Morning! Well have I got a treat for you. I have not one, not two, not three books… but four books from Storey Publishers to giveaway. I’m going to give them away as a bundle as I think anyone who likes one of them will like all of them. But first a little info on them and what I thought.
First off I have ‘Groundbreaking Food Gardens’ by Niki Jabbour. Recently I’ve gotten rather into gardening. Admittedly, at first, through necessity, though latterly I’ve been enjoying the garden looking tidier and being more productive. Gone is a VERY LARGE blackberry bush which was threatening to take over the entire garden, and unearthed under it are three brick bordered vegetable beds. We’ve left it a little late this year to have a huge harvest, but hopefully next year it’ll be a bit Good Life around here.
This book featured beautiful illustrations of 73 gardens that are all aimed at providing food in some way. But this isn’t your usual stuffy garden plan book. It has a garden dedicated to cocktail making, one for people who are chilli obsessed, one for people without a proper garden; who need a plan for pots. There’s even a garden designed for those of us who keep chickens. (Give me a year and I may well be one of those folks).
Next up is ‘The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know How’ by Andrea Chesman. Because once you’ve grown all those delightful fruit and vegetables with the help of the first book you are going to need some advice on how to preserve it all. I should mention that I LOVE books like this. It makes me ponder whether I would have been better off as an American ranchers wife where preserving food for the winter is key to survival. It brings out the war-time trouper in me.
I should mention that all of these books are American. As in, if they give quantities for anything it’s not in grams. You can easily enough convert recipes but I thought I ought to mention it. Anyway, this book has chapters on all the main ways of preserving food including lots of handy recipes and tips from making excellent stock to storing apples for the winter. There are line drawn illustrations for cheese making, drying, curing meats, making sausages, looking after chickens. You name it, it’s in here. Essentially if you are a little bit interested in being self sufficient then this book will whet your appetite further. I have a feeling I’ll be dipping into this book again and again over the years for advice.
Next up is ‘Cooking with Fire’ by Paula Marcoux. Because all that food you’ve grown and preserved needs to be cooked, right? (Yes there’s definitely a theme here with the grouping of these books!)
There are so many beautiful photos in this book. But beware this is not your common barbecue recipe book. Oh no, this is about seeing fire in a more diverse way. There are detailed instructions on how to build the perfect fire (this brings out the inner Brownie/Guide in me), how to construct a wood fired pizza oven, how to plank roast fish using a piece of wood, fire and some nails (really!) and even creating your own tandoor.
Packed full of recipes including baba ganoush, beef shanks with chilli and cranberry, almond meringue cookies and baked beans, there’s importantly also dedicated information on how to adapt recipes for fire cooking. Like how to shape bread. It hadn’t occurred to me there’s a different method for shaping just for fire baking, but there is.
Lastly I give you ‘Fresh Fish’ by Jennifer Trainer Thompson. There’s something rather dreamy about this book. It’s all shot in New England, lots of sea and dock photos. And fish, obviously lots of fish.
There are seven chapters split into Soups and Chowders, Things that Swim, Things with Shells, On the Beach, On the Side, Cocktails and Sweet Endings. The recipes are mouth-watering and admittedly you’ll need to convert cups to metric but with bacon wrapped whitefish with chargrilled potatoes and seared tuna with wasabi dipping sauce I think we can forgive that.
One of the things I liked most about this book was the whole pages dedicated to the history of the different fish and fishing. It felt like part history book, part diary, part recipe book. A take to bed cookbook for those of us who like to dream of food. Recipe wise I loved the fact that whilst the emphasais is on fish, there’s lots of attention paid to the recipes that make the fish sing. So sides are well served in a lemon kale salad, old fashioned cucumber salad, Boston salad with blood oranges and red onions, sesame spinach, watermelon, arugula and feta salad, seafood salad and coleslaw with carrots and currants. And drinks are where my heart lies with this book. I want, sorry, I need to try a Weekapaug Bee Keeper (gin, lime, honey and ginger sugar) and also a jalapeno cucumber margarita.
If you would like to win a copy of these lovely recipe books, worth $79.80 then there are lots of ways to enter the giveaway – see the Rafflecopter form below. The first way is just to leave a comment on this post. Easy peasy. Closing date 7th July 2017. How to enter:
- Complete the Rafflecopter form below to confirm your entries made via blog comments, Twitter, Facebook etc.
- This giveaway will close on 7th July 2017.
- Please read the rules below.
- Winners are announced on the Rafflecopter form after the prize has been claimed by the winner.
- First timers: Please watch how Rafflecopter works (video)! It is 46 seconds long. It explains everything.
- If no form is showing, hit refresh and it should appear.
- Complete the form – or your beloved entries will not go into the draw. And that would be such a waste of time.
- Mandatory entries need to be completed first – so leave a blog comment before you try and complete any of the other methods of entry.
- Want more chances to win? Come back daily after tweeting about the giveaway and fill the form in again.
- If you are viewing this by email you will need to click through to enter.
Rules and things:
- Open to anyone over the age of 18, UK, Europe, US and Canada. Sorry to anyone younger or further afield.
- There’s 4 x Storey books to giveaway worth $79.80 (RRP) to giveaway to one person. There’s no cash alternative to the prize and the prize is not transferable. No part or parts of the prize may be substituted for other benefits, items or additions.
- Instructions form part of the terms and conditions. Entries using any software or automated process to make bulk entries will obviously be disqualified. The winner will be picked at random using software and then contacted by email. If you win and then don’t respond to this email within 7 days then another winner will be picked so check your emails and your spam! The goodies will be delivered to the winner as soon as possible after you have sent me your delivery address.
- I am running this giveaway on behalf of Storey who will be responsible for sending the prize to you by post should you win. Their decision is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into.
- This is where I get all stern – please don’t say you have liked the post and followed me on Twitter and Tweeted away like a Tweety thing if you haven’t as guess what? If you win I will check you did do the things you said you did. It’s only fair after all. And I do like fairness.
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