We’re back! For this month’s Cookbook Book Club (my once a month “cooking from the same cookbook” meal with Jan from Family Bites and Jenn from Chocolate Shavings), we welcomed a new member (baby Matthew who was born 2 months ago) and we cooked with recipes the long-awaited first cookbook from Aimée Wimbush-Bourque (of the blog Simple Bites) – Brown Eggs and Jam Jars.
I’ve written about Aimée’s book before (and shared a recipe for the very more-ish maple walnut granola!) and have cooked a few dishes from it, but we were all excited to see how a three-course meal would come together (for these gatherings we don’t share what we are making until the night!).
We started out with mango-strawberry sangria that was so popular even Shakespeare the cat was interested in checking them out!
Earlier in the day, I had made the radish-chive butter...
(a word on this – Aimée says to use unsalted butter as salt will make the radishes weep but I found microplaning them as the recipe called for made them plenty watery too. I had to place the butter in a piece of cheesecloth and squeeze out the extra moisture to make this dish work – not a problem but good to know!)
This was a delicious apéritif snack…
For the salad course, I wanted something a little spring-like (the weather was cooperating on the weekend!) so I chose the carrot, asparagus and cabbage slaw with cashews and maple-soy vinaigrette.
Even though obviously I forgot the cabbage, this was a lovely bright taste of spring – with a definite Asian twist from the sesame oil in the dressing.
For the main, Jan chose the chicken and leek shepherd’s pie.
A beautiful twist on a classic (though the filling was reminiscent of chicken pot pie and I think it would do well under some puff pastry!) – it was a perfect spring iteration of its heavier winter brother.
For dessert Jenn brought the whole wheat chocolate chunk cookies with orange zest.
These are a wonderful version of everyone’s favourite cookie – and because they are made with whole wheat they feel more virtuous! The orange zest really brightens them up – one of my favourite combinations!
Once again, without ever trying we managed to make a meal cohesive sans prior consultation! Aimée’s recipes are simple food (we all remarked on how short most of the recipes are – totally approachable) with fresh seasonal flavours. A perfect pick for early spring! Check back towards the end of May for our next instalment of Cookbook Book Club!
Interested in our Club? So far we’ve enjoyed dinner with Marcella, dinner with Nigella, dinner with Ottolenghi, dinner with Maria Speck, dinner with Naomi Duguid, lunch with Jamie Oliver, a dessert party with Butter Baked Goods, dinner with Jacques Pépin, dinner with Smitten Kitchen, recipes from Rachel Khoo, we brunched with Donna Hay, dined with Mark Bittman and got together over a Gatherings-inspired baby shower brunch.
Purchase Brown Eggs and Jam Jars for yourself on Amazon or Amazon Canada. Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository.
Canadians – win a copy of Brown Eggs and Jam Jars over on RecipeGeek.com!
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Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of Brown Eggs and Jam Jars for review purposes. I was not required to write about the book, nor am I being compensated for doing do. All opinions 100% my own.
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Please note: The product links from Amazon, Amazon.ca and The Book Depository are affiliate links, meaning if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price which goes towards maintaining eat. live. travel. write. Thank you in advance!
If I were there, I’d join. Not because I can cook, but because I’d eat extremely well.
You would be most welcome!
I’m with Geoff.
And even though Mr. Neil did the ingredients shopping….I do not seem to have had any taste nibbles. Not even one of those cookies made it back! Harrumph. 😉
You’ve eaten those cookies before!