Week 23 of the Cookbook Challenge – a bit late as I’ve been on holidays so this week have had a week of Cookbook Challenge recipes to cook! For this challenge the theme is Leaf – one of my new favourite leaves is Kaffir Lime leaves. I usually pick a few off my lime tree, throw them in a cup with some honey and make a quick tea – very refreshing and great if you have a cold. Kaffir leaves...

Week 21 of the Cookbook Challenge and the theme is Thai. I did this challenge on a night where I had limited ingredients in the fridge and a car at the mechanic’s so I turned to Jamie for a basic recipe that I adapted a little. This recipe uses prawns but I substituted for chicken, and I also replaced the asparagus with broccoli (asparagus is the only vegetable that I hate!) Ingredients Large bunch of...

Week 18 of the Cookbook Challenge with a BBQ theme. My mum gave me The Orient Express Cookbook when I first moved out of home and I should use it more often, it has a great mix of Asian dishes in it. I decided to go with a pretty basic recipe, Thai Grilled Pepper Chicken. This was really easy to make but tasted like it took a lot more effort which is always a good thing! Ingredients 2kg chicken breast or thigh...

Week 14 of the Cookbook Challenge, theme is Japanese. I love eating Japanese food, but I’ve never really tried to cook it properly, like with an actual recipe. I’ve had this Women’s Weekly Japanese cookbook for over 10 years so I think it’s time now to give it a go. I decided on 2 recipes – Beef and Vegetable Rolls and Sushi Rolls. Beef and Vegetable Rolls 2 medium carrots 6 asparagus...

Week 5 of the Cookbook Challenge – this one was a bit of a challenge. I didn’t realise but I’ve never really cooked Greek food before, it’s not a style of food I tend to pick out to cook (although I do like to eat it!). I found a Greek recipe in my 5 Nights a Week cookbook that looked nice, Greek Lamb with Crispy Potatoes. 3 garlic cloves, crushed 1/4 cup olive oil 2 tbsp chopped rosemary...

Week 4 of the Cookbook Challenge and the theme is Beans. I love love love beans so there was no problem with finding something to cook…I decided on a recipe from Marie Claire Comfort, a book that I got for my birthday last year and until this recipe had not even used (eeek!) 2×400g tins cannellini (white) beans, drained 5 ripe roma tomatoes, roughly chopped 400g tin chopped tomatoes 2 leeks, roughly...

Week 2 of the Cookbook Challenge – the theme this week is Indian. I went with a very unimaginative recipe – a curry – but it was still a challenge for me though as I rarely cook curry. I consulted the always reliable Jamie Oliver’s The recipe is really simple and it turned out well Serves 4-6 Ingredients 4 chicken breasts 2 medium onions 1 fresh red chilli a thumb sized piece of fresh...