I bought another cookbook

Well, isn't that a surprise! But this one is special.

Hubb Community Kitchen was created after the Grenville fire to give the women a place to cook and to meet together. Their cookbook, Together : Our Community Kitchen was written at the suggestion of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex to fund opening more days a week.

So the first thing you get from buying this book is the feeling that you are contributing to a good cause. But that is not all. I'm drooling over Moroccan yeast risen pancakes served with a mixture of almond butter, honey and argan oil. (I checked online. Our local supermarket sells argan oil.) There are recipes from many different countries. Many, even most of the recipes are vegetarian. Each woman trying to cook dishes that the other women will enjoy and will feel able to eat.

The Lebanese vegetable lasagna intrigues me. Yoghurt, tahini, feta instead of tomato sauce.

Got to try the carrot and onion chapatis soon.

There are deserts and drinks as well, of course.

All the dishes you mentioned sound lovely... Please report back when you've tried them!

I'm drooling already, just reading your description!

What a terrific idea! Looking forward to hearing your results and explorations.

ETA: I had not heard of the Grenville fire before. Horrifying. We recently lost a whole community to fire, so I understand the devastation and recovery goes on for years.

We enjoyed the chapatis. I used carrots that had been grated at the supermarket (very dry) and whole wheat flour, so I needed extra liquid. I served them with a mild chicken dish from my family's time in India. The recipe had been provided by a woman from Uganda and we live in Austria, so it was rather a culturally adapted meal.

Will I make this again? Well, grating the onion was a hassle, and they were harder to roll out than my normal chapatis, (The carrot bits liked making holes where I had rolled it really thin.) but I might, because they were different, and really complimented the chicken. It was also a good way of getting extra veggies into the meal.

And one of the leftovers was very good with herb cheese and a fried egg for breakfast today.

Well, I was meant to report on the lasagna tonight. I had it all put together and was heating the oven when I managed to knock it off the counter and all over the floor. Not a good idea. I'll have to buy more ingredients next week sometime.

>7 MarthaJeanne: Oh, no! You have my sympathy. I so love lasagna, and am completely unwilling to go to the work for it. I'm sad to hear that yours leapt into the path of destruction.

>7 MarthaJeanne: Oh no! That's so disappointing.

>8 Lyndatrue: I may have a recipe for you! It's skillet lasagna. I'll post it on my thread.

>7 MarthaJeanne: My heart weeps for you. I once had two roasted chickens leap out of the oven and onto the floor. My floors are not the kind one can eat off of, but at least I could cut the side which touched the floor off and eat the rest of the chicken. Not so easy with lasagna!

>7 MarthaJeanne: My heart weeps for you. I once had two roasted chickens leap out of the oven and onto the floor. My floors are not the kind one can eat off of, but at least I could cut the side which touched the floor off and eat the rest of the chicken. Not so easy with lasagna!

Another 'good cause' cookbook has me in a quandry. Hot Bread Kitchen employs and trains immigrant women in New York City. And in return learns about their baking traditions. It was founded by a Canadian woman after working at the UN for a while.

I have the 'Irish Soda Bread' in the oven. Well, I would call it a mediterranean inspired damper bread, as it includes baking powder with milk and egg instead of baking soda and sour milk, and then has olives and rosemary and onion and cheese instead of a few raisins, not to mention a big helping of butter that isn't in the traditional recipe. But let's not be picky. It sounds lovely. The big question is. Given that this will be tonight's carbohydrate, what is the main course?

>12 MarthaJeanne: A search of the freezer came up with salmon filet and ratatouille. The bread tastes good, but very crumbly.

>12 MarthaJeanne: That bread sounds good enough to be the main course. A small salad maybe? That would do for me, but your salmon sounds good too.

>12 MarthaJeanne: >14 MrsLee: Thumbs up from me, and blessings for remembering that damper is the Australian soda bread. Although if you read Ion Idriess’s books, the rising agent wasn’t always baking soda. I believe he mentions somewhere using Eno’s Fruit Salts, which was a powder used to make a fizzy drink with supposed health-giving properties.

I will never rub butter into a damper bread or a soda bread again, and I will make sure I knead it a little. You don't want to overdevelop the gluten, but a little bit to hold it together is not a bad idea.

>15 haydninvienna: Good Evans! wouldn't Eno's (which we get here too; great stuff for indigestion) make the bread taste odd?

>17 hfglen: That might depend on which flavour you used, and what other flavours you wanted in your bread. Assuming you used lemon and added some dry fruit, I doubt anyone would notice. The main ingredients are just baking soda and citric acid, with sugar and flavouring added. You just want to remember that it needs to go into the oven quickly (like any real soda bread), as there isn't a second push of carbon dioxide from the heat as you would get from double-action baking powder.

>17 hfglen: I very much doubt we’re talking gourmet cooking here. These blokes were one step up from swaggies (that is, tramps). They would have been outworkers on sheep stations and were probably living on rations (so much per week of mutton, flour, tea and sugar). No allowance for baking soda or anything like that, and otherwise you’d be limited to whatever was available.

Now we need someone in Oz to invent a gourmet bush-tucker damper raised with Eno’s and including the fruit and so on, as suggested by >18 MarthaJeanne: . I’ll get Son Who Cooks to work on it.

>19 haydninvienna: Using really strong tea for the liquid couldn't hurt, either.

>19 haydninvienna: "whatever was available"
Witchetty grubs, anybody?

Now I'm trying to remember whether the "swagman camped by a billabong, under the shade of a coolibah tree" had anything edible with him other than a "jolly jumbuck".

>19 haydninvienna: witchetty grubs are supposed to be good tucker. I’ve never tried them but my view of bush tucker tends to agree with Croc Dundee’s. A jumbuck is a sheep, just in case. This bloke might have been entitled to rations, but it wasn’t his mutton. As far as I can remember he is not said to be carrying any other tucker.

>22 haydninvienna: Mopane worms likewise. I've never had the courage to try them, but I do know they're a very effective way of clearing any doubters/non-partakers out of the kitchen.

Yesterday I returned a book to my library and checked to see what they had discontinued and for sale (there is a donation box) and I got The Frugal Gourmet Celebrates Christmas by Jeff Smith. I used to watch him on TV and he was always so pleasant.

>24 mnleona: Two entirely laudable activities! The third would be making something from your new book ;-)

Today I bought Taste of Home's Contest Winning Annual Recipes 2005 It is a large book, 8 1/2" X 11" and has 240 pages. I have been looking at baking recipes for entering the Minnesota State Fair competition. Lasy year, my daughter entered two of my crochet pieces (without my knowing about it) and I won second place for the scarf. I have thought about entering in the past for baking and I may do that; and maybe not. I do like the recipes from taste of Home.

Careful, folks, about any cookbooks written by The Frugal Gourmet, Mr. Jeff Smith. He died some years back of cardiovascular disease. So did Carla Emry, author of one of those country living encyclopedias. So you may want to adapt any recipes you try (from either of those authors) toward a healthier direction.

Jeff Smith 1939-2004 He had had a valve replaced in 1981. Valve problems are usually not related to life style issues.

No results for Carla Emry

On the other hand, Adelle Davis, 1904–1974 who advocated for healthy food (not always correctly) died of Multiple myeloma.

Carla Emery died from complications of pneumonia -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Emery -- or complications of low blood pressure https://web.archive.org/web/20051227195231/http://www.carlaemery.com/.

>26 mnleona: I love those cookbooks. I buy one every time I see one at the local friends of the library sales for a couple of bucks.