A few years ago I looked at my stash of recipe books, realised that I rarely used them, and took about 20 to a charity shop. That is where they had originally come from, as I’m suspect that I’m not the only one that does the same thing.
They are beautiful things – lavishly illustrated, reassuringly bulky and crammed full of delicious sounding recipes that are too time consuming or which feature ingredients I don’t have. The lack of stains on the pages indicated that they had never been used in a kitchen.
The point about ingredients is (moderately) important because that’s why the recipe for chipolatas with honey and mustard glaze, sweet potatoes and red onions has just emerged from the oven as sausages with honey and mustard glaze with carrots, a few bits of sweet potato and leeks. I had sausages (part of my normal weekly order), carrots which needed using, a chunk of sweet potato from nearly a week ago and leeks. I don’t buy whole onions these days due to chopping/arthritis problems. It looks OK and I am grateful for the recipe, but use it as a prompt only. If this were a glossy lifestyle magazine I suppose I would term my evening meal an homage to the recipe.
The same is true for most of my recipes – they are inspired by recipe books rather than copied from them. In truth I only take a couple of recipes and a few pointers from each book. That’s why I tend to cruise the internet these days instead of cluttering the place up with books. Recipe books are lovely things, but most of my meals are inspired by books with titles like Meals for a £1 or One Pot Cookery. They tend to come from the discount racks in book shops and they invariably show evidence of having been open next to a pan of simmering tomatoes or a pot of curry.
No pictures of today’s meal – it wasn’t very photogenic when it emerged. However, there may be photos later s I am intending to try a variety of new recipes this week. Time to get out of the rut.
Salmon with Roasted Vegetables and Soy and Sesame dressing.
