Two Cookbooks

This summer I purchased two new cookbooks.

The first was a garage sale find, Twelve Months of Monastery Soups by Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette ( Broadway Books, New York, 1998). I am curious as to whether Brother Victor is a distant relative of St. Teresa of Avila, of course!  I have tried only one recipe from this book so far, Cream of Broccoli Soup. I did not like it. I was really disappointed in both the color and the flavor. The broccoli lost all of its green because it was in the pot for so long. I added a stick of butter to give it a bit more flavor, but I was still disappointed. I should have blended the soup just a tad longer before serving since the broccoli was a bit stringy in spite of peeling and chopping.  I am not a big fan of having to blend before serving, since it gets the blender and another pot dirty, making more clean-up work.

The second was Gourmet du Village Comfort Food by Linda McKenty, Ashley Tott and Mike Tott, Canada. I picked up this little gem at Crafts Direct for $2. They were selling it alongside several brightly colored single-serving casserole dishes which I was tempted to purchase, but I did not succumb. The recipes are single and double serving portions, perfect for the two of us. I have already made the Shepherd's Pie, the Coq au Vin, and the Chicken, Cheddar and Broccoli Frittata.. The Frittata took a bit of work to put together and required 20 minutes of waiting for breakfast while it baked, but it was good, and gave us a serving of vegetables to check off for the day. I could have drunk the leftover juice from the Coq au Vin. Hated to dump it since it was so good. I am anxious to try the lasagna, which uses a single lasagna noodle folded to make the layers. The recipe book calls for seasoning mixes which Gourmet du Village sells, but also includes instructions for measuring your own individual spices and seasonings. I appreciated that little courtesy. I look forward to making more recipes from this book in the future.