I’m so excited that Cooking the Books starts today! If you have a cookbook on your shelf that you’ve never used, get it out and cook along with us!

Participating in the series is:
Meg from Elsie Marley
Sarah from Butter with a Side of Bread
Ros from Sew Delicious
Laura from Craftstorming
Narelle from Cook Clean Craft
Emily from Fuss Free Cooking

If you decide to take up the challenge and cook from some of your unused books, please put a message up on the Facebook page, the thingsforboys twitter, on the Flickr Group or just leave a comment on the blog.

I’m kicking off the series with a quick little recipe from a sweet little book, Gifts from the Kitchen by Annie Rigg. It’s full of great ideas for homemade gifts for all occasions. There is a good mix of sweet and savoury treats and also a few liqueurs and cordials too. The book also includes gift wrapping ideas and an indication of how long your treats will stay fresh for once they’ve been made, which is very handy information if you are giving anything as a gift.

I’m testing out a fairly simple recipe for Spiced Nuts. The recipe doesn’t give suggestions for other flavour combinations, but the spices could easily be changed to suit your taste. I also halved the recipe in the book and my quantities are shown below.

Spiced Nuts
makes about 2 cups

375g mixed nuts (such as almonds, walnuts, pecans, cashews, peanuts, macadamias)
25g pumpkin seeds
25g sunflower seeds (I used 50g of a pumpkin, sunflower seeds and pine nut mix)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp honey
1 1/2 tsp sea salt flakes (I used Smoked Maldon Sea Salt)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika (I used smoked)

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).

Tip all the nuts and seeds into a medium mixing bowl and stir to combine evenly. The seeds tend to fall to the bottom, but that’s ok. Add the olive oil and the honey. I measure out the oil in my measuring spoon first, then tip it in the nuts. The spoon gets a nice oil coating so that you can measure the honey and it comes out of the spoon easily.

Add the spices and mix well to coat all the nuts evenly in the spice mix. Tip the mixture onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Spread the nuts out in an even layer.

Roast the nuts for about 10 minutes or until golden. Remove from the oven and cool on the tray. I’d suggest testing a few when they are just cool enough to handle and checking whether they need any extra salt.

I ate al the nuts over a couple of days, so didn’t give them as a gift. The book says they’ll last for 3 days, but I’m sure they’d stay fresh for longer than that.


Have you made a recipe from this book? Please leave a comment us know what you thought of it.