Cookbooks

Thanks everyone for all the food suggestions. Tina, bring as many as you like, but I do have a few of my own:
More of Bob's work this. It was supposed to be a shelf for my preserving pan. But apparently the proportions were not aesthetically pleasing, so now it's a book and mug shelf instead. Not sure where I'm supposed to put the preserving pan now though.

I like my recipe books. I like taking them out, reading through hundreds of different recipes, then pick a couple, realise I don't have the ingredients and ordering take-away , hitting the internet going with what I have instead.

One book I particularly enjoy is this one:I have a few children's cookbooks, two that were mine when I was little, full of nice little recipes like chocolate crispie cakes and instructions for growing mustard-and-cress in eggshells to make strange men with living green hair. Very simple directions, lots of "now ask Mummy to put it in the oven", but mostly tried and tested never-fail recipes.

This book is in a different league! There are cakes, there are sweets, and biscuits, and puddings, and other yummy child friendly things. But there are whole pages like this:and whole chapters on the history of different foods, instructions on how to gut fish (sorry again all you vegetarians; I did at least resist showing the photos from that page. And restrained myself from sharing the "how to stuff a sausage" page too), suggestions on growing your own
as well as proper, real, recipes for what to do with them when you have. I know Jamie Oliver is popular at the moment for getting children to eat their greens, but I have a feeling this recipe book is older than JO' school dinner investigations. Not that I have anything against JO; I just really like this recipe book. Instructions are clear and simple - oh, it makes me feel very old, as all the measurements are in metric only - and the recipes are delicious.

Little Fish and I have been cooking and baking again today. We Christened the new pans by stewing up some apples (LF's suggestion and her favourite food) and making some of my Sunshine Soup. We also made a rather yummy (I hope) wheat free chocolate cake, 4 dozen spice biscuits, and a big batch of cream cheese icing. Little Fish is a wonderful person to cook biscuits with - she can't eat them once they're cooked and shouldn't really have the raw dough either, so I have to save her from it all. Shame.

We also found the time to collect a month's incontinence supplies, rescue LF's power chair from repair central, a quick trip to Waitrose, and two parcels in the post. A busy but satisfying day.
Tia