Beef stroganoff
Recipe:
17. Beef stroganoff
Source: How to Eat
Weird ingredients and substitutes: Maybe this didn't end up being too authentic, but I substituted wholegrain mustard for the specified dijon mustard (because that is what I have), ready-ground nutmeg for the fresh nutmeg, and double cream (leftover from #14) for the creme fraiche. I did look up google to see how I could turn my double cream into creme fraiche, but after reading about buttermilk, sour cream and yoghurt (I only have vanilla-flavoured and not original), it all seemd too hard. They're pretty similar anyway, aren't they both white?
Preparation: Cutting up an onion and cutting the mushrooms. Easy.
Cooking process: The whole cooking process probably took about 10 minutes, very low-stress and very quick.
End result:
I will admit that the first rice mound collapsed on me, so I gave that plate to Hubby.
The stroganoff was nice, but not amazingly nice. It is very easy to cook. I have some leftover to take to work for lunch tomorrow.
Repeatability: Probably not. I'll save the repeats for amazing meals.
Cost: Around $10 for 3 servings.
Mess: Not much really, it cooks in the one pan.
Special utensils: Not really. Why couldn't it have asked for a French Oven or something, then I could break it in?
Yay! I love a sale at David Jones
So, today was the start of David Jones' mid-year sale. I wandered over during my lunch break just to look...
And joyously, I am now the proud owner of a Staub 24cm French Oven. In turquoise.
It cost $150 and was 50% off. The other colours only had a 40% discount, and consequently I decided that I liked the turquoise.
I did look at the Le Creuset cookware, which had a 30% discount, but the premium didn't seem worth it.
I also bought a couple other toys for the project, 30% off, paying $9 for the tart pan and $4 for the cake decorator.
Now that my stock is home safely, I encourage you Aussies to go check out the bargains.
Anna's Chick Pea and Pasta Soup
Recipe:
16. Anna's Chick Pea and Pasta Soup
Source: How to Eat
Weird ingredients and substitutes: I was a good girl with this one, and did everything by the book.
Preparation: Soaking chickpeas, which I did for about 24 hours.
Cooking process: Confession time. I didn't read the bit about pouring in half the oil until after I had added the oil, so all of the oil was added to the beginning of the cooking process. Oops.
I did have some muslin on hand, having specifically bought the minimum from Lincraft (about 30 cents), and tied up my rosemary (from the garden!) with twine. My chickpeas were tender when I checked after 1.5 hours. May I also say that this time, my tomatoes were peeled without incident, having soaked them in the saucepan in which I had boiled water, and making sure they were all turned over. This soup was cooked in advance, so tonight when I came home from work I just had to heat it up and add the pasta.
End result: It was okay. The bites with the parmesan cheese and the chilli oil were much nicer than the bites without. Hubby started to talk about how he didn't like chickpeas again while he was eating this, but said that he would give me a hand in finishing it.
Repeatability: No, nice as a once-off, but not again.
Cost: Probably about $6, with much of that going towards the extra-virgin olive oil...there are a LOT of servings left over.
Mess: Not much, depends how much mess you make when you are peeling and seeding tomatoes.
Special utensils: You need a large pot for the 3 litres.
Advice: Make sure you don't add in all of the oil in the beginning! Eating it with parmesan and chilli oil is very good!
American pancakes
Recipe: 15. American pancakes with wafer-bacon and maple syrup
Source: Nigella Bites
Weird ingredients and substitutes: As our guests had kindly bought us some honey from a market, I felt obliged to use honey rather than maple syrup, even though we had maple syrup in the fridge...
Preparation: Mixed in the food processor? Easy.
Cooking process: Because I AM a little fat-phobic, I put my bacon under the grill, which still made it nice and crispy.
End result: Sooo yummy. I'd never eaten bacon with honey before, but it was so good, I'd have this again. For the photo, I had tried to do a fancy spiral effect, but unfortunately the spiral melded together by the time I got the camera ready.
Repeatability: Yes! Definitely. Not every day, as I don't think too much bacon is good for you. Next time I'll try it with the maple syrup.
Cost: It served four of us, and cost around $5. Unfortunately, while I was eating the lovely creation you see in the above photo, Hubby took over the pancake cooking, and started making ginormous pancakes (not so perfectly round), so I only had the one serving above, and could have had another if my arm was twisted.
Mess: No, my food processor is easy to clean. I must admit, that in the afternoon, I opened the microwave and found the butter that I had dutifully melted, but then forgot to add to the batter. It didn't make any difference.
Special utensils: No, I just made them in my non-stick frying pan.
Chocolate pots
Recipe:
14. Chocolate pots
Source: Nigella Bites
Weird ingredients and substitutes: None.
Preparation: I love the food processor, how easily it crushes the chocolate...
Cooking process: Easy, the food processor does most of the work. I poured it into 4 of my beloved crystal glasses. Then you put them in the fridge and wait for 6 hours.
End result:
It was so so rich, I could only eat about half of mine, but the other 3 managed to eat all of theirs...It was suggested afterwards, that to counteract the richness, that this could be served with fruit (eg banana dredged in coconut) and in a smaller quantity.
Repeatability: No - too too rich.
Cost: About $5 for the chocolate (two bars of Lindt), about $8 for the four servings.
Mess: No, my food processor is easy to clean.
Special utensils: A food processor, and some dinky individual pots or glasses to serve in.
Advice: Think about what could be served on the side of this to counteract the richness, and make sure your pots are small, you don't need too much of this.
Beef braised in beer
Recipe:
13. Beef braised in beerSource: How to Eat
Weird ingredients and substitutes: I bought a 375ml bottle of Cascade stout, and there was 75ml left after using most of it in the recipe, I tried some but I am not a beer person. Ew. I gave it to Hubby.
Preparation: Soaking prunes for two hours.
Cooking process: A long cooking time, 2.5-3 hours! Nigella doesn't say to stir it, so I only did it once.
End result:
The top of the beef was a bit dry, I think it was because I should have stirred it during the cooking process, but the sauce was really nice and came out sweet, even though I'm not a beer drinker, I really liked it. The prunes came out really nice.
Repeatability: Definitely yes.
Cost: About $16 for the steak, and maybe about $20 for the total meal for 5 servings.
Mess: The frypan was a bit of a mess, where I fried the floured-beef. Other than that, the casserole in the oven does most of the cooking.
Special utensils: None required.
Advice: Stir the casserole during the cooking process, and maybe I'll use the rest of the stout next time.
Orange muffins for morning tea
Recipe:
12. Orange breakfast muffins
Source: Nigella Bites
Weird ingredients and substitutes: None.
Preparation: Zesting an orange, and I made sure that my egg didn't roll off the bench this time.
Cooking process: Simple. Mixing muffins don't need to be perfect, in fact, Nigella suggests that lumpy batters make perfect muffins. I can do lumpy!
End result: Pulled them out of the oven just as our visitors rocked up. Perfect timing!
Repeatability: Yes.
Cost: Maybe $2-3 for 12 muffins.
Mess: No, I used muffin papers which made clean-up easy.
Special utensils: A muffin pan.
Advice: Make sure you use muffin papers to save on mess.
So many potential distractions...
I should also mention that I went to the library yesterday, and borrowed a couple of Bill Granger's books and a couple of Nigel Slater's books. They look great! But I shouldn't lose focus, and maybe in 489 recipes' time, I can always try again with other celebrity cooking books...
Aubergine moussaka
I made this for dinner last night.
Recipe:
11. Aubergine moussaka (a.k.a. eggplant moussaka)
Source: How to Eat
Weird ingredients and substitutes: Pomegranate molasses, which I bought from Nuts 'R' Us in Doncaster, which is a wee bit out of my way. Then I find a bottle of the same thing in a shop opposite work!! Oh, and also, although freshly milled black pepper was specified, I couldn't be bothered bringing out the mortar and pestle again, so just used ready-grounded.
Preparation: Man, there was a lot of preparation for this meal. Soaking and cooking chickpeas. Check. Turning the baby eggplants into circus tents. Check. Peeling 10 cloves of garlic. Check. Peeling and seeding tomatoes. What a pain THAT was. My bowl wasn't big enough so that meant that the tomatoes did not get all covered by the boiling water, which meant that when it came time to peel them, only half of the skin came off easily, and the other half was stuck like wallpaper.
Cooking process: Just a matter of adding ingredients and letting it cook for an hour. I think mine was done after 45 minutes. Also, although I only cooked my chickpeas for 50 minutes, they were again overdone (maybe it was because I had soaked them for two nights...), and when I added them to the pan and stirred, they turned to mush and stuck to the pan, so I added my liquid earlier than specified.
End result:
Served with fresh bread (from the breadmaker) and garnished with coriander from the garden. I found it to be an interesting mixture of flavours, but it wasn't amazing.
Repeatability: I wouldn't serve it again as a main meal, but maybe as a side?
Cost: About $4 for the eggplant, and maybe $6-7 in total. It was a cheapie.
Mess: Seemed to use a lot of dishes while preparing.
Special utensils: No.
Advice: Make sure the tomatoes are covered with the boiling water, or make sure you turn them over, so that their peel is easy to remove.
Steak au poivre with dijon mustard salad
I do have to admit, that I had chickpeas soaking overnight in readiness for an aubergine moussaka, but after I got home from work, I couldn't be bothered cooking for two hours and wanted something quick. It won't hurt the chickpeas to soak for another day.
Recipe:
9. Steak au poivre (let's not be fancy here, pepper steak)
10. Dijon mustard dressing
Source: How to Eat
Weird ingredients and substitutes: I did substitute Marsala for the brandy, but the recipe allows for this variation. And yes, to all those horrified wine aficondos still reeling from #7, I did use Marsala and not one of my cheap-o substitutes.
Preparation: Grinding peppercorns in a mortar and pestle. This was fun for about, oh, the first five seconds, and then after that I kept looking longingly at the coffee grinder. But what stopped me was the thought of drinking peppercorn-spiced coffee tomorrow morning. I had also bought the little cute mortar and pestle, and apparently the little cute size can only take about 3 peppercorns without everything jumping out of the bowl as you are bashing, and now I realise why they make bigger mortar and pestles, and I have no idea which is the bowl and which is the bashing thingy (okay, I just looked it up on google, and I do know now. But thank you for your concern). I used one hand with the pestle, and the other had to cover the mortar to make sure the little buggers didn't jump out.
The salad dressing was so easy, took about 30 seconds, as long as it took to cut open an orange and squeeze out one half. It was also very gratifying to see the amount of juice that came out of the orange, unlike my disappointing lemon from #8. The orange came from the supermarket and not from the garden.
Cooking process: Frying the steaks was a bit messy, with a bit of oil splattered all over the cooktop.
End result: 
I really liked it. I liked the contrast of the spicy-hot pepper against the sweetness of the Marsala. I also liked the salad dressing, which was served with mixed salad leaves. The orange juice was sweet, it was a much better salad dressing than in #4.
Hubby ate it, and I thought he liked it, but then he said that it was only okay, and that he doesn't like steak that much. But we are a chicken-lovin' family.
Repeatability: Yes to the salad dressing. I guess no to the steak.
Cost: Eye steak cost about $7 for 5 pieces, seemed to be a really nice cut (all the fat had been cut off). Total meal less than $10. Bargain. I even have a piece leftover for lunch tomorrow.
Mess: The stovetop has oil splatters over it.
Special utensils: Nigella specifies a pastry brush, which I don't have, so I used a knife and then my fingers. They were clean!
Yay! A cake from Domestic Goddess
While cooking #7, I was also baking a cake.
Recipe:
8. My Mother -in-Law's Madeira Cake
Source: How to be a Domestic Goddess -and about time I changed books, too.
Weird ingredients and substitutes: No, everything is pretty much easily available.
Preparation: While zesting the lemon, one of my eggs rolls off the bench and splats on the floor...
My lemon was from the garden, but it was not very juicy, and I found the mixture to be quite hard to mix. Cooking process: 1 hour in the oven.
End result: Look, the cake was okay. It was better on the night (served with a scoop of icecream, heavenly), but the next morning, it seemed a little dry (maybe because of the un-juiceness of my lemon?).
Repeatability: No, not when there are so many other cakes to bake.
Cost: Because I am clumsy, I used 4 eggs instead of 3. $2 for free-range. I also used organic flour. Let's estimate $5 for the cake (cheaper if you are not clumsy or use regular eggs and flour).
Mess: Not much, it's a one-bowl mixer, and then into the loaf tin.
Special utensils: A loaf pan and a mixer (I bought a Coles handheld mixer for this, ~$14).
Chicken and chick pea tagine
This was Sunday night's dinner.
Recipe:
7. Chicken and chick pea tagine
Source: How to Eat, it's the only Nigella book I use....
Weird ingredients and substitutes:
We aren't wine drinkers, so I call dad who IS a big wine drinker.
Me: What type of wine should I be using in cooking?
Dad: Cooking? I dunno, I just drink it.
While at Bilo, I see this:
and for $2.38, it looked close enough to wine for me. Are you horrified yet?
Preparation: Consisted of soaking chickpeas the night before. So on Sunday morning, Hubby sees the chickpeas soaking on the kitchen bench, and asks, "Are they chickpeas?". After I affirm, he announces that he DOESN'T LIKE CHICKPEAS because of a bad experience at work. DOESN'T LIKE CHICKPEAS after I have a big chickpea week planned for ahead.
I forge on regardless. I chuck the garlic, onion and celery into the food processor for the first time ever, rather than cutting them up individually into fine pieces - what a timesaver! Food processor, where have you been all my life? I think of all those times I had been cutting onions and burning my eyes when I had this alternative just sitting there...
Cooking process: I cooked the chickpeas for just over an hour, and they were very cooked, almost overdone. After Nigella's cautions of "Don't lift the lid for the first hour of cooking or the chickpeas will harden", I was paranoid, and now I don't know how long to cook the next batch for. The stew was very easy, just a matter of adding ingredients in various tranches, mixing them together, and then leaving it to cook for an hour.
End result: Served with couscous (same as #2 but without the cherries and chickpeas).
I am pleased to announce that the garnish of coriander is from the garden, and oh, if you think I am boasting about how productive my garden is, that's not true at all, I am just so pleased that I am finally making use of my garden, rather than letting the plants and herbs die unused. Same as when I rescue leftovers from the fridge rather than forlornly throwing them into the rubbish a few days later.
Repeatability: Yum yum yum. This was sooo nice on a cold Melbourne night. Definitely a repeat. The only pain is having to soak the chickpeas the night before, this means that some semblance of meal planning needs to be formalised in our house...Oh, and the chickpeas? Hubby didn't mind them AT ALL.
Cost: The free-range chicken thighs cost $16. Let's estimate $20 for the whole meal, and it probably will end up being about 5 servings (3 down...)
Mess: No, not much.
Special utensils: A processor makes vegetable chopping easy.
Chicken pasta from the Venetian ghetto
Alright, let's go back to the project. This was Sunday's lunch.
Recipe:
6. Tagliatelle with chicken from the Venetian ghetto
Source: How to Eat, apparently I only use recipes out of this book...
Weird ingredients and substitutes: Who could be bothered roasting another chicken? I used the remainder of the leftover chicken (see #3) from Friday night in place of the chicken. I substituted the tagliatelle with pasta shells that were already in my cupboard.
Preparation: Consisted of soaking sultanas in warm water and picking some rosemary from the garden.
Cooking process: Thankfully, I used up the last of the chicken and the gravy in this meal. Just consisted of adding all ingredients to the pan while waiting for the pasta, and then adding the pasta to the sauce.
End result: It should be garnished with parsley, but I hadn't bought any. See the potatoes? There was a frost overnight which killed the potato plants in the garden, I had to harvest the potatoes and they were only baby-sized. But hey, they're freebies, so who's complaining?
Repeatability: It's okay. I think Hubby enjoyed it, but I didn't love it. I probably wouldn't repeat it, as if I had leftover chicken, I would prefer the Sunday night chicken noodle over this.
Cost: I used half of the leftover chicken, so $2. Rosemary and potatoes were from the garden. I splashed out on buying pinenuts, and probably used $2 worth. Let's call it $5 for three servings.
Mess: As I used up the rest of the leftovers in this, it appeared that I had a lot of dishes waiting in the sink for me, but didn't use that many for cooking.
Special utensils: Zilch.
Advice: Pick your potatoes before frost comes...
Tasting: Dragonfruit
At times in between my assessment of Nigella's recipes, I will also be trying different foods...
At the Queen Victoria market on Friday, I bought half of a dragonfruit. It looks so gorgeous!
There was a choice between one with white innards or the rose one you can see, I chose the more expensive one and really lashed out for $2.50. I know what you're thinking, spendthrift right?
So here's the assessment:
Smell: No strong scent of any kind
Cut: It was very easy to cut through and peel. The juice did not stain my fingers.
Mouthfeel: Like honeydew melon with kiwifruit seeds scattered throughout.
Taste: A very very mild blackberry taste, almost undistinguishable.
Hubby: Hey, where's the big blob of icecream like we usually have?
Sunday Night Chicken Noodle
The recipe:
5. Sunday Night Chicken Noodle
Source: How to Eat
Weird ingredients and substitutes: I used leftover chicken (see #3) in place of the chicken breast. Sake and mirin were already in my cupboard, as I make a version of this regularly.
Preparation: Consisted of picking chinese vegetables and coriander from the garden.
Cooking process: So easy, takes a maximum of 10 minutes. I added the suggested marinade directly to the stock and included some dried shitake mushrooms which were in my cupboard.
End result: Garnished with fried onion, coriander and nanami togarashi.
Me: So is this a winter meal or a summer meal?
Hubby: It's an anytime meal. Repeatability: Yes, especially when there is leftover chicken, which cuts down on the cooking process. This is a definite regular.
Cost: I used half of the leftover chicken, so $2. Udon noodles were on special at the Asian grocery store, 60c for two packets. The Chinese vegetable and coriander were from the garden. Let's call it $4 for 2 bowls (there were also two bonus bowlfuls which we had for last night's dinner).
Mess: With my variation, it's a one-pan meal.
Special utensils: Zilch.
Advice: Feel free to add your own variations - it's hard to make this go too wrong. Try mushrooms, beansprouts, Vietnamese mint...
Basic roast chicken with basic salad dressing
The recipes:
3. Basic Roast Chicken
4. Basic Salad Dressing
Source: How to Eat
Weird ingredients and substitutes: Nope.
Preparation: Easy for both recipes.
Cooking process: I made a variation to the cooking process for the gravy, by adding stock, wine and water to the chicken pan about 30 minutes before the end of cooking. This meant the gravy was made in the same pan and concurrently with the chicken.
End result: Served with garlic bread, potatoes and cos lettuce salad.
It was very nice, but I didn't realise that everything on the plate had oil in it - the butter in the garlic bread, the oil in the salad dressing, the chicken lard with the potatoes, and the oil with the roasted chicken. I also thought the salad dressing could have had more vinegar in it - given Nigella's words, I was very cautious about how much vinegar I added, and in the end, it was too little. I should have tasted it while making it.
Repeatability: The chicken is a definite regular. I'm used to ready-made salad dressings, with stronger flavours.
Cost: About $8 for a free-range chicken and $2 for the cos, so let's say $11 for everything. The thyme and lemon came from the garden. Our two servings therefore came to $5.50, and there's half a chicken leftover...
Mess: Yes. The chicken tray took ages to clean.
Special utensils: No.
Advice: If you are lazy, add stock to the chicken pan (30 minutes before the end of cooking time), but don't add too much wine to the stock. Make sure the gravy doesn't evaporate away during the cooking process, as it leaves a sticky residue on the bottom of the tray. If you make the gravy per Nigella's instructions on the stovetop, some people may get impatient with waiting for it to thicken and may wish to add cornflour; if you do this, make sure you dissolve the cornflour in some water before adding it to the gravy (otherwise you will have little white blobs floating on top of your gravy).
Cinnamon lamb racks with couscous
The recipes:
1. Cinnamon-hot rack of lamb
2. Cherried and Chick pea'd couscous
Source: How to Eat
Weird ingredients and substitutes: Sour cherries (about $2 for a packet) but they weren't dried, and I substituted sunflower seeds for the pinenuts because I'm cheap.
Serving: I halved the lamb recipe for the two of us, but kept the couscous in its full quantity.
Preparation: The lamb took about 1 minute to prepare, and the coucous took a couple more minutes. Very easy.
Cooking process: Nothing difficult. Don't make the couscous too early on - probably in the last 10 minutes of the lamb's cooking time.
End result:
Hubby: It's okay. It's probably better in summer than winter. It's not a winter dish.
However, I loved it. I wasn't sure if the lamb would be cooked enough, as we don't usually go that pink, but it was perfect. Watch out for the pips in the cherries.
Repeatability: Yes, but at hubby's request, in summer.
Cost of meal: $8 for the lamb rack, $1 for the chickpeas, $1 for the couscous (half-packet) and $1 for cherries (half-packet). About $12 for four servings plus more couscous for a free lunch.
Mess: Not much, while the lamb was cooking, I washed up the preparation dishes. Unfortunately not a one-dish meal though.
Special utensils: A roasting rack, which I improvised with a cake cooler on top of a biscuit tray (don't laugh!). Sorry, I don't have a lot of kitchen toys.
Advice: Line the tray underneath the rack with foil, so you can catch all the fat drippings from the lamb - this will ease the washing-up afterwards. And I'd substitute the cherries with barberries in the future, so there are no pips.
The journey begins...
Welcome. You are about to read the story of a culinary journey. An odyssey, even. This is a journal where I will transform from a regular cook into a super-chef, from tuna mornay to creme brulee, from pre-prepared meals to making pastry from scratch, from entertaining = barbeque to entertaining = a five-course dinner. It will be a long and perilous journey, complete with smoke alarms that set off whenever I cook (even when making toast). And at the end? Nigella Lawson, watch out!
Which brings me to the process. After being inspired by Sarah, I rushed out and bought all five Nigella's books. I paid:
- How to Eat $38 (30% off, Myer book sale, softcover)
- How to Be a Domestic Goddess $38 (30% off, Myer book sale, softcover)
- Feast $45 (eBay, includes postage, hardcover)
- Forever Summer $32 (eBay, includes postage, hardcover)
- Nigella Bites $38 (KMart, hardcover)
As I've read that most cookbooks only have 2 or 3 recipes that are used from them; if I make 500 recipes out of the five books, I will have achieved my money's worth. I figure that if half turn out well, I will have a cooking repertoire of over 250 recipes - which to me, frankly, is quite intimidating.
I am 28, working full-time, with a 2-3 hour commute daily. I've never paid much attention to cooking before, but just made whatever seemed easy and the least effort. Should I be ashamed to admit that I have relied on bottled sauces, packet mixes and already-marinated meats? I live with Hubby, also 28, also working full-time, and he does not like to cook. So it's not like I have a lot of competition in the kitchen. We live in Melbourne, Australia.
My goals are
(i) to increase my culinary ability and skills
(ii) to educate myself about the foodie world - ingredients, shops, markets
(iii) to make my brother jealous of the meals that we're having here
(iv) to make Hubby exclaim, "And that's ANOTHER reason why I married you..." (but it's not like he needs more reasons...)
The challenges:
- Budget - we currently have a grocery bill of about $150 per week, and would like to stay close to that budget (and just to clarify, everything in this blog is in Australian dollars unless otherwise specified)
- We don't eat offal
- Hubby does not like seafood, except for canned tuna, and will only eat seafood occasionally
- My skills - just as examples, I haven't made pastry, custard, or icecream before.
And to add to the pressure, my colleagues have already started asking when I will bring cakes in...
I will admit that the first rice mound collapsed on me, so I gave that plate to Hubby.
