Changing it up!

I love the idea of Kukas to cook from a different cookbook each month. Last month I was salivating over her chilli and then delicious deserts. So for February I'm adopting the same approach hoping that for me this should a) liven up the dinner table b) challenge me in the kitchen and c) make me actually get motivated and excited about cooking.

I picked up this cookbook from the oppy a while back for the whopping sum of $1.00 but mainly bought it for an interesting read rather than the actual recipes. Printed in 1976 it has some really concepts that are fairly foreign to me and I would think, most of my generation. One section, entitled 'to store foods' recommends to keep butter in earthenware dishes and stand these in another dish of cold water, cover with muslin and allow the ends to stand in the cold water. Yep - this book was written before refrigeration was common place. I need to do some converting as well as all the recipes are in pounds & ounces. Some of the recipes I would think are definitely out of cooking fashion - I can't imagine cooking calf's head brawn (where does one buy a calfs head these days?) or diving into a liver and onion ring or pigeon cutlets - but others are obviously the tried and tested type of meals that never seem to go out of favour such as egg & bacon pie and desserts like apple pies, bread and butter puddings and the like. Alas, it's not the book of the month - a bit too much offal for my liking!

This month I'll be scouring the pages of 'Cook' from Kate McGhie - I love a cook book that has that running commentry style with lots of personal stories and tales of how recipes came to be and this one certainly meets that criteria. I'm looking forward to trying home-made skinless sausages, lamb in wine, lemon and parsely sauce and lemon custard slice to name but a few!