A Recipe for Spiced and Creamed Carrots and How Tender Got Me Excited About Vegetables Again

When I make my weekly meal plan, I allot different vegetables for each dinner, but I rarely go so far as to plan how I will cook them. When dinner time rolls around, I am so focused on my main courses that I turn to the same old recipes for my sides: honey carrots, roasted asparagus, and parmesan zucchini. Vegetables are an afterthought, nothing to get excited about, something we eat to stay healthy. But I recently received a beautiful cookbook to review that has pretty much revolutionized our sides, and banished vegetable boredom forever.

Nigel Slater's cookbook Tender celebrates vegetables with beautiful photography and exciting, yet easy recipes. Just the cookbook's massive size was enough to convince me to change my way of thinking vegetable sides. He chronicles how he transformed his small London garden into a rich vegetable patch and has inspired me to plant some vegetables in my own tiny garden this summer, something I haven't done in years.

I'm now arming myself with bushy carrots and snappy green beans, excited to serve them to my family for dinner. I can't wait to rediscover cauliflower and parsnips, with the guidance of Slater's passionate and fresh recipes. If you're looking for ways to get more veggies in your life, Tender has them: from salads to creamy sides, and even a few desserts.

My favorite recipe so far is this side dish of spiced and creamed carrots. It serves 4.

Spiced and Creamed Carrots
Ingredients:
1 large bunch of carrots (14 ounces)
2 cloves of garlic
a thumb sized piece of ginger
3 or 4 small green chiles
a thick slice of butter
a teaspoon of yellow mustard seeds
2 tablespoons of cashew nuts
4 tablespoons of heavy cream
4 heaping tablespoons of plain yogurt
a good handful of cilantro leaves
a generous squeeze of lime juice

1. Shred or grate the carrots coarsely. Peel and crush the garlic, then peel and finely shred the ginger, and finely chop the chiles.
2. Heat the butter in a frying pan and add the garlic, ginger, and mustard seeds, holding a lid over the top to stop them from spluttering. Add the chiles and then, as everything becomes fragrant, the grated carrots. Let them cook, with the occasional toss, for three or four minutes.
3. Coarsely chop the cashews, toast them in a nonstick frying pan until golden and set aside. Stir the cream and the yogurt together an fold them into the hot carrots. Immediately spoon into a serving dish and toss with the toasted cashews, cilantro leaves, and the lime juice.

Cookbooks to Get your Kids Cooking

Long before I was pregnant with my first child, I had a vision of what motherhood would be like. I pictured myself with a spotless white apron, calmly guiding the hand of my rosy cheeked daughter as she stirred a copper pot with a wooden spoon. The kitchen was neat. There were no piles in sight. And as we cooked together, we sang (in perfect pitch), songs from the Sound of Music.

My cooking sessions with the kids are a far cry from that dream, but they are a frequent reality. Our aprons are stained and the kitchen is usually messy, but we do a lot of cooking together. Letting the kids create food is my type of crafting, something I can teach them, just like my mother taught me.

I'm always looking for kid-friendly cookbooks to inspire them to try new dishes and I recently received two new cookbooks to review that got our creativity flowing in very different ways.

Princess Party Cookbook: Over 100 Delicious Recipes and Fun Ideas by Annabel Karmel :

• This very pink cookbook has become nightly bedtime reading. Juliette and I flip through the adorable illustrations and decide what we'll make for lunch the next day. 
• Think of it as a way to transform your little girl's food into Fancy Nancy food. It is filled with creative presentation ideas like kiwis cut into flowers topped with a red raspberry, or using a hollowed out pumpkin filled with creamy cheese risotto to act out Cinderella's coach. 
• But don't let the pink cover fool you, there are foods for beach princesses, and rock star princesses that will appeal to girls that have outgrown the Disney princess crazy for pink stage.
  

 

Fix-It and Forget-It Kids' Cookbook: 50 Favorite Recipes to Make in a Slow Cooker by Phyllis Pellman Good:

• This cookbook is more geared towards elementary aged children who are showing an interest in cooking. 
• There are many recipes that your child will recognize (meatloaf, tacos, baked potatoes) but thanks to the gorgeous photography and fun presentation, they'll be intrigued to make them with you. Who could resist the Tasty Tomato Soup topped with rainbow goldfish crackers? 
• I love that every dish is easy and uses the slow cooker, filling the house with amazing smells and keeping short attention spans engaged.

the Earthbound Cookbook - Inspiring Recipes and Tips to Live By

Do you remember the first cookbook that truly moved you? I remember mine well. It was a Disney cookbook for children that I got for Christmas one year. The picture of the Donald Duck chocolate cake, so shiny and sweet, is what made the book an instant favorite. I think I actually hid in my bedroom closet and tried to lick the page. I don't remember how the cake actually tasted or if I ever convinced my mom to let me make it, but my love of cookbooks has lasted ever since. There's nothing I like better on a Sunday afternoon than to plunge myself into the pages of a great cookbook with beautiful photography before sinking into a lazy nap filled with dreams of rich dishes.

But great cookbooks go beyond beautiful pictures and tantalizing dishes. Great cookbooks are more than a calorie-free treat for the senses. The truly great cookbooks move you to change the way you cook, like Julia Child inspired America to begin making French food. inspiration, a calorie-free treat for the senses.


The Earthbound Cook by Myra Goodman falls into that truly great cookbook category. The author runs an organic farm in Carmel Valley, California with her husband Drew called Earthbound Farm. This is her second cookbook. It is filled with page after page of gorgeous photographs of fresh food and life on the farm as well as 250 easy yet flavorful recipes that I wanted to run out and start cooking immediately. But it's also filled with valuable information and tips to inspire families everywhere to make small changes in their kitchens to become more in tune with the environment.

I loved little tips like:
"Resist the urge to open the oven door during roasting or baking. Each time you take a peek, the temperature can drop by as much as 25 degrees Fahrenheit."
"If you spend some time seeing how long it takes your oven to preheat to various temperatures, you'll save energy down the road by no longer preheating too far in advance."
"Using the food disposal is not as green as you think. Composting is a much more environmentally sound practice."
As well as longer essays on topics such as:

• Why the carbon footprint of your food isn't always as simple as measuring from point A to point B.
• Protecting yourself from unhealthy pesticide residues.
• Understanding eco-labels for meat

But The Earthbound Cook is much more than a textbook on becoming a more environmentally conscious family, it is first and foremost a cookbook, filled with dishes you will be inspired to cook, dishes like Seared Tuna with French Lentil Salad, Carrot Risotto, and even Chocolate Souffle Cake with Vanilla Whipped Cream. I plan on beginning my love story with this new addition to my rickety cookbook shelf with Nan's Tomato Rice Soup - the image of the floating beef short ribs is irresistible. I have a feeling that by the time I reach the last recipe, this cookbook will have made a serious impact in our lives.

I received my copy of the Earthbound Cook as part of a campaign with the online book club From Left to Write. Myra Goodman will also be participating in Q&As with the participating bloggers and we'll be hosting dinners featuring the cookbook's recipes throughout the country.

Healthy Beef Cookbook Giveaway

GIVEAWAY SATURDAY

*** Congrats to Comment #104 - ddiva of loonatics in the kitchen - you are the winner! ***

Nothing satisfies me like a grilled juicy steak. Perfectly seasoned, with a dollop of melting shallot butter... and I'm in heaven. But although my cholesterol levels are low, my husband's are not, and I need to experiment with my beef cooking to make it a little healthier.

I recently received two copies of the The Healthy Beef Cookbook
from the Beef Council. It is chock full of great ideas to keep enjoying our beef without feeling guilty.A sampling of those recipes are on their site as well. This week we tried the red pepper coulis, a recipe I'll be sharing this Tuesday, and that we'll be repeating soon.

As you can imagine, I'm hanging on to one of my copies, but the other one I'm sharing with you, or at least one of you. To enter to win, just leave a comment here by Friday, September 25. I'll select the winner at random that night. And don't forget to enter last week's Nursery University Giveaway, for a chance to win a copy of this fascinating documentary.

As usual, you can get extra chances to win by:

• linking to this contest on your blog,
  
• subscribing to my Chefdruck Musings feed
• subscribing to my Chefdruck Reviews feed.
• tweeting this contest.
  

Just remember to leave me a different comment to get credit for each extra entry.

Cat Cora: Cooking from the Hip Cookbook Giveaway

GIVEAWAY SATURDAY

*** So glad to see you were all as excited as I was about Cat Cora's new book. Random.org chose the winner: comment #118, Cathleen Nash. Enjoy!***

I had the pleasure of meeting Cat Cora this week at an event organized by Unilever promoting their soft spreads. She was incredibly friendly and approachable. I was hanging out with Amy Oztan of Selfish Mom and we peppered her with questions which she was happy to answer. She whipped up some yummy vegetable pot stickers and made it look so classy and easy.

Cat Cora gave me an autographed copy of her latest book, Cooking from the Hip - Fast, Easy, Phenomenal Meals, to give away today. Cat Cora is the only woman to ever have won the Iron Chef America competition. She goes up against Food Channel heavyweights like Mario Batali and Bobby Flay, looking classy as she spontaneously throws together ingredients to win the challenge. I asked her what her toughest ingredient to work with was, and she told me the time she had to butcher a hog, skin and all, was the worst.

Cooking from the Hip is meant to teach us how to cook spontaneously in our kitchens, to improvise quick and easy meals that bring families together. Many of the dishes are inspired by Cora's Greek heritage. I'm filled with renewed inspiration just browsing through the pictures. I can't wait to try the Charred Eggplant Tomato Soup and the Chocolate Budino.

To enter to win, just leave a comment here with your favorite cookbook by Friday, February 20. I'll select the winner at random that night. As usual, you can get extra chances to win by linking to this contest on your blog, and subscribing to my feeds for Chefdruck Musings and Chefdruck Reviews. You can also Tweet about it for an extra entry.