weaponxgirl's Profile

From: norwich, england

Joined: January 7th, 2010

About me: My two great loves are books and food. I try and eat seasonal and organic food wherever possible, but on a very limited budget. My cookbook collection covers the space of three bookcases at the moment and is still growing! im also on librarything under the same name.

Favorite cookbook: anything by nigel slater!

Favorite recipe: peanut butter curry


Latest review:

May 28th, 2010

baked pasta with aubergine from Amaretto, Apple Cake and Artichokes: The Best of Anna Del Conte

this is a classy version of cheesy pasta bake with aubergine. this dish is a bit time consuming and did use nearly every pan in the house and every hob. really good but you do need a while to prepair it... read more >


recipe reviews (72)
book reviews (13)
useful review votes (27)

weaponxgirl's Reviews


Search Reviews:

Cookbook Reviews

13 books reviewed. Showing 1 to 13Sort by: Rating | Title

125 Best Vegan Recipes

By Beth Gurney, Maxine Chuck
Robert Rose Inc - 2005

January 25th, 2010

best, is not really the best description of this cookbook. What let this book down for me is the overuse of fake meats and cheese for me. I personaly love veg and am quite happy for them to take centre stage and a recipe for a bacon sarnie with fake bacon is so obvious as to be pointless in my opinion!
To be fair there are some nice recipes, but there just seems to be a lot of things put in to bulk up the book. Save your money and buy vegan with a vengence or the garden of vegan instead.

The 30-minute Cook

By Nigel Slater
Penguin Books Ltd - 2006

January 18th, 2010

This book follows real fast food, branching out to even more nations for ideas for a quick bite to eat.
If you want purely authentic food then this isnt the right book for you, wheres if your relaxed in what and how you cook this book should hit the spot.
A great standby book for when you need to cook something tasty, fast and now!

The Acorn House Cookbook: Good Food from Field to Fork

By Arthur Potts Dawson
Hodder & Stoughton - 2008

April 8th, 2010

This is a rather worthy cookbook, wich endevours to be a whole green lifestyle book rather than just a cookbook. Its really interesting and gets its point across well but when it comes down to it theres very little that i actually can/want to cook from it. Alot of this is to do with hard to find fresh ingredients or stuff that i just plain cant afford. Its more aimed at higher income brackets than i, wich is a pity because its a lovely book.

The Afternoon Tea Book

By Michael Smith, Michael R. P. Bartlett
John Wiley & Sons - 1989

April 8th, 2010

Whats not to love about this book? it goes into the history of tea and tea parties, with information about the different types of tea and the impliments used. I really felt like i was learning something, and the it tops it off with lots of scrummy looking recipes. My edition is printed throughout with green ink wich for some reason makes me very happy. This book is much more inclusive than more modern books on the subject, and the only thing that may put you off is the fact that it deals in ounces.

The Alice B.Toklas Cookbook

By Alice B. Toklas, Sir Francis Rose
Serif - 2004

April 27th, 2010 (edited 27th April 2010)

This book was first published in 1954, and some of the instructions are quite sparse. This isnt the whole point of the book though, being a memoir of cooking in france. Encompassing both world wars no less. Alice was the lover of writer Gertrude stein and it feels very much like a writers book, with the recipes being very much a part of the prose of the story. This does mean that theres no clear layout of where a recipe will be. This can be frustrating but im happy to go with it as i love the writing style. I personaly love this book, but i would probably only recommend confident cooks to try the recipes as they can be hard to follow. Read it for a glimpse of a time gone by in france.

All Asian Cookbook

By Jacki Passmore
Spring Books - 1979

May 12th, 2010

I found this book in a charity shop, beat up with the spine broken and food stains on the pages and after looking at the chapters and some of the recipes i decided to save it and give it a good home. It has repaid me well, the book takes recipes from all over asia and true some of the chapters are small. but when you get some history about the food its interesting and for the late seventies the book is very authentic. the food ive cooked from it has been delicious and better than some modern cookbooks on the subject.
All i can say is if you see this book looking lonely and unloved at a carboot or in a charity shop buy it, if you give it a chance you wont regret having it on your bookshelf.

Amaretto, Apple Cake and Artichokes: The Best of Anna Del Conte

By
Vintage - 2000

May 26th, 2010

I love this book, Anna del conte is a well respected writer on iitalian food and after getting this book out of the library and then subsequently buying it i can see why. The chapters are divided by ingredients covering all the basics like rissoto and pasta. whats really nice are that its not all the same recipes that you get in all the other italian cookbooks out there, and the book is interspaced with both historical and personal stories and ancedotes. There is so much of interest to read in here, and to top it off the recipes are really good and have all worked so far out of the ones that ive tried.

Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The time-honoured ways are the best - over 700 recipes show you why

By Darina Allen
Kyle Cathie - 2009

January 28th, 2010

oh wow, this cookbook is amazing. Working to help preserve old techniques of cooking and to teach them to a new generation, this book is superb. its encyclopediac knowledge falls into both camps as a book to fantasise over and to actualy cook from. For those not in the know Darina runs the ballymaloe cookery school in ireland, so this author walks the walk along with talking the talk.

Home Cooking

By Rachel Allen
Collins - 2009

January 7th, 2010

Rachel Allen is my new fave auther and this book has not disapointed! Full of recipes for everyday, with a chapter for every meal of the day. Her breakfast chapter is a highlight for me, i may even get up early to make some of these instead of my usual dose of cereal whilst conserving my energy for supper. Talking of which, her supper recipies look lovely, with a whole chapter on sunday lunch with variations im dieing to try!
Her way of cooking is always acheivable within the domestic sphere and i cant recommend her enough.
I have to thank my wonderful man for buying me this for xmas.

Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights: Guilt-free Eating with Abandon

By Sophie Dahl
Harper - 2008

April 8th, 2010

This book isnt terrible but to be honest youve seen it all before in a better cookbook on your shelf. Sophie does have a wonderful chatty voice at the beginning of each section and the photography is spendid but to be honest shes not a patch on nigella in this respect. Overal id say that if you found this dirt cheap its a nice book, but im glad that i just got it out of the library and copied down a couple of the things id actually eat.

Rachel's Favourite Food for Living

By Rachel Allen
HarperCollins UK - 2007

January 7th, 2010

this is a new addition to my collection, and i love it! The food has so far been very tasty and do-able without too many hard to find ingredients. The book is divided into sections such as comfort food or something to celebrate, with a whole chapter devoted to chocolate!
highlights so far have been chickpea and chorizio soup and bacon and sausage stew with beans, both recipies being robust enough to stand up to substitutions whilst still tasting great.
Keep an eye out for the pancakes stuffed with cheese and baked with a tomato sauce wich i am dieing to try out next.
I would really recommend this book for some lovely everyday recipies wich are a bit differnt.
lovely book.

Real Food

By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate Ltd - 2000

January 7th, 2010

Nigel Slater is my food god! Other food writers may come and go but my love for the slate man will never die.
From what i understand hes only well known in my home country of blighty, but hes well worth searching out.
what makes this man so great is that hes a home cook who knows exactly the sort of food you want to eat. Unfussy, easy to do food wich packs a punch with the flavours. He also encourages you to use your own common sense whilst cooking, think of hes recipies as a guide rather than as a strict set of instructions.
In this book nigel has taken some of hes favourite ingredients and given us lots of ideas to play around with. The chapters are
potatoes
chicken
sausages
garlic
bread
cheese
ice cream
and.. chocolate!
Need i say more? Get cooking! (The only warning i shall give is that this man is terible if your trying to lose weight.)

World Food Cafe

By Chris Caldicott, Carolyn Caldicott, Carolyn Caldicott, Chris Caldicott, James Merrell
Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd - 1999

February 15th, 2010

This is my favourite veggy cookbook of all time. With food from around the world theres something for everyone. If your looking for a veggy book with lots of spicey dishes that are often a bit different then i cant recomend this book enogh.