Chatto & Windus At My Table: A Celebration of Home Cooking

I love this book. But I love everything Nigella does. As always, the food is absolutely divine, and Nigella’s hilarious, but oh so true, tidbits of wisdom are ever present. As an example, maybe you didn’t know that it was a crime to throw out the boiling water you used for garlic mashed potatoes. I didn’t either. Now I do. She uses it as a silky vegetable stock to make pea soup afterwards. I can’t wait to try that! She has a recipe called Subverting the Spiralizer, in which she makes fried shoestring potatoes. I’m cracking up because I just went through a healthy spiralizer book and it inspired me to make mountains of fried onion strings. I doubt that was the author’s intention, and I’m quite tickled that I now think Nigella would support me on that one.The only bummer I can find is that the font is a little on the small side. I’m usually reading cookbooks from a stand on the counter with ingredients between us. If you stand closer, this probably isn’t noticeable for you.My thoughts and pics of the dishes I tried…..1 Garlic and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes – p 66. These are delicious on their own, but I made them to generate leftovers to make the waffles below.2) Potato Waffles from leftover Garlic and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes – p 71. Oh my gosh. These are everything that I hoped and dreamed they would be. They are mashed potato fluffy and tender on the interior, and crusted and roasty toasty flavored on the outside. I love them. Pure genius. I am going to be a brunch hero with these bad boys.3) Toasted Brie, Prosciutto, and Fig Sandwich – p 34. Okay, our trees are weighed down with figs, but they wont be ripe for a few months. I had brie and prosciutto in the fridge, so I tried this subbing in a fig jam I made last fig season. Divine. I’ll update this once I try it again with fresh figs.4) Beef and Eggplant Fatteh – p 42. Fantasic dinner. Super fragrant and quite the looker. Nigella called them Middle Eastern nachos. I plated everyone’s individually, because my kids turn nachos into competitive eating.5) Chicken with Grapes and Marsala – p 136. Ooooh! This is my favorite in the book so far. So simple and so flavorful. My grapes lost their color in the oven, so I cheated and smashed them into the sauce, gave it a quick strain, and tossed some more bright, beautiful grapes under the broiler.6) Chili Cheese Garlic Bread – p 28. This is as yummy as it looks. She has you blend the cheese into the garlicky buttery ooze and smear it on with a heavy hand.7) Coconut Shrimp with Turmeric Yogurt – p 130. Perfect crisp texture and super flavorful sauce.8) Carrots with Fennel and Harissa – p 60. The sweet orange is a lovely contrast to the harissa, and the earthiness of the carrots and fennel. Love.9) Deviled Eggs – p 24. Such a fun, retro dish. I’d forgotten all about deviled eggs, and they’re stylish again.10) Chopped Salad – p 94. Delicious! I made this for dinner with the lamb meatballs. The leftover made a great lunch with a little chopped walnuts added in.11) Lamb Kofta with Garlic Sauce – p 168. Tons of delicious flavor and it smells heavenly!I’ll update this as I play in the book more.Some others I have flagged to try: Meatballs with Orzo – p 54 * Brussels Sprouts with Preserved Lemons and Pomegranate – p 76 (This totally looks like Christmas!) * Sweet Potato Tacos with Avocado and Cilantro Sauce and a Tomato and Pear Relish – p 86 * Radicchio, Chestnut, and Blue Cheese Salad with a Citrus, Whole Grain Mustard, and Honey Dressing – p 93 * Beet and Goat Cheese Salad with a Passionfruit Dressing – p 96 * Roast Loin of Salmon with Aleppo Pepper and Fennel Seeds – p 129 * Lime and Cilantro Chicken – p 138 * Butterflied Chicken with Miso and Sesame Seeds – p 140 * Chicken Fricassee with Marsala, Chestnuts, and Thyme – p 150 * Roast Duck with Orange, Soy, and Ginger – p 154 * Slow Roasted 5-Spice Lamb with Chinese Pancakes – p 160 * Spiced Lamb with Potatoes and Apricots – p 171 * Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder with Caramelized Garlic and Ginger – p 178 * Sirloin Steaks with Anchovy Cream Sauce – p 197 * Rose and Pepper Pavlova with Strawberries and Passionfruit – p 208 * Sticky Toffee Pudding – p 216 * Maple Roasted Plums with Cinnamon Brown Sugar Yogurt – p 219 * No-Churn Bourbon Salted Caramel Ice Cream – p 230 * Dirty Lemon Martini – p 272 * Grapefruit Margarita – p 273.

My cookbook collection already exceeds 400 books, which means that I have to hold a sharp rein on myself lest I need to clear out yet ANOTHER shelf for more recipes. Most of the time I find ways to hold myself in check... that is, except when another Nigella Lawson cookbook is released. I don't even look at the title; I just click on pre-order.I'm far from alone in liking Nigella's cookbooks. Mostly it's because she writes for my needs: I want yummy food that is so good that I stop talking to focus on eating it, yet I have OTHER things to do so I rarely can spend all afternoon puttering in the kitchen. Plus, Nigella always has a comfortable writing style, with instructions that sound the way your best friend would explain how to do something -- "squishing things together" rather than some formal "mix carefully" wording.At My Table does not disappoint me. It's chock full of a bunch of recipes that I want to make immediately, and several that I know will find their way onto my dinner table. That's despite the fact that many of her recipes are heavy on carbs, which I eschew. I've found more than enough recipes to justify the purchase, and I'm sure you will too.So far, I've made "beef and eggplant fatteh," which she describes as a Middle Eastern form of nachos. I left out the pita flatbread base with no problem, and treated the rest of it as a kind of hamburger stew. It was easy to throw together on a weeknight: eggplant, ground beef, roasted pine nuts, pomegranate seeds, mint, and a yogurt sauce with lemon and tahini (though I was too lazy to open the jar of tahini, and it didn't suffer). That made an outstanding familiar-yet-different hamburger stew, without a lot of fussing.Another dinner was "hake with bacon, peas, and [hard] cider," which was a solid okay. On the other hand I think dinner was ready 15 minutes after I walked into the kitchen, using ingredients that had been in the freezer that morning, and sometimes I yearn for simplicity.A better option was "pork steaks with port and figs," which made a two-person dinner in less than half an hour, yet seemed romantically exotic. It's essentially "fry up a couple of pork chops" but instead of plain flour you dredge them in allspice, ginger, and cloves before you add the port-soaked figs as a kind of bubbly syrup.And there are SO many more tabs stuck on the cookbook's pages. I was considering making "sunken chocolate amaretto cake" tonight (it uses almond flour rather than wheat, making it paleo-friendly). She's got a "sausages with apples and red onion" traybake that is bound to make an appearance sometime soon (throw it all in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes). There's also "chicken with red grapes and marsala" calling to me. And...Well, you get the idea. I consider any cookbook a winner if there are three recipes that I plan to make a second time. It's obvious that this one is worth the investment.With all this praise, you may be thinking, "So, is this the best of her cookbooks?" I don't think I'd give it that accolade, at least not yet. If you don't have any of them, you might start with  Nigella Express: 130 Recipes for Good Food, Fast . But this would be a good choice, too. Nigella Express: 130 Recipes for Good Food, Fast

I love this book. I knew I would because her book “How to be a domestic goddess” is one of my main recipe books for cakes and desserts. So far I have made carrots with fennel, salt and vinegar potatoes, spiced lamb with potatoes and apricots, beef and eggplant fatteh. All were delicious and even my kids loved them. For dessert I highly recommend the sticky toffee pudding, we can’t get enough of that one.