G'day Donna Hay

A Pot Luck party to say G'day and Welcome to our new chef,

Donna Hay.

Australian food writer & stylist, Donna Hay, began her career at the age of 19, and within a few short years was appointed Food Editor of marie claire magazine.  Donna is now the editor of her own magazine, donna hay magazine, a top-selling bi-monthly food magazine which has achieved tremendous success in her home country of Australia, as well as much international acclaim, with subscribers in 82 countries worldwide.

Donna is currently Australia’s leading food editor and best-selling cookbook author.  Her food and recipes, which focus on basic ingredients, simply prepared, have inspired a whole new generation of cooks to get into the kitchen, while her signature styling and beautifully photographed dishes have set the benchmark for food publishing worldwide.

She has 18 award-winning cookbooks to her credit, and was named one of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ cookbook authors by the international Gourmand Awards in January 2007.

Donna also has a popular weekly food column in both Australian and New Zealand newspapers, and is also a regular contributor to UK’s leading lifestyle magazine, Living etc.

And it doesn't stop there.  Donna also has her own concept store in Sydney, Australia, her own highly successful range of homewares, and has more recently launched the donna hay food range, with cookies, brownies and cupcake baking kits full of all natural ingredients.

Whew!!  You'd wonder how such a busy woman would ever find time to cook.  Proof positive, no doubt that Donna's simple but stylish dishes are perfect for busy people.

We're excited to be introducing this wonderful new chef to you, and hope you will enjoy cooking with Donna for the next six months.  In addition to Donna's books and magazines, which are available through both her own website and through Amazon (other major booksellers too), you will also find a ton of her recipes by visiting any of the links in the sidebar.

So, what are you waiting for.  Cook up that Donna Hay dish (or drink) that says G'day, and post your recipe by Sunday 6 October.

Don't forget to link your dish as well as a thumbnail image below, and please leave a comment after you link so that we don't miss your dish.

New to IHCC?  Need help linking up?  Check out our Welcome page.  If you have any questions please leave a comment below and we will get back with you.

If you missed our Oh, Ottolenghi (We're Gonna Miss You!) theme last week, be sure to check out the links and get a taste of all the wonderful dishes we made.

Oh, Ottolenghi! (We're Gonna Miss You!!!)

Oh, Ottolenghi!

Dear Yotam Ottolenghi,

What a incredible six months it has been cooking along with you! 

• You brought vegetables from the sidelines to the center of our plates...
• You introduced exotic ingredients like harissa, sumac, za'atar, and labneh into our world...
• You showed us the beauty in a perfectly "burnt" eggplant and had us drooling over your cookbook photos... 
• You got us to cook with unique and delicious flavor combinations...
• You made salads sexy...
• You challenged us and made us grow... (I mean sure, occasionally we grumbled a bit about the long and unusual ingredient lists and sometimes vague recipe directions, but the end results made it worth the effort!)
• You gave us an amazing amount of wonderful dishes and cooking experiences... 

Oh Ottolenghi! 

As much as we are looking forward to cooking along with our new IHCC chef Donna Hay, we are truly going to miss cooking with you each week and exploring the world of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Israeli cooking. But, don't be too sad--although we might not see you as quite regularly anymore, we will always have POTLUCK!

Yours Truly, 

Your Loving I Heart Cooking Club Friends

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As we spend this last week with Ottolenghi, feel free to make any Ottolenghi dish you have been wanting to make and/or share a roundup of your favorite Ottolenghi dishes and post by Sunday, September 29th.


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Don't forget to link your dish with a thumbnail image, below.  Please remember to leave a comment after linking so that we don't miss out on your dish. 

New to IHCC?  Need help linking up?  Please see our Welcome page.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment below and we will get back with you.  

If you didn't check out the entries for last week's September Potluck theme, be sure to check out the links and see the fabulous dishes that were made.  

 

September Potluck!

It's Potluck week again!  Choose any Ottolenghi recipe you like, or if you prefer choose any recipe from any one of our previous seven IHCC chefs:

Nigella Lawson

Mark Bittman

Giada de Laurentiis

Jamie Oliver

Tessa Kiros

Rick Bayless

Madjur Jaffrey

That makes for a veritable smorgasbord of English, American, Italian, Mediterranean, Mexican, Indian and Middle Eastern recipes to choose from.

To join in just post and link your September Potluck dish from any one of our IHCC chefs by Sunday, September 22nd.  Please remember to link a thumbnail image and leave a comment after you link so that we don't miss out on your dish.

New to IHCC?  Need help linking up?  Check out our Welcome page.  If you have any questions please leave a comment below and we will get back with you.

If you missed our You Made Me Love (Or At Least Like) You, be sure to click on the links and check out all the fabulous dishes everyone made.

We are excited to announce that we will begin cooking the recipes of Donna Hay starting October 1st.  Please see the sidebar for October themes!

 

You Made Me Love (Or At Least Like) You!

This week we're all about those ingredients that you once used to hate, but have grown to love - or at least to like a little bit.  We all have one of those, don't we - brussels sprouts, oysters, tofu, sardines, offal, are just a few ingredients that spring to mind which are often not so popular when we first try them.  I'm sure there is a list a mile long of potential ingredients you've grown to like.

So break out those Yotam Ottolenghi books (or have a look online), track down a recipe featuring one of those ingredients you were once less than enamoured of, and post your dish by Sunday 15 September.

Don't forget to link your dish as well as a thumbnail image below, and please leave a comment after you link so that we don't miss your dish.

New to IHCC?  Need help linking up?  Check out our Welcome page.  If you have any questions please leave a comment below and we will get back with you.

If you missed our New To Me theme last week, be sure to check out the links and get a taste of all the wonderful dishes we made.

New to Me! & Labneh Roundup

One of the joys of cooking along with Ottolenghi is the variety of ingredients he uses and the way he combines them into different combinations and dishes! So this week our IHCC theme is...

New to Me!

It's your chance to make any Ottolenghi recipe you like with a new (or newish, less used or familiar) to you ingredient, dish, cuisine, cooking technique or cooking style.

So open up those cookbooks, go online, pick something NEW and post your Ottolenghi recipe by Sunday, September 8.

Don't forget to link your dish with a thumbnail image, below.  Please remember to leave a comment after linking so that we don't miss out on your dish. 

New to IHCC?  Need help linking up?  Please see our Welcome page.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment below and we will get back with you.  

If you didn't check out the entries for last week's Pies & Tarts theme, be sure to check out the links and see the fabulous dishes that were made.

***Optional Monthly Community Recipe: Labneh Roundup***

August's Optional Monthly Community Recipe was Labneh, creamy and delicious strained yogurt cheese. 

Sue of Couscous & Consciousness ended up with a beautiful jar of creamy labneh orbs and says, "When you're ready to use the labneh, remove the balls from the oil, roll in a mixture of dried mint and freshly ground black pepper, and serve in salads, or as part of a mezze platter, or just with a couple of crackers. ... The resulting cheese has a delicious, delicate, citrusy/yoghurty tang, and the dried mint is the perfect complement to it.  Although there are a couple of days involved in making this, most of that time it's just taking care of itself in the fridge.  The actual effort you have to put in is about 5 to 10 minutes max, and results in a great store cupboard ingredient to have on hand."

At Kahakai Kitchen, I used my yogurt cheese in Ottolenghi's Labneh with Olives, Pistachios & Oregano which was so darn delicious I think I am going to have to make it again this week. Topped with a mix of briny olives and toasted nuts and spread on crusty bread, it made for an easy and tasty appetizer. (OK, actually I ate a small plate as my dinner meal with bread and rosemary flat bread crackers but it would be a fabulous pupu!) ;-)

I looked through the last few weeks and didn't see any other entries so if you did make labneh, leave a comment on this post and I will add you to the roundup. Since this is our last month cooking along with Ottolenghi, we are going to skip an Optional Monthly Community Recipe for September and evaluate if we will continue this feature with our next chef. (Voting poll for our next female chef will be up soon--keep your eye on the side bar!)

Looking forward to seeing your "New to Me!" dishes!

**Please take a moment to vote for our new female chef!  Voting poll will be up for one week only!**   

Pies and Tarts!

Photo Credit: Heather of girlichef - Caramelized Garlic Tart

Yotam Ottolenghi has a wide variety of sweet and savory pies and tarts. 

Photo Credit: Joanne of Eats Well With Others - Very Full Tart

We know that some of you are natural born bakers and love making crust from scratch.  However, there are some of us (ahem...perhaps all three of your IHCC hosts) that do not enjoy making crust from scratch!  Thankfully, for our sake, there are lots of options using puff pastry and Phyllo dough which are right up our alley!

Please make and post your Pies and Tarts by Sunday, September 1st.  Please remember to post a thumbnail image and leave a comment after so that we do not miss out on your tasty dish!

New to IHCC?  Need help linking up?  Check out our Welcome page.  If you have any questions please leave a comment below and we will get back with you.

If you missed our Potluck theme last week, be sure to click on the links and check out all the fabulous dishes everyone made.

Don't forget to check out the Optional Monthly Community Recipe - there's still a couple of days to get your entries done, and you can post them using the linky at the end of this post. This month we're making Labneh, and you'll also find a round-up of all the Hummus dishes everyone posted last month.  This fun IHCC feature is a great way to join in cooking one recipe as a group, to share your experiences and connect with other members of the group.

Please note the voting poll on the upper right sidebar.  We are asking participants to vote on whether they would like to continue cooking the recipes of Yotam Ottolenghi until the end of November or if they'd rather vote in a new female chef/cook starting October 1st.  There is only one more day to vote so please get your vote in!  Once the voting is complete we will make an announcement on the sidebar so stay tuned!

August Pot Luck

Oh, yes ... we all love a Potluck around here!

And, what's not to love, when Potluck means not only do you get to choose the recipe, but you also get to choose the chef.

That's right, choose any Ottolenghi recipe you like, or if you prefer choose any recipe from any one of our previous seven IHCC chefs:

Nigella Lawson

Mark Bittman

Giada de Laurentiis

Jamie Oliver

Tessa Kiros

Rick Bayless

Madjur Jaffrey

That makes for a veritable smorgasbord of English, American, Italian, Mediterranean, Mexican, Indian and Middle Eastern recipes to choose from.

To join in just post and link your August Potluck dish from any one of our IHCC chefs by Sunday 25 August.  Please remember to link a thumbnail image and leave a comment after you link so that we don't miss out on your dish.

New to IHCC?  Need help linking up?  Check out our Welcome page.  If you have any questions please leave a comment below and we will get back with you.

If you missed our Nuts and Seeds theme last week, be sure to click on the links and check out all the fabulous "nutty" dishes everyone made.

Don't forget to check out the Optional Monthly Community Recipe - there's still a couple of weeks to get your entries done, and you can post them using the linky at the end of this post. This month we're making Labneh, and you'll also find a round-up of all the Hummus dishes everyone posted last month.  This fun IHCC feature is a great way to join in cooking one recipe as a group, to share your experiences and connect with other members of the group.

**Please notice the poll on the sidebar.  We are asking participants to vote on whether they wish to continue cooking the recipes of Yotam Ottolenghi for an additional two months (end of November) OR whether they wish to vote in a new female chef/cook starting October 1st. The poll will be up for one week only, until August 27th.  Depending on the results of the poll, we will either announce a continuation with Ottolenghi or post a new poll asking for your vote on a new female chef/cook!