Day 50: Project Wrap Up

Note: I meant to post this yesterday (on Day 50) but spent most of the day in bed trying to get rid of a vicious headache.

I did it!  Believe me, there times when I thought this project would never end but it was a lot of fun.  I thought I'd end by giving a short report on what I thought of the recipe books I used.  They are listed 1 to 5, favorite to least.

1.  The Greens Cook Book:  I loved this cookbook.  It has it all, salads, soups, pastas, main dishes, side dishes, breads, and desserts.  Our favorites were the Winter Vegetable Stew, and the recipe for pasta.  The instructions are stellar -- precise and easy to follow.  At the beginning of each chapter is a page of two of information about the type of food to be featured (i.e. salads, tarts, pasta, side dishes, etc.), and additional information, specific to the dish, at the beginning of each recipe.  There is also some great information on variations, and even what wine to serve with the meal.

2.  A Great American Cook:  There aren't a lot of recipes in this book, and honestly some of them I'll never even attempt to make, but the pictures were beautiful, and the beginning of each chapter was a little "chat" from Jonathan Waxman that gave some insight into his style of cooking.  I loved the recipes I made from this book (with the exception of the Late-Autumn Vegetable Casserole).  Kevin has already requested I make the pork tenderloin for his birthday dinner, and the bacon pizza is almost a Friday night staple.  Waxman's style of cooking is what I like to eat, delicious, not too fancy or fussy -- I'll call it rustic-chic.
3.  Healthy Cooking for Two (or just you):  The recipes in here were like a walk through my childhood.  I particularly liked the meatloaf recipe, and the tamale pie.  This would be a great cookbook to give to a beginner cook.







4.  The Complete Vegan Cookbook:  I like vegan cookbooks.  I figure since all they can eat are vegetables there should be some interesting and tasty recipes to try, right?  Well, I'm not too sure about this book, of course to be fair I only tried four recipes.  I really liked the orzo salad, and the cranberry minestrone (after I added some ingredients).  The salad and side dish chapters look pretty interesting.  I'll probably feature them this summer.




5.  The Best Soups In the World:  In all honesty I should not have bought this book.  I'm not a huge fan of soups, and I was hoping this book would help me expand my recipe collection.  I could only find three recipes that I wanted to try, and really it's not the book's fault.  Let's see...I don't like cream based soups, I don't care for pureed soups, clear soups are boring, cold soups are just weird, I'm not a fan of cheese soups, I'm not crazy about chowders -- see what I mean?  Really the only soups I like are chicken noodle, beef vegetable, lentil, and minestrone.  The poor book didn't stand a chance.  I won't be holding onto this cookbook so it's available to anyone interested in exploring the world of soup.

Okay, so I'm going to take some time off from blogging (about a week).  I have some new cookbooks to looks through and select new recipes to try.  I think for this next segment I might try a new recipe a couple times during the week instead of every day.