Cookbook Project: Possibly for the next-to-last time?

Two more cookbooks down, only three to go!

#1. The Complete Encyclopedia of Vegetables and Vegetarian Cooking

I think this is the cookbook I’ve owned the longest? My mom bought it for me a while ago when I first became a vegetarian and it is a stellar source of information! I’ve cooked a lot of savory dishes from it, so I decided to go a different direction this tine and chose a cardamom and saffron tea loaf.

Did I choose it based almost entirely on the cardamom? Perhaps.

The recipe called for raisins but I swapped those out for goji berries because that’s what I had on hand (as an aside: I highly recommend including goji berries in your granola!). This photo is pre-proofing and is taken about the time when I realized I was continuing my trend of accidentally making giant recipes without checking.

The result:

I really liked the taste of this loaf although I think I could have easily doubled the cardamom in it. My issue was with the cooking time as the middle of this (very large and very dense) loaf definitely still had some raw spots. I probably should have seen this coming, but at least I’ll know for next time!

#2. Ottolenghi: The Cookbook

How did I get this far into this project and not do all of my Ottolenghi cookbooks already? I love Ottolenghi recipes and the ones in this book are no different. I figured the raspberry and nut bars would be a good addition to our Thanksgiving menu!

Step one: a little oat bar base goes for a quick bake.

Step two: cover that with lingonberry jam when you discover that you are actually out of raspberry jam!

Cover all that goodness in a layer of mixed nuts and a brown butter/sugar mixture and it goes back into the oven, only to turn into these gooey, crumbly bars.

I said I made these bars for Thanksgiving dessert, which is true. But it was only after Thanksgiving that I discovered what they are truly destined for, which is to be eaten at breakfast time with some yogurt on top!