Weekend Cooking: In My Kitchen - April

Welcome to the first Saturday of the month where I usually share everything I have made over the previous month. After getting back from holidays early in the month, I would have expected to be busier baking, but it hasn't really happened! Maybe May will be a bit more productive. We'll see. 

Here's what I did make this month

Raspberry Coconut Pudding - Do you ever make recipes that you see other participants in In My Kitchen mentioning in their posts?This month I made the Raspberry Coconut Pudding which Sam at The Annoyed Thyroid posted, and it was delicious! 

French Apple Cake - I saw this recipe on Taste and thought it looked like just the thing for some autumn days. It was nice enough, although I did forget to take a photo of the whole thing. My husband always says he likes what I make, but I can tell when it isn't a favourite when it isn't getting eaten during the week!

Anzac Biscuits - By contrast the Anzac biscuits are all gone. There is never a wrong time to eat Anzac biscuits, but there is absolutely a right time to make them which is on the Anzac Day long weekend. This recipe was one of the earliest I ever shared as part of Weekend Cooking and I still use the same recipe 15 years later!

The best foodie experience we had this month was having afternoon tea Oxi Tea Rooms. It was a totally different afternoon tea experience than I have had before! I am hoping to write more about it in a couple of weeks but here is just a taste. The menu is called Red and this was a chicken and beetroot morsel, and set the tone really well. 

It has been quite a controversial month in the corners of the internet that I spend time. 

Firstly, there is controversy in the Jamie Oliver Cookbook Club which really started last month while we were away. Previously there was a new cookbook announced each month. Often they were newly published cookbooks which meant that sometimes people who lived overseas didn't get the book in time to cook from in the current month, so there were complaints about that. In March, instead of announcing a new book, the club announced that they were going to keep the same book for three months in order to try to make it easier for those people. Then all hell broke loose because the people who liked a new book every month were upset. I don't think it helped that the book that they decided to start this with was Jamie's own Air Fryer Cookbook. I am someone who sometimes had to wait due to the fact that I live in Australia, sometimes I also chose not to buy the book and other times I bought the book. I have discovered some books that I really love as a result of being in the club. I do understand both sides of the argument, but I also don't think that there is a way to keep everybody happy all of the time! It does feel like the beginning of the end for the club, but we'll see what happens when the June book is announced. In the meantime, I am also a member of two Australian cookbook clubs on Facebook so this might given me a chance to cook with them this month!

And then there is the front page news controversy here in Australia. Beloved cookbook author Nagi Maehashi has accused Brooke Bellamy, author of the runaway success cookbook Brooki Bakes of plagiarism, which she has denied, and now other authors have done the same. At first glance, the examples provided do some pretty damning, but I guess we would see how it all plays out over the coming weeks. The two recipes which were used as evidence were the humble caramel slice and baklava. I'm pretty sure that the Google search numbers for the phrase Caramel Slice went through the roof this week! It has led to lots of conversation about what can be copyrighted in a recipe. Both of these are pretty classic recipes so there must only be so many ways you can write the steps? 

The controversy has given me a bit of a lightbulb moment though. Sometimes when I look at recipes in a baking book I see that they have done a version of something but it has a bit of a different flavour profile, like an Earl Grey Victoria Sponge as a made up flavour combination. Now I get that the reason might be so that you have absolutely put your twist on the classic and therefore changed it into your own thing!

52 Recipes Challenge

Here are the new recipes we tried this month.

Raspberry Coconut Pudding

French Apple Cake

Apricot Chicken - The 70 and 80s called and want their recipe back.

Weekend Cooking posts from the last month

In My Kitchen - March

What We Ate on Holidays - Japan and South Korea - The Savoury Edition

What We Ate on Holidays - Japan and South Korea - The Sweet Edition

The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki

Weekly Meals

Saturday - Coconut Prawn Curry
Sunday - Grilled cheese on toast
Monday - Pork chops, mash, beans, carrots and gravy
Tuesday - Apricot Chicken
Wednesday - out for dinner
Thursday - Italian Meatballs
Friday - Pizza

I am sharing this post with In My Kitchen hosted at Sherry's Pickings.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page