When it comes to cookbooks I think I may have a problem. I can very easily wile away hours flicking through the pages of the ever-growing number of cookbooks on my shelves, tabbing up the recipes I want to make until each book is positively bristling with little torn strips of paper. (As an aside I recently met someone who tabs up her cookbooks with different coloured tabs so she can differentiate between easy weeknight recipes, dinner party dishes, and tea time treats, and am now going to have to re-tab all of my cookbooks because this is just SUCH a good idea). Yup I definitely have a problem. And so I thought I would try and make my very evident cookbook addiction into a positive by sharing with you, dear readers, a favourite cookbook each month. Sometimes it will be the establishd, dog-eared and food-stained tomes I’ve had on my shelves and cooked from for years, and sometimes it will be the newest releases – whatever is hottest off the press and causing the biggest foodie stir.
While all of my cookbooks combined are stuffed full of more tabs than I can ever really hope to make in a year (especially when I see recipes I want to try online countless times a day), one of the cookbooks with the most tabbed pages is easily Rachel Allen’s Entertaining at Home. A bible of creative and traditional recipes for all sorts of occasions, Allen’s book is handily divided up into different types of entertaining including ‘Brunches and Lunches’, ‘Eating Outdoors’ and ‘Small Celebrations’, with menu ideas at the close of each chapter. It is a dinner-party-obsessive’s dream.
I bought Entertaining at Home from the Ballymaloe farm shop in County Cork, Ireland, a foodie haven complete with stellar restaurant and world-class cookery school run by the welcoming Allen family, including Rachel herself. If you visit you are just as likely to see the Allens eating beside you in the sunny dining room as in the pristine vegetable gardens or school kitchen.
Still full from the delights of the Ballymaloe House kitchen (think smoked mackerel rillettes with olive tapenade, followed by butternut squash and ginger soup) I was bursting with ambitions to recreate the simplistic beauty I’d experienced during my stay at home. And Entertaining at Home didn’t disappoint. With each recipe bearing the refreshing and assured stamp of Rachel Allen, my favourites include baked eggs with kale, spinach soup infused with rosemary oil, and beetroot risotto with parmesan crisps (the list really does go on).
For those who love hosting a large dinner party, or just cooking for friends, family or special occasions, I really couldn’t recommend Entertaining at Home highly enough.
You can buy Entertaining at Home on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Entertaining-at-Home-Rachel-Allen/dp/0007309031
All Things Nice 