Monday, August 17, 2009

Magazine month

I eagerly anticipate the publication of new food magazines each month. Our small market in Australia is quite spoiled for choice, with several excellent local food magazines to choose from, with a wide range of recipes and wonderful photography. The Internet has also made it easy to access recipes from food magazines and writers around the world and my bulging shoebox file is testament to the fact that you can never have too many recipes!

Too often, though, I find myself eagerly marking up a new issue with recipes to try and then never finding the time to make my choices before the next issue arrives. So I recently made a concerted effort with Gourmet Traveller's June issue, which featured a decadent triple chocolate praline tart on the front cover (sadly, one recipe I haven't yet made from the list).

Flicking through, I found myself marking recipe after recipe to try: white bean veloute, chocolate sour cherry cake, braised lamb neck moussaka and tarka dal, from the "Fare Exchange" section (which features readers' requests for recipes from restaurants around the country). The "quick meals" section yielded scotch fillet with mash and rosemary butter, prawns with tomato, preserved lemon and couscous, char-grilled chicken with warm cabbage and celeriac salad (tick, tick and tick - all to be made again). There was a whole feature on pumpkin dishes (the pumpkin with speck and apple was particularly delicious with smoky cheese kranskys) and the "Nice as Pie" article featured both sweet and savoury pies. The brisket and Cheddar pie with sour cream pastry might have taken nearly a whole day to make but it was the best damn pie I've ever eaten in my life and worth every second of the preparation time. To top it all off, there were seven of the richest, decadent chocolate recipes I've ever seen and all will be made in the next few months.

Not only were all the dishes that I made from this issue worthy of a repeat, there was also a satisfying feeling to finally making good use of an issue, rather than just reading it and filing it away for future drooling sessions.

2 comments:

Suzie said...

I am so impressed with you doing this - what a great idea. I have piles of under-utilised mags. Any interest in doing some sort of monthly challenge?

Melinda said...

Hi Suzie - yes, a monthly challenge would be a great idea! It would hopefully inspire us to use recipes instead of just reading them! Ivonne from Cream Puffs in Venice does a Magazine Monday every week, which is worth checking out.