I do love cook books. I love looking at the gorgeous food photos and getting inspired by the recipes they feature. I have a lot of them now, and although I may not stick to the recipes exactly, they do help me with my own food ideas and get me thinking about food styling.
Now I have to be honest, I am a messy cook and try as I might to perfect my food for photos on this blog, I know that they are not as good as a lot of other food bloggers. To me though, that does not matter too much, because I like to think that I am keeping it real, so to speak, because at the end of the day I am just a Mum, a woman, who enjoys cooking and baking and likes to share this with friends, family and blog readers (thank you for that by the way!).
So, when I was offered the chance to review the new cook book by last years Masterchef winner, Simon Wood, I said yes because I followed his journey on the show last year, and he was my favourite to win from the outset. He just had that chef know how, and could turn a plate of food into a real plate of tasty art and I think he seems like a really nice, down to earth guy too. This comes across in the opening chapter of his book too where he tells us about his love of food, his time on the TV show and how now he is the chef at Oldham Athletic which is a dream come true for him.
Anyway, the title of his book is At Home with Simon Wood : Fine Dining Made Simple , and this got me slightly panic stricken in terms of a blog review, because my home cooking is a million miles away from fine dining, as it is more rustic and simple cooking and certainly not presented in a photo friendly manner most of the time! BUT it does use the word simple so I figured that I would have a go at recreating one of his recipes at home and seeing if I could serve myself a fine dining dish that was a picture to look at!!! It was hard choosing a recipe to copy, because the book is packed full of some really delicious sounding and tasty looking dishes, but in the end I decided to give his Spinach Falafels a try.
The recipe appeared relatively easy and straight forward to replicate – and the colours of the mixture and the smell was amazing!
Now, in the book Simon’s falafel is presented in beautiful slices as he shaped his mixture into rectangular moulds, and sliced them for serving, like this:
Now, I made rounds with my mixture as I don’t own any fancy moulds but despite letting the mixture firm up in the fridge, it did break up a little when I was frying it and this did not help with my presentation *ahem*. I have to warn you, my fine dining photo is not that impressive, despite reading Simon’s tricks of the trade, and although it looks like a bit like the colour of the Incredible Hulk , I can assure you it tasted really, really nice!
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Yeah it doesn’t exactly have that fine dining sense about it does it? LOL So sorry Simon!!!
Simple?
Yes probably, but it really was delicious and I will make it again and work on my presentation skills, because afterall practice makes perfect!!!
If you fancy seeing Simon’s recipes in their full glory, then you can get yourself a copy of his book At Home with Simon Woods: Fine Dining Made Simple now. You can also find him here
I was sent a copy of the book to review. It was my choice to embarrass myself by trying to copy one of his delicious recipes!!
LauraCYMFT
Oh I loved Simon on Masterchef last year! Book looks fab! x
pauldcocker
Love it and I feel your pain … my dishes never look like the chefs. Glad you liked the book.