Hello, hello.
Last night I had a dream about the Great North 10K on Sunday. I dreamt I ran it in six hours and when I looked at my Garmin I'd only covered 3.2 miles or thereabouts. Wail!
Running has been better and I no longer have stomach aches, but then I've been slacking recently and haven't been pushing myself at all. It's feeling like I've been building up to the race forever and I'm beginning to get bored of it. I think this apathy is due to being worried because I haven't received my race pack with my number yet. To my paranoid mind that means it's not going to come and I'm not going to be able to run in the race. I've been raising money for charity and if I can't run in the race I'll have to tell everyone and it'll be humiliating. Also even if I run I've been so rubbish recently I'm going to run it really slow and come in at 1 hour 30 or something because I still haven't gotten around to walking the course and I don't know what the hills are like and I'm worried that they're crazy steep and and and...
And breathe.
On to the review. A while ago I bought Rose Elliot's New Complete Vegetarian. I like it. It's clearly and concisely laid out and has some gorgeous photos, but not so many that as with some other cookbooks you wonder if the glossy photos are padding out a book lacking in recipes.
The recipes are well written but invoke my pet cookery book peeve - no indication of how long it takes to prepare and cook the food at the beginning of the recipe. Grumble grumble.
I've tried out a few of the recipes. They tend to be on the easy and cheap side to make and favour everyday vegetables like carrots, courgettes, peppers, potatoes, and peas etc. Even the curries have ingredients you could easily find in a supermarket and won't languish unused in the back of your cupboard. Most recipes are healthy and just a touch on the 'wholesome' side of life with lots of brown rice, pulses, fresh vegetables and little oil. However there's plenty of cakes and bakes at the back of the book if you want to indulge.
I've tried peppers and macaroni (sauted peppers, onion, and tomatoes mixed with macaroni), courgette rice (brown rice cooked with courgettes, tomato and onions), and pea, potato and carrot curry. On the whole they've been quick and simple to make, although sometimes lacking in a little oomf when it comes to taste. Mr Scientist thought the peppers and macaroni and courgette rice were bland, although by 'bland' he actually meant 'not a curry containing 3 chilli peppers'. They were still nice, however, and the peppers and macaroni perfect for a quick midweek supper.
This book is not going to collect dust on my shelf, and I'm going to use it a lot.
I've heard a lot about that book - I would to give it a go.
ReplyDeleteBad dreams are horrible, especially when it feels so real. Remember it's only a dream and do some positive visualisation.
It's a great book, I'd really recommend getting it. It's one of those books with hundreds of recipes that you can turn to when you've got lots of random veg that needs using up.
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