Southern Woman’s Kitchen: Crockpot Cooking and More for the Family Table – this book certainly lives up to its subtitle!
There are chapters on slow cooking (50 new recipes), including a basic guide and tips such as how to tell if your cooker is a ‘speedy slow cooker’ or not. There are chapters covering ordinary cooking, from lunches and nibbles to soups, main courses and baking. And the recipes are mostly do-able with ingredients you have in the cupboard, or at least ingredients you could buy from PakNSave next time you shop (my criterion for whether I’m going to realistically make a recipe or not!).
A fat softback cookbook (316 pp), with 16 chapters, some photos, and an index.
I’m liking
I’m a devoted Alison Holst aficionado – I like recipes that are easy to make, are likely to appeal to children, have suggested variations, ingredient substitutions, and shortcuts in the method, and don’t require me to shop anywhere weird. After perusing this book, I now declare myself a Joan Bishop aficionado as well! I love the sound of these recipes – including things like chicken and chilli marbles with tomato and sour cream sauce; courgette fritters; fish topped with cheese and almond crumble; rhubarb and strawberries in sparkling wine jelly; apricot and almond roulade; black bean and chocolate chilli (!?)…..
There are photographs, each recipe says how many it serves, and the index is excellent.
Things that made me go hmmmm
I prefer each recipe in a cookbook to be photographed, so I think the book could do with a few more pictures. There’s also no times given for how long each recipe takes to make. I haven’t yet test-driven the book in my kitchen and on my recipe stand to see if it stays open during use, being such a thick volume.
The conclusion
I’m excited about discovering Joan Bishop and recommend her recipes to my fellow fans of cooks like Alison Holst and Sophie Gray. 🙂 These recipes have a bit more of a twist to them but still look pretty easy to put together.
