My favourite cooking books

 

As I mentioned before, I love cooking. I also love books. That means I LOVE cooking books!!! I don't own too many cooking books but I think I have at least 10, and more than 30 if I include cooking magazines. Today I'm going to write a bit about my favourite ones.

Miss Masala by Mallika Basu

This is actually not a book for vegetarian like me, but I couldn't help buying it because it is so beautiful. How many times have you seen such a beautiful book like this in your life?

And the layout is nice too. It's basically about Indian food as you must have recognized by the title, it's got some photos in it but not so many. Instead you can enjoy the lovely illustrations which I totally adore. I've never tried any of the recipes yet but it's quite inspiring.

From Season to Season: A Year in Recipes by Sophie Dahl

I got it for 20 pounds when I went to London, and now it's 10 pounds on Amazon! I have the 1st book of Sophie Dahl too, and loved it so much. Again it's not a vegetarian-friendly book but still the photos are very beautiful and sophisticated, it gives you ideas of tableware and stuff.

The 2nd book seem to have more of the recipes of vegetable dishes than the 1st one. 

Vegetarian by Alice Hart

I got this one from the famous bookshop "Books for Cooks" in Notting Hill for about 15ounds, now it's 7.5 pounds on Amazon! (Does it mean that I shouldn't buy any books from a bookstore and get one from Amazon only?) It was very unfortunate that the bookshop didn't have many vegetarian books. They did have ones but most of them were old and boring ones, and this one was outshining and I had to buy it. Although my suitcase was full and heavy like a huge rock.

This book is AMAZING. To be honest with you I haven't read through yet at all because I don't want it to end. I know it sounds odd but I love the feel of the papers as well...! Look at the photo, this book is very sophisticated. Although I haven't tried any of the recipes yet I strongly recommend this book.

Hamlyn QuickCook: Vegetarian (UK Edition)

This book is not as beautiful as the other ones, but very useful. Basically it shows one recipe fully and two other different ideas with the same ingredients that you can cook within either 10, 20 or 30 minutes. 

It's very good because when a recipe which takes 30 minutes catches my eyes but I don't have time to cook, I can follow the substitute idea which I can cook within 10 minutes. Of course they are not exactly the same dish but still it gives me an inspiration. Very handy and useful book.

What's your favourite cooking book? Let me know!

My Favourite Smoothie for Summer

Fruits in Japan are very expensive. I was shocked to see how cheap they are in the U.K. when I visited London in June. I love fruits, I would eat them every day if possible, but I only have some options to choose fruits here. Cheap ones are bananas, oranges, kiwi (still, sometimes just one small kiwi costs like 1 pound) and apples I guess.

I make this smoothie very often as you only need cheap ingredients.

• Orange - 1
• Banana - 1
• Pineapple (I use tinned one usually) - 1/2
• Ginger - size of a thumb 

You just put them all together and blend. That's how easy it is to make smoothie, it only takes 2 minutes to make from the preparation process. The key is ginger, which adds this fresh flavor to this sweet juice. You should try it if you haven't added ginger to your smoothie. It's the best smoothie ever, I'm so in love with it!

Bananas lift up your mood, containing serotonin and fiber. Oranges contain vitamin so of course it must be good for your skin. Gingers warm up your body which is needed not only in winter but summer because of air-conditioning everywhere. 

Now I'm going to make this smoothie, writing about it made me want to drink it right now!