Battle of the Cookbooks - Donna Hay - The New Classics

We are giving the international food a rest for a while. We still have some countries we haven't cooked as yet, but we will return to these at a later date.

I have a huge collection of cookbooks, which expands every year around Christmas and my birthday. I don't think you can ever have too many cookbooks! I don't just collect them, I do cook many of the recipes out of each of them. I thought it would be fun to put them all to good use, and cook recipes from each cookbook for a week, and get the family to rate the dishes. See which chef and which cookbooks come out on top.

Last week we started with Donna Hay's "the new classics".  We ranked each of the dishes out of 10, and then I averaged the scores for each dish. I will make a list of cook again dishes. I might have to remove Eliza's from the score though, as she eats part of the meal (the part that she likes) and rates it a 10 out of 10 LOL!

So here are the dishes for this week:

Chicken & Pork Larb
Score: 7.7
Comments:  Both the girls love Larb, so it always gets eaten, and there are normally no leftovers

Sticky Asian Ribs with Ginger Gai Larn and Rice
Score: 6.7
Comments: This was actually the first time I have ever cooked ribs. Mainly on account, that Dave told me he didn't think he would like them, because they would be too fatty. He actually loved them and so did I. Jasmin wasn't a fan though, otherwise the average would have been a lot higher. I will put this one on the list to make again as part of a BBQ or something like that.

Roasted Pumpkin and Garlic Soup with Leek and Cheese Mandelines.
Score: 6.3
Comments: The soup wasn't thick enough, so would reduce the fluid next time. The mandelines were quite delicious.

Slow Cooked Beef Ragu with Homemade Pasta
Score:  8.2
Comments: Definitely the winner for the week. Homemade pasta is always popular, and I'm getting a lot quicker at making it!

Sticky Honey and Lime Chicken with Brocollini and rice
Score: 6.3
Comments: Quite delicious.
















I also made homemade pizza's this week (I forgot to take a picture!). Made the pizza dough from scratch as well. I made the pizza suggested in the cookbook - salami, ricotta and basil pizza, as well as a prosciutto, anchovy and baby spinach pizza, as well as a ham and pineapple (with fresh pineapple of course) for Eliza.
Score: 7.7

So overall, a really good score of 7.15. 

Definitely adding the ribs and ragu to the cook again list.

See you next time.