo globs. Yay!

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

A New Way To Use Mint - Greek Lentil Soup : The Essential New York Times Cookbook

My trusty mini sow cooker

I bought this mini slow cooker for myself about six months back so I could cook oats overnight. I’ve cooked oats maybe once, but that’s only because I’ve found so many other uses for it. It came in really handy last week for Craig Clairborne’s 1977 recipe for Greek Lentil Soup.

I picked this one out of many that sounded good because it helped use up some of my flourishing mint plants from the back yard. I’ve never had mint in soup before, and I have to say it was nice. The fact that this was a vegetarian soup was a big plus too since my daughter is vegetarian, and I am halfway there. This would have been good with some crusty bread, but it was also fine with some cornbread from a box mix.

There were a bunch more good looking soup recipes I want to try, but it’s time to move on to salads.

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Carefully Constructed Soup: The Essential New York Times Cookbook

Garden Minestrone from 1973 was the most fun soup to cook ever. You start by layering a huge pot full of tomatoes, zucchini, romaine lettuce (!), peas, beans, and herbs, and then browning the whole thing. Only then do you stir and it magically becomes a delicious stew. No broth added!

The recipe called for the whole thing to be done in a glass casserole dish so you can dump it out later, but I did it in my crockpot. The presentation sounds amazing, but it was a weeknight and we had 30 minutes to eat then get to 4 different places. I served this over polenta with chicken sausages just to bulk it up a little, but I would have been completely happy with just the veggies.

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

It's Soup Week! The Essential New York Times Cookbook

I had some terrible not-covid bug last week that had me not feeling like cooking at all. But now I’m back among the living recovering and what a great time to start soup week. Actually, it will be soup weeks because I’m behind so I’ll be cooking soup the rest of this week into the next. What great timing!

I’m excited for this chapter. Soup is my favorite meal since the days when my mom used to make me non stop Lipton cups of noodles. Hesser says soups have changed the most in 100 years, and I’m wondering if they’ve changed even more since 2010. I guess I’ll have to shell out for the updated cookbook if I want to know.

Some soups looked great but I had to take them off the list because there was just too much cream involved, but there were quite a few that I can’t wait to make. Soup week!

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Passive Aggressive Quotation Marks: The Essential New York Times Cookbook

I knew my husband would like this 1970’s Chinese Meatball recipe. Hesser cracked me up by mentioning in the comments that they were more “Chinese” than Chinese. Ah, food of my youth!

The recipe in the book made about 100 of these so I only made 1/4 but kept the sauce recipe as is because we love sauce. Also it called for frying the meatballs and then cooking the sauce separately. Last week was over scheduled beyond my ability to cope so I just baked them and then cooked them with the sauce in my slow cooker. Big thumbs up from the fam, although I thought the sauce was a little too vinegary.

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Who Wouldn't Make Something Called Eggs Suffragette? The Essential New York Times Cookbook

My first recipe from the snacks chapter was called Eggs Suffragette. I love this title from a 1909 article about eggs.

They weren’t bad to make and tasted pretty good. My kids won’t eat pre-cooked eggs so I made the batch for myself and ate them all week for breakfast or lunch. Then in the spirit of my eggs I made plans to vote because what the heck is going on? Thank you suffragettes for your sacrifices and your delicious stuffed eggs.

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Hors Doeuvres, Snacks, And Small Dishes: Chapter Two The Essential New York Times Cookbook

I was excited about this chapter because I’ve been wanting to make more snacks, but also disappointed because Amanda skipped her usual chatty intro and just slapped a timeline in here.

After reading through I can see why. The New York Times is decidedly short on snacks. I had to read through twice just to find three things I felt like cooking and eating.

It was during this chapter when I came up with my rules for this little project:

1. I need to stay within my usual grocery budget.

2. Not too many ingredients that I’ll never use again. (A few experiments here and there are fine.)

3. No all day cooking projects. I need food I can throw together and serve.

One more note: when I was looking up this book on amazon I realized there’s an updated version. I’m sticking with the 2010 though because I love the early 2000’s food scene and snobbery. Plus this is the version my library has, and I feel like a modern cookbook would have too much Covid inspired sourdough in it.

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

My Ideal Hot Buttered Rum: The Essential New York Times Cookbook

I have searched for years for the perfect Hot Buttered Run recipe and I think I have found it. Hesser’s recipe, from the 1984 article “Spirits: Rum For All Seasons” was amazing. It was easy to make and smelled so good. Plus I had a reason to use up all of those whole spices I bought last year for one single recipe. Thank you Amanda!

I made this last Friday night after a long, long week and took it to bed with a good mystery. If you can tell me a better way to spend a Friday night I would be surprised.

This is the last recipe I made (for now) from the drinks section, and I think this book is probably worth buying based on this chapter alone. I can’t wait to move on to the next one!

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Mint Juleps Are Not For Me

I thought I knew better than everyone else who told me not to plant mint in my yard because it would spread. Guess what? The mint spread. Oh well, there are worse problems to have, particularly when you like to cook.

I tried to solve my mint “problem” by making mint juleps from The Essential New York Times Cookbook, but truthfully all the mint in the world isn’t going to hide the taste of bourbon. Sorry Amanda Hesser and the state of Kentucky.

On to the next recipe!

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Judge All You Want Amanda Hesser, I Love Smoothies

“And then we discovered the smoothie, and artfully - and often deliciously, repackaged shake.”

— The Essential New York Times Cookbook by Amanda Hesser

This quote by Amanda Hesser cracked me up. It is true that we were all drinking smoothies for a while like they were the key to good health and slimness. Still, when your kid has an 8 am soccer game and you want to bring your breakfast with you is there anything better? Hesser featured an honey-orange banana smoothie from an article on hangover cures in the Essential Cookbook, and it was perfect. I didn’t have a hangover on the day of my daughter’s 8 am soccer game, but when you’re in your 40’s aren’t they really the same thing? Anyway, disguised milkshake or not I highly recommend this easy to make smoothie for the sidelines, when you have a hangover, or just any old time really.

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Drinks, Cocktails, Punches, and Glogg - The New York Times Essential Cookbook

I love a cookbook that acknowledges that drinks are part of the meal, and, of course, Hesser does not disappoint. This is a very thorough drinks section. My only complaint? So many of the recipes involved alcohol mixed with milk or cream, something that makes me shudder.

There are fun things in here too though. The onset of the smoothie. Iced coffee obsession. Gourmet hot chocolate. Possible solutions to the mint problem I have going on in my garden.

This week I’ll share what I made!