Two new additions to my collection



I've had the briefest of perusals and already I want to lock myself away in a kitchen and cook the entire Ottolenghi book from front to back. It's an entirely vegetarian cookbook featuring his recipes from the Guardian New Vegetarian column. I love his use of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean flavours with every vegetable under the sun, and the way he makes even the most dull vegetables into incredibly delicious-sounding salads, gratins, omelettes, tarts, etc...now that I have my massive tubs of Za'atar and sumac I will definitely be trying a sumptuous-looking butterbean, feta and sumac salad. Along with everything else. Yum. I love vegetarian food like this, especially because I don't really eat that much meat anyway and these recipes are so scrumptuous that I don't know why you'd want to.

Masterchef also looks excellent - I really like the format of the book and the pictures are lovely. Naturally I flicked straight to the dessert section which has some enticing things like a rhubarb millefeuille, and the pear and roquefort souffle that I admired on last season's Masterchef: The Professionals and am now very glad I can emulate. Fantastic.

Of course, my finals are in three weeks, so all this may have to wait. But I should probably warn all my friends now that it is my mission to make them fat on Ottolenghi and Masterchef recipes by the end of term.