I had an idea a few weeks ago: Let’s use our cookbooks more by picking one to cook a meal from each week. Here is my original Facebook post:

Ground rules for the challenge:

1. It has to be a recipe you haven’t cooked before.
2. It has to be something out of the norm for you. It can’t be just another roasted squash recipe if you make roasted squash all the time.
3. Aim for full meals: If it isn’t a one-pot meal, pick an entree and a side from the same book.
4. I’m calling it Cooking the Books

The first book I grabbed was Paleo Comfort Foods by Julie and Charles Mayfield. We’re in the middle of the Whole30 right now, so it made sense to use that book now. We’ve definitely cooked from it before. I use their Paleo Mayonnaise as my regular go-to homemade mayo recipe. In fact, I think this might be the first cookbook I bought for myself back in 2010.

According to Ground Rule #1, I have to pick a recipe I haven’t tried. I chose Country Captain Chicken. It looked great, we had most of the ingredients on-hand, and it was a one-pot meal. Perfect for a busy week and easy to reheat for lunches.

Ingredients

In this series I’m not going to publish the recipe unless the authors have posted it elsewhere online. That isn’t fair to the authors. I will, however, post the ingredients without measurements or instructions, because I think this strikes a good balance of seeing what is in it and getting a sense of the tastes while still being fair to the authors and their work. Hopefully these posts will drive a small number of sales their way, too.

• green peppers
• chicken
• curry powder
• onions
• tomatoes
• almond flour
• currants
• toasted almonds
• thyme

Results

The recipe turned out great! The black currants gave it a bit of a sweet tanginess that I enjoyed. Though it would have been better had I remembered to put the curry powder in with the vegetables 🤦‍♂️. The breading was surprisingly good for being almond meal. Almost made me forget it wasn’t real breading. We made it with 6 chicken breasts, so we had plenty of leftovers.

I’d definitely make this again.

Join me!

If you want to join me in the Cooking the Books challenge, send your posts to cagrimmett@gmail.com! I’ll guest post them here on Cook Like Chuck. Here are some guidelines:

• Send me a decent photo of the book to use as the featured image
• Send me photos of the meal you cooked
• Write a little bit about the book, why you chose it, and how the meal turned out
• Send me a photo of the recipe

Let’s dust off those cookbooks and put them to use this year.