Kitchen Hero Cookbook Review

I had some Amazon vouchers so I thought I'd treat myself to a few books; a couple of amazing cross stitch books (with skull designs no less!) and then Donal Skehan's Kitchen Hero. I didn't know that much about his cooking, I'd read his Good Mood Food blog a couple of times, but it was really his appearance on This Morning one day that made me sit up and take notice. Ok, I thought he was incredibly handsome, no lie! But his food seemed easy to make and his enthusiasm was infectious. Oh, and have I mentioned he was really cute?! Then I saw an excerpt from his book in Yum magazine which swayed me further. I'm so, so pleased I got this book. The photography is bright and colourful, taken by Donal himself, and there are some nice black and white illustrations every so often by Zoe Barker.

There is a quick introduction and then some kitchen essentials, most of the ingredients I already had which was good, ditto for the kitchen equipment. Then it's straight into the 1st chapter - Meals in Minutes. I like that there are no sprawling essays, just quick intros and then on with the recipes. Chapters include Party Food and Drinks, Comfort Food and Stretch Your Meals. I honestly don't think there's one recipe, lamb aside, that I wouldn't want to eat.

The first recipe I tried was the Dig in Fajitas but I can't find the photo. I'm sure everyone knows what a fajita looks like! The seasoning for the meat was absolutely perfect, not too spicy and plenty of flavour. Really lovely and I'd definitely make it again, with chicken this time instead of beef probably.

The 2nd recipe was the Squash and Crispy Pancetta Risotto. Mine was darker than in Donal's photo but that's because I used red onion instead of white. I also used smoked bacon instead of pancetta. I love risotto and this one tasted great. Even without the butternut squash it would be lovely. Risotto is always a good stand-by dish.

The last recipe I made was the Pulled Pork. The recipe was for burgers but I wanted to serve the pork with some cornbread instead. Again, completely perfect. I've made BBQ sauce before, from Nigella's book, but this one doesn't compare - it was way better! It was cooked on the hob rather than roasted but it worked well as it shredded easily. I was afraid the sauce wouldn't reduce enough but with enough boiling it did. I didn't leave the marinade for that long but it still imparted a lot of flavour into the meat. La Mama licked the bowl clean after every serving of this dish! The cornbread is for a later blog, from Supper Club by Kerstin Rodgers.

This book is worth buying just for this recipe if you love pulled pork. Delicious and one to make again and again. I'm super impressed with the book and so glad I bought it. I haven't even ventured towards the dessert section, the Cupcakes and Whoopie Pies sound particularly impressive. I also want to try his Swedish Meatballs recipe having just tried Ikea's version. I bought some Lingonberry Jam in preparation! There are a few Swedish recipes as his girlfriend (dammit!!) hails from there. Great to have such variety in cuisines.

This week I also made some Rocky Road Ice Cream, cheating with some lovely custard from Waitrose! I added so much to the mixture, there are mini marshmallows, glace cherries, brazil nuts, raisins and Dairy Milk chunks! It's pretty sickly but it's also tasty! Not the greatest photo but you get the idea!

We also had our first Farmer's Market in the village, starting off our Festival week. It was a really lovely thing to have locally, with an amazing variety of fruit and veg, fish, meat, olives, gifts and these stunning mini cupcakes and whoopie pies by Tinakiiana. Had to put the 50p there to show you just how miniature these cakes were! There was no compromising on flavour either. I had Raspberry and Coconut, Almond, Summer Fruits, Lemon, Chocolate and Orange and a Butterscotch whoopie pie. Just so cute! They'd be so cool at a party or a wedding. I really hope we get another market soon, would be a great addition to our local shops.

Iced: 180 Very Cool Concoctions Cookbook Review

It's hard to tell if it's summer or not. Yesterday the weather was glorious and I was outside, today I'm back in a cardigan and cold at work. So annoying! But I thought I'd attempt to bring summer to our house by making some icy delights. I think I picked up my copy of Iced: 180 Very Cool Concoctions from TK Maxx a while back. It's a pretty hefty size, but then the title kind of gave it away - there are a lot of recipes featured! The recipes are by various people but the book has been photographed and styled by the same people so it feels like a coherent cookery book. It's published by Murdoch Books who make a lot of compilation recipe books - I've collected almost all of their 'Chunky Cookbooks' and find them great to dip in and out of. They also publish the book of Stephane Reynaud, Tessa Kiros and Bill Granger amongst others.

The recipes go from the traditional and expected flavours such as vanilla, chocolate and strawberry; to the highly unusual like goat's cheese ice cream, licorice all-sort ice cream and rosemary, carrot and orange granita. There is so much to choose from I don't think you could ever be bored with ice cream! The recipes are one or two pages long so there's no struggling with turning the page when you're elbow deep in cream and sugar (slight exaggeration!). The photos are really bold and usually full page - I'm impressed by the different ways they present the ice cream, quite jealous of some of the bowls!

There are six chapters, including Ice Cream Parlour, Gelateria and Soda Fountain. I especially like sound of the Soda Fountain section as it's full of sickening, fatty recipes you'd expect to find in a 1950s diner like bourbon and brown sugar ice cream and pink peppermint candy cane ice cream! Wow!

I plumped for a simple strawberry ice cream to start with. I've never made ice cream before but La Mama used to make it when I was younger. We've always had a few strawberry plants in our garden and I have memories of going to pick-your-own farms for raspberries.

I started with the custard base first after pureeing and sieving my strawberries. This was another first - making my own custard and ruddy hell was it delicious! Much easier than I thought it would be and I had to restrain myself from just eating it like that straight from the pan! I had to keep stirring it as it cooled to make sure a skin didn't form on top, but mostly it was because I wanted to lick the spoon each time! Double-dipping times about 30 but it was only feeding immediate family so no worries!

I didn't make the full quantity stated in the recipe as I didn't want a litre - too many recipes I want to try out, who wants to be tied down to just strawberry ice cream?! The recipe gives instructions for an ice cream maker and for just freezing and whisking regularly. It was the first time in a long while that our ice cream maker has seen daylight so I just guessed as much as possible about how to use it! The pot didn't really have time to completely freeze so the consistency of the ice cream wasn't quite as creamy as it should have been but even with the ice crystals in place it was completely amazing. If I can improve the texture then I'm never buying ice cream again! I made little meringues (review coming next week) to accompany it. Great.

Very, very happy with this first ice cream recipe and impressed with how it easy it was to make.

The other recipe I tried out was for a pear sorbet. The recipe was for pear and apple sorbet but I fancied pear just on its own so adjusted the recipe accordingly. I also left out the cinnamon as I wanted just the pure pear flavour, plus some pear liqueur for an added little kick. The hardest bit about this recipe was peeling the pears! I find prep work so boring and time consuming. But once that was done the pears just needed poaching and pureeing, I also sieved it as I didn't want all the fibres in the sorbet. Bit of sugar and water and the mixture was ready to freeze. Brilliantly simple and it had such a nice flavour. Again, far too many ice crystals but nothing a few attempts can't iron out, and in the mean time I'll call it a granita!!

Really happy with the book and I feel I'll have to be exercising everyday if I'm going to work my way through all the recipes! There are also sauce recipes, sundaes and even a recipe for ice cream cones. The only thing I would question is the quantity of egg yolk required in each ice cream base, but I'm sure the amount could be reduced without affecting the recipe too much. I'm looking forward to my next attempt, I think rocky road might well be on the cards!

Also this week we found a chocolate and raspberry mousse recipe by Mat Follas, winner of Masterchef 2 years ago. The recipe was tucked in our Happy Egg box! It made a lovely, light mousse but it was quite sharp despite the raspberries being nice and ripe, but you got used to the flavour and it looks so pretty in the little espresso cups. Find the recipe here: http://www.thehappyegg.co.uk/recipes/view/recipe/28