Many of you followed our groups adventures in the ABC Dinner club where we ate our way through the alphabet at restaurants in Kansas City. That club came to a close a few months ago when we finally (after 5 years) made it to the letter Z. One of our club members had a friend who was part of a cookbook club and suggested we try that for our next adventure.
I have read about cookbook clubs in the past and there seem to be as many versions of these types of clubs as there are cookbooks themselves. Basically it is like any other book club, you get together with friends to eat, drink and discuss the book. The difference is that in a cookbook club each person cooks a recipe from the selected book and brings it to share with the other members.
Here are the guidelines for our version of the Cookbook Club:
- Each member of the group will have a turn selecting a cookbook.
- We will meet monthly to share and discuss prepared recipes.
- Husbands are welcome (and encouraged) to assist with the recipe selection and cooking.
- Each member will select a recipe from the cookbook for that month’s meeting. The monthly meeting does not need to be a meal with complimentary dishes selected. It can just be a tasting of random recipes.
- We will continue making recipes out of the book until we have a good feel for it and decide we are ready to move to the next cookbook.
- We can change these guideline whenever the heck we want to…
The first cookbook selected is Pioneer Woman Cooks – Food From my Frontier by Ree Drummond. Below are selections from our first meeting on April 30, 2016.
Corn Casserole with Peppers – easy to make, would be great in summer when corn is cheap. Discussed buying corn during the summer in bulk, cutting off the cob and freezing. Tasted great!
Buttered Rosemary Rolls – these rolls are excellent and easy to prepare since you start with frozen unbaked dinner rolls. The coarse salt and fresh rosemary make all the difference in taste, the butter probably does not hurt either.
Spicy Caesar Salad with Homemade Cornbread Croutons – the addition of chipotle peppers kicks this salad up a notch from a normal Caesar. For those of you that care (like me) there are raw eggs in the dressing which is also normal for Caesar dressing. The croutons were good but if made in the future would probably just buy croutons instead of going to the trouble of making from scratch.
BBQ Chicken and Pineapple Quesadillas – easy to make and tasted great. Serve with sour cream, salsa and a pineapple wedge on top.
Tangy Tomato Brisket – if you have six or seven hours to let this cook on a low temperature there is nothing better. Easy to prepare and boy does it make your house smell good all day. Turned out moist and tender which I can say is not always the case with brisket.
Knock You Naked Brownies – delicious but very rich. The recipe is a little more complex than simple brownies but good for a special occasion. Wish I would have taken a picture of the gooey caramel and chocolate on the inside which is the star in this dish.
Let me know if you are or have ever been in a cookbook club. I would love to hear how other’s operate.
These sound delicious!!!