Baked potato salad

Recipe:
56. Baked potato salad

Source: Forever Summer

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I had bought sumac a couple of months ago when I went to a Middle-Eastern store, but it had remained unopened - this was the first time I was going to use it. Yay!

Preparation: I baked some potatoes last night, which we didn't end up eating (I guess we were saving room for dessert). So, with the flesh, add olive oil, lemon juice, sumac, cumin, spring onion and salt. Uh, now that I am typing out the ingredients that were required, I realise that I forgot the cumin *blush*. Oh well, it still tasted nice.

Cooking process: None required, served cold.

End result: Even without the cumin (said a trifle defensively), it still tasted lovely. However, a cold potato, lemon and spring onion salad would most probably be best suited to a warm balmy summer's evening.


Repeatability: Yes, but better in summer.

Cost: About $1.50, and the 2 of us finished it served with dinner.

Mess: No, and it takes 3 minutes to make. What more could you want?

Special utensils: No, about the extent you need is a spoon. To scoop out the flesh from the skins.

Tonight for dessert we get to finish off the crumble.

Soup and crumble

This was last night's dinner.

Recipe:
54. Bean and pasta soup
55. Apple and walnut crumble

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I had run out of celery, so left that out of the soup. I also only had red apples (they've been laying around for the last few weeks uneaten, so it was about time I used them up) instead of proper cooking apples.

Preparation: I had cooked the beans the night before (while cooking the quail/chicken/teriyaki sauce/fried rice combo), so these were sitting in the fridge all ready for me. Then it was just a matter of chopping the onion, 2 carrots and a few rashers of bacon.

Cooking process: Just fry up the onion, carrots and bacon, then add the beans, stock, a can of tomatoes and a potato, and leave for 45 minutes, adding the pasta to cook at the end.

While this was cooking, I got on with the crumble. Soak the sultanas in Marsala. Mmmm, I love the smell of Marsala. I can't believe I never tried it before Nigella (B.N., I have no idea what I used to cook); it's just the type of alcohol I like - sweet. Anyway, rub in flour and butter, add walnuts and sugar. I had just processed the walnuts until they were fine. Then cook the apples, Marsala and sultanas together for 5 minutes. Then assemble.

End result: Served with grated parmesan cheese. What we also ate was a repeat of the mushroom-steak sandwich, but I didn't take a photo of it since I already counted it in #42.

The soup was very tasty, and I liked the little bacon bits. Yum. It went very well with the sandwich (with extra garlic. Didn't matter since both of us were eating it. Hee).

And I know you are anxiously waiting for the photo of dessert, just like we were anxiously waiting to eat it...

I love how Marsala can be used in both savoury and sweet dishes. I do like the walnuts added to the crumble - just adding that crunch.

Repeatability: Yes to both. I do think that you'd have to be super-organised to cook the beans and the soup all in one hit, which was easier for me this time since I had cooked the beans the night before. Or you could rely on canned beans.

Cost: $3 for the soup (3 servings). The beans came from what was leftover in the packet after the Lamb and Bean Braise (#28). Very cheap.
As for the crumble, I'm guessing that it came in around the $4 mark, although I can't remember exactly how much I paid for the walnuts or the apples. Close enough. We're finishing off the crumble tonight, so it lasted for 4 servings.

Mess: The kitchen was a bit of a mess when I finished, as while making the soup and crumble, I also made the mushroom sandwich and roasted some potatoes. The soup itself is a one-panner (always a winner), not counting cooking the beans from the night before; and the crumble is pretty easy to assemble together. Rubbing the butter into the flour when making crumble can be a bit messy though.

Special utensils: Nothing special needed for the soup; and a food processor makes fine walnuts easily (your alternative is to chop them very finely).

Advice: Do add the bacon into the soup, it just distinguishes the soup from a normal vegetable soup.

Multi-tasker

While I was cooking the disastrous #52, I was also boiling beans, making fried rice, grilling chicken, and making an amazing teriyaki sauce. Yum.

Recipe:
53. Mackerel teriyaki (mackerel substituted with chicken thighs)

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: Soy sauce, sake, mirin and sugar; all of which I had in the cupboard.

Preparation: Mix all ingredients together. Preheat griller.

Cooking process: Grill chicken (which I had flattened beforehand). Heat sauce until it bubbles and thickens.

End result: This was Hubby's plate. He was very happy. No complaints.
And as I said below, I looked longingly at his chicken while I was nibbling at the quail, so I abandoned the quail and cut myself a small piece of chicken. The teriyaki sauce was amaaaaaaaaaazing.

And if I praise myself, the rice was a good accompaniment, even if it wasn't a Nigella recipe.

Repeatability: Yes, the sauce is fantastic. It goes great with chicken. No way will I buy pre-prepared teriyaki sauce again, when it's so easy to make your own. From. Scratch. Yes, I said that about 500 times to Hubby too.

Cost: The chicken thighs cost $5 (free-range), and the sauce cost less than $1. But let's call it $6 total.

Mess: I was so happy with the sauce, that I came straight out here to tell you guys all about it. I haven't ventured back into the kitchen since, and I am scared. If there is a mess, we can't blame it all on the sauce and chicken, as there were so many other things I was cooking at the same time.

Special utensils: Depends what you decide to serve with the sauce. The sauce itself only requires a saucepan.

Quail, revisited

So, I had to give the poor little things another chance. 3 of them were already spatchcocked and had been marinaded overnight.

Recipe:
52. Barbecued quail

Source: Forever Summer

Weird ingredients and substitutes: These ingredients are not weird to me, but may be to you? Soy sauce, sesame oil, hoisin sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic, and an orange.

Preparation: While preparing last night's quail, I had also prepared the marinade for these quails. After last night's disappointing reaction, I only took one quail out of the fridge to get to room temperature. However, with Melbourne's weather tonight, room temperature and refrigerator temperature were going to be about the same. I made sure that I pre-heated the oven, and it was at max temperature.

Cooking process: 10 minutes, hah! I probably cooked it for 15-20 minutes and it still didn't turn that lovely burnished brown. Don't open the book to compare pictures, it will only depress me (stop looking at page 147! close the book now! it's all been airbrushed! close it!).

End result: I took a few nibbles, and it was edible, but then the grass looked greener over the other side (see entry #53), and so I switched.


Repeatability: No. I think there's something lacking in my cooking DNA to be able to handle quail. I think I'll stay well away from them in the future. Anyone want 2 marinaded quails?

Cost: 3 quails were planned for tonight, but 1 cooked and 2 raw ones will be destined for the bin, so $8. Marinade ingredients $2. Total of $10.

Mess: The whole experience was a big mess.

Special utensils: A big bin.

Quails are not welcome in this house

Well, after my cockiness with the custard, something HAD to go wrong with last night's meal, didn't it?

Recipe:
50. Lacquered quail
51. Japanese-flavoured sour-sweet cabbage

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: The local poultry shop only sold quail in a pack of 6, frozen. So cleverly I defrosted all 6, 3 for Sunday night's meal and 3 for tonight. Pomegranate molasses I already had from the aubergine moussaka. As for the cabbage, thanks to Sarah I bought some nanami togarashi, and I already had mirin and rice vinegar in the cupboard.

Preparation: Defrost quails. Spatchcock quails. Can I just say that spatchcocking is a lot harder than it looks? Especially when the quails have just been defrosted. And I kept getting the breast and the backbone mixed up (duh). Hey, it could have been a flat-chested quail, alright? Mix soy sauce and pomegranate molasses and bubble away until thick and sticky, and pour over the quails.

Cooking process: Roast quails in oven for about 15 minutes. Which gave me perfect time to cook the cabbage, which is just tossed in a mix of sesame oil, soy sauce, mirin and rice vinegar. But when I took the quails out after 15 minutes, I found that they were not yet cooked through. So I bunged the quails back in for another 15 minutes. Then another 10 minutes. I probably hadn't defrosted them properly. Or maybe I hadn't preheated my oven enough.

End result:
So, my husband suspiciously asks: "What kind of sauce is this?"

Then he takes a bite and says: "Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. That's disgusting. I don't want any of your parasite-infested disease-ridden pigeon."

That was putting me off my meal before I even had taken a bite.

And then he goes too far: "I hate this weird food. Since you've started your project, I've only liked about 20% of the meals you've cooked."

RIGHT. That was it. I made him sit down, go through my blog, and we counted how many dishes he actually did like. I think 75% is a LOT higher than 20%, don't you agree honey?

[Note to readers: Blogging helps you win arguments.]

After I won, I heated up the last of the steak pie for him; and then we both enjoyed pig's bum and custard together.

Repeatability: Noooooo. It wasn't all that nice.

Cost: 6 quails cost $16, but I had only served half for this meal. Cabbage cost $2. So all up including condiments, $11.

Mess: I had lined the baking tin with foil, so it was an easy clean job.

Special utensils: No.

Dinner to test the skills

We had a friend coming for dinner tonight. He has been over before for a bbq and also for a simple lunch, but hasn't been over since I discovered Nigella.

Recipe:
46. Steak and kidney pie (more like steak and mushie pie)
47. Maple-roast parsnips
48. Real custard
49. Pig's Bum

Source: 46, 48, and 49 are from How to Eat, 47 is from Feast.

Weird ingredients and substitutes:
I chose Pig's Bum because I was out in the garden and decided to harvest some rhubarb. When I weighed it, it was just over 100g, so the perfect amount.


I've said before that we don't eat offal, so I upped the amount of steak and mushrooms instead of adding the kidneys. I rang up the local butcher to see if he had any suet (I wasn't sure how to pronounce it - soo-et? sweat? and probably embarrassed myself greatly), but he didn't, so I was looking at the lard and also some other hard animal fat in the supermarket but in the end decided to use hard vegetable fat, as this was on my shopping list for another recipe (not sure which one, will find out later in the week).

Preparation and Cooking Process (combined): I had to make sure that I made this in the right order.

Step 1. Assemble the pie filling. The vegetables were chopped in the food processor, then cooked for 5 minutes, then the mushrooms were cooked, and then the floured steak was browned. Then add the stock and wine, put it all into a French Oven, and cook in the oven for 2 hours.

Wash up mess.

Step 2. Make custard. Half fill sink with cold water (I also added ice cubes. This was my first custard, so I wasn't taking any chances). Heat cream and vanilla pod, infuse for 20 minutes, beat egg yolks and sugar, then add cream. I only had one tub of cream, so 3 egg yolks. Put into pan, and stir UNCEASINGLY for 8-10 minutes. I was waiting for something to go wrong as I stirred (and built up my arm muscles), but it thickened nicely, so I didn't know what all the fuss about custard was about. I poured the custard into a bowl, to be put into the fridge later. I licked the spoon, and YUMMO! Then resolutely poured water into the saucepan before I could lick that out as well.

Wash up mess.

Step 3. Assemble pig's bum. Break out pudding basin (yay!) and grease. Cook rhubarb until it's a pulp, then put remaining ingredients into the food processor and add pulp. I tasted it as Nigella instructed, and it was delicious. I was soooo looking forward to dessert. I then tested the pudding basin would fit into my biggest pot, and it did, but only just (phew!). Cook for 2.5 hours. I found that I kept losing my water, and had to keep topping it up every half hour or so.

Wash up mess.

Step 4. Peel parsnips, and pour oil and maple syrup over them. Peel and boil potatoes.

Step 5. Cool pie filling (probably should have let this cool for longer), and make pastry. I found the pastry to be very crumbly. Decant pie filling into pie flan (which I had bought from the supermarket earlier today, $10), and I found that it didn't need an egg-cup, as it seemed pretty sturdy. I found it hard to keep the pastry in one piece. Cook pie and parsnips (35 minutes for both).

Wash up mess.

Step 6. Mash potatoes, cook peas.

End result: Pie was served with mashed potatoes and peas (and tomato sauce).

The pie was fantastic, the filling was very tasty, the gravy was awesome. The pastry was quite crumbly, but tasted fine. Do you see the new pie dish?

I am not known for my love of parsnips, but these weren't too bad - I guess anything drizzled with maple syrup tastes good.


And this was my plate - I must say that I had put too much milk into the mashed potatoes (hoping to achieve that fluffy creamy effect - but going a bit too far) and perhaps I should have warmed the plates up beforehand. Oh well.

And the pudding smelt so good...

And my serving with custard - I don't know which I liked better, the pudding or the custard - they were both making my tastebuds veeeery happy.

There's heaps of leftovers, of everything, apparently our friend has the same relatively small appetite as we do.

Repeatability: Yes to all four. In fact, now that I've broken the barrier and made custard, I'm looking forward to making icecream next weekend.

Cost:
4 parsnips with maple syrup, about $2.50.
For the pig's bum, the rhubarb was free, and about $3 worth of ingredients (and probably $100 worth of gas - kidding).
For the custard, about $5 worth of ingredients (with reduction to one tub of cream and 3 eggs).
For the pie, about $12 worth of ingredients.

Mess: Hell yeah. Did you see how many times I had to wash dishes?

Special utensils: Pudding basin, plus my new pie dish.

Masala Omelette

Recipe:
45. Masala Omelette

Source: Nigella Bites

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I rue the day I ever thought coriander seeds in a mortar and pestle were a good substitute for ground coriander. And it was raining when I went to pick the coriander, and why does it happen to grow in the furtherest corner of the garden?

Preparation: Chop spring onion, chilli, and garlic. Pound coriander seeds until they are finely ground.

Cooking process: Cook vegetables, add egg and swirl around, and then put it under the grill to finish off. Very easy.

End result: I didn't have chapattis, so just ate it by itself. I did add some chilli sauce to it though! Repeatability: It was nice as a once-off dish, but unlikely to be repeated.

Cost: $2 for 1 serving.

Mess: Not really, it's all done in the one frying pan, and then you put it under the grill.

Special utensils: A griller and a non-stick frying pan.

Affoggato with stem ginger

Recipe:
44. Affoggato with stem ginger

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I had bought a jar of stem ginger from Myer's Food Hall, sadly, before they had the 50% off sale.

Preparation: Open jar.

Cooking process: Spoon syrup and stem ginger over ice-cream.

End result: Sorry the icecream balls are not perfect. Could not be bothered doing the dipping the spoon into hot water thing last night. Yum. The icecream with ginger syrup was really nice, although I found the actual ginger itself to be strong. Whoa. Perhaps I would cut it up into tiny pieces next time.

Repeatability: And there will be a next time.

Cost: The jar of stem ginger cost $5 for 270g, and I only used two pieces of it. Let's say $1 including the icecream for two servings.

Mess: How messy can it be? No.

Special utensils: Just an icecream scoop.

Cawl

Recipe:
43. Cawl

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: Seeing as I had found the parsnip during the vegetable soup, I thought I might as well use it up. The only thing I left out was the swede.

Preparation: Cook lamb for 1.5 hours with water to cover, then allow to cool, so you can skim the fat off. There's also a few vegetables to chop.

Cooking process: Add vegetables, cook for an additional 40 minutes.

End result: I must say that I was very dubious about this, because there are no stock or spices in this. The only flavour is from the meat and vegetables. I laid out worchestershire sauce, tabasco, pepper and salt in preparation.


But then when I tried it, it was surprisingly flavoursome. I did end up adding the worchestershire sauce and tabasco just for that additional flavour kick.

You will also note that it is colourful, which appears to be an essential criteria for stews in this house.

Repeatability: Yes, and I must say that I am surprised.

Cost: I had halved all ingredients, which gave 3 servings. Cost was about $7.

Mess: No, it's a one-pan meal.

Special utensils: I just put everything into my beloved French Oven.

Vegetable soup and mushroom-steak sandwich

Recipe:
41. Vegetable soup
42. Mushroom-steak sandwich

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I think I could only get a swede from the shops rather than a turnip. And I couldn't find a parsnip which I thought I had in the fridge, so I left that out (found it afterwards when I got the parsley out). I had bought ready-made bouquet garni, I suppose I could have made my own (especially since I grow my own thyme), but too fiddly.

Preparation: There's a bit of chopping involved, which Nigella provides the option of using the food processor as an alternative. I did hand-chop everything, but next time may use the food processor.

Cooking process: I think I cooked the soup for 20-25 minutes. I poured it all into the food processor, but then looked at the line on the processor (the one which says "DO NOT PASS THIS LINE"), and had to take half of it out again. I did check twice that I hadn't put the bouquet garni into the food processor too (if I had, it wouldn't have surprised me). As for the mushrooms, it was just a matter of getting a couple large field mushrooms, filling them with chopped garlic, butter and parsley, and bunging them into the oven for 20 minutes. Very easy. I had made bread earlier in the day (don't worry, it was in the breadmaker, I'm not superwoman).

End result: This was a great meal. Hubby enjoyed it, although he commented that after he had finished with the mushroom, the bread was a bit soggy from the juices, so perhaps it would have been better toasted. Nigella suggests a roll anyway.

Repeatability: Yes to both

Cost: I didn't weigh the mushrooms so I would be guessing. Umm, let's say $2 for the two sandwiches, and $5 for the soup. There's still some leftover soup, perhaps one huge serving left.

Mess: It did feel like it created a bit of mess, two pans (due to the size of my food processor), the food processor, and a tray for the mushrooms. However, it didn't take that long to wash up.

Special utensils: You just need a tray for the mushrooms, they are very easy. Then a food processor, blender, or hand-held stick blenders for the soup. That's it.

Pea Risotto

Recipe:
40. Pea Risotto

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I used everything as per instructed (stock cubes substituted for stock, but this is okay and allowed for).

Preparation: Not too much chopping required, just one onion.

Cooking process: After cooking the peas for 2 minutes, you're supposed to remove half the peas and then add the stock, and then cook for 5 minutes. I forgot to remove half of the peas, and let them cook for the extra 5 minutes, but thankfully remembered before I pureed the lot. The risotto was fine, and cooked for about the 20 minutes specified. It did give me a bit of an arm workout though (I'm just lazy, this is the only exercise I get).

End result: This was so so good. Very tasty. And it's so green, it must be good for you!

Repeatability: Yes, absolutely. Yum, I have more for lunch tomorrow.

Cost: About $3 for 2 servings.

Mess: It does use 3 saucepans (one for the peas, one for the stock and one for the risotto), and a few different bowls. But the meal is so tasty, that the mess is worth it.

Special utensils: You will need a food processor or one of those handheld blenders, in order to puree the pea-stock mixture.

Man, I love sales!

At lunch today, I decided to check out Myer's (city store) sale, which had 30% off cookware.

I bought a 2 litre pudding steamer for $13.95:


and 12 cookie cutters with a tray for $10.45:

and I went upstairs to the books, where they had 35% off the RRP of cookbooks, but resisted temptation. For those interested in acquiring Nigella Lawson's books, they had How to Eat, Domestic Goddess and Nigella Bites in stock (as at lunchtime today). I believe the sale is on until 25 June.

Any more jelly?

Hee. After last night's pasta, my husband asks hopefully, "Is there any more jelly?" Unfortunately it had only lasted for 3 nights, so his hopes were dashed.

Try it for yourself.

Myer gourmet food sale...

You'll only want to read this if you're in Melbourne, but in Myer's Little Bourke Street store, they have 50% off their gourmet foods (ground floor). I went there for muscovado sugar, but unfortunately they are out of sugar. If you are looking for gourmet oil, coffee, tea, sauces, jams, or even baby stem ginger, you should take a look while it's on sale.

Beef and beans with pasta, and French dressing

Recipe:
38. Beef and beans with pasta
39. Basic French dressing

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I did substitute the stock with stock cubes, and balsamic vinegar for the red wine vinegar. This is allowed for by Nigella! And again, I used wholegrain mustard rather than Dijon.

Preparation: Easy-peasy. The onion, garlic, carrot, and celery is all chucked into the food processor, so no chopping required.

Cooking process: One pan cooking, I like it. The salad dressing is easy to make too. I tasted it while making it, and whoa! it seemed very strong. I hoped it would tone down a bit when it was put onto the salad leaves.

End result:

It was very nice and tasty. I think we've been having a lot of pasta lately, but this is one of the top ones. Did I say it was easy to cook? And the salad dressing was fine with the salad.

Repeatability: Yes to both

Cost: $8, and there's pasta to take for lunch tomorrow.

Special utensils: A food processor makes it so easy.

Wanted: Quick and easy meal...

After coming home just after 8pm from a quickie trip interstate, I find my husband still waiting for dinner. I ask him about the Irish Stew, but after dutifully eating it two nights in a row (and lunch today), he doth protest about having it again.

I open the fridge looking for something quick 'n' easy. Something where I didn't need to defrost any meat. Something where I had all the ingredients at hand. Aha!

Recipe:
37. Macaroni Cheese

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: See criteria above. Nothing weird about it. Although my packet of pasta said it was macaroni, it was a straight-type rather than the elbow-type.

Preparation: I grumbled a bit about grating the cheese, but that's about the extent of effort required.

Cooking process: Make bechamel sauce, add cheese, add macaroni. It fit perfectly into two of my ramekins. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and cheese, and put under the griller to brown. That's it.

End result: Uh, another criterion was required. The meal also needed to be tasty. Unfortunately, this was not it (despite the use of so-called tasty cheese. Yes, I did add a pinch of mustard powder.).
Repeatability: No

Cost: $2. Remember that it doesn't make much, just two serves.

Mess: Just the mess leftover in the bechamel sauce pan, however, if you clean it quickly, it cleans off well.

Special utensils: A griller. I used my ramekins, but you could use any ovenproof dish.

Dessert will be the remainder of the jelly (#34) served with vanilla icecream. And just for the record, despite this being the third night in a row for the jelly, there were no such protests. In fact, there was even a cheer when the suggestion was brought up - it's THAT good.

Back-from-the-bar snack

Recipe:
36. Back-from-the-bar snack (or lunch, as the case may be)

Source: Feast

Weird ingredients and substitutes: No, it uses standard ingredients: frozen peas, potatoes, bacons, vegetable oil, eggs, cheddar cheese. I didn't have new potatoes, so just substituted normal potatoes; and furthermore, I cooked from scratch rather than using leftover potatoes.

Preparation: Cook potatoes, add peas. This would be so easy if you did have leftover potatoes.

Cooking process: Fry bacon, add potatoes and peas. Take off the heat, then add eggs and cheese. I was a bit dubious about this, as I was not looking forward to raw eggs for lunch.

End result: Fabulous. The potatoes are soft with nice mashy bits, the bacon provides a salty contrast, and it was all binded together by a cheesey sauce. Yum.


Repeatability: Yes. It's comfort food, although I wouldn't have it every day.

Cost: Around $3 for 2 servings.

Mess: I didn't use a non-stick for this, and so there was a bit of a mess in my pan to clean up; but for something so easy to cook, who cares?

Special utensils: Nothing, this is a simple, simple dish.

Johnnycakes

Recipe:
35. Johnnycakes

Source: How to be a Domestic Goddess

Weird ingredients and substitutes: None.

Preparation: Mix dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients, mix both together.

Cooking process: I had both my frying pan and my flat griddle pan out, so was doing an impressive two-way cooking process. I will admit that a couple got burnt, so it was not that impressive, however, this recipe makes so many, that a few disasters won't hurt.

End result: This recipe made a whole heap.

Hubby started eating them while I was getting the maple syrup and said: "These are nice by themselves." So I had mine with maple syrup and he had them plain.

I told Hubby how Nigella's two-year old could eat 5, but I think that we only managed 5 each. There's a whole heap leftover.

Repeatability: Yes

Cost: About $4, but I think this should easily serve 4 people.

Mess: Not really, it was easy to clean-up.

Special utensils: Nothing major, just a frying pan or griddle (or both if you want to impress).

Slut-red raspberries in chardonnay jelly

Recipe:
34. Slut-red raspberries in chardonnay jelly

Source: Forever Summer. Which from memory I think is my first recipe out of this book.

Weird ingredients and substitutes: Having still not finished the fruity lexia, I thought this would be a good way to use some up (ultimate objective being to free up some room in my fridge. The cask is never-ending and is still there though, oh dear...). I bought frozen raspberries for this. I already had gelatine leaves in my cupboard.

Preparation: Soak berries in wine for half an hour. I didn't bother thawing them, just plonked them in. I was a bit clumsy when straining and lost a bit of my pink-infused wine, which I just topped up from the cask.

Does anyone else have trouble splitting the vanilla pod lengthways? Maybe I had bought a really dry one, but I didn't successfully split it lengthways without also breaking it up widthways. In the end I just used the 5 or 6 pieces of the vanilla pod whether they were split lengthways or not.

Cooking process: Heat wine with the vanilla pod, leave for 15 minutes, add sugar, add soaked gelatine leaves, add berries. Leave to set in fridge for at least 3 hours.

End result: I was a bit worried that there wasn't enough gelatine leaves in there, as when I checked on it in the fridge it still wobbled a lot; but when I served it up, it was very jelly-like.

And what's leftover...

Yum. It was a perfect dessert, the raspberries are very potently alcoholic, and the jelly is a beautiful two-toned colour. It tastes very nice with vanilla icecream.

Repeatability: Yes. This would be a nice dinner-party dessert, although I guess I would upgrade on the quality of alcohol used and use wine from an actual bottle...

Cost: I think it cost me around the $10 mark, as the raspberries cost around $5, and the gelatine leaves around $3. If you used better alcohol, of course it would cost more too. Oh for summer and pick-your-own raspberries...(I'll show you what I'm talking about next January).

Mess: Depends if you spill your wine when straining or not.

Special utensils: Nigella asks for 6 clear glass serving bowls, I only had one large one.

Hubby likes stew!

Recipe:
33. The Irish Club's Irish Stew

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: No weird ingredients in here, all pretty standard and easily available.

Preparation: Uh, do I really want to admit this? I put the barley to boil for 20 minutes, and while it was cooking, I wandered off to check my email...and came back (not sure how long later) and the water had all bubbled away long ago and there was a layer of blackened barley on the bottom of the pan. I rescued as much barley as I could, and luckily the burnt bits came off easily.

Cooking process: Using the French Oven, brown the chops, cook the vegetables, then assemble all together in layers, and cook for 1.5 hours in the oven. I made sure that I used the kitchen timer this time. I didn't bother browning the potatoes.

End result: I served up to Hubby expecting him to complain, and he said: "This is better than the last one, isn't it?" Huh?
Apparently this stew is multi-coloured. I think that he likes the potatoes.

Repeatability: I checked with Hubby, and it's a yes.

Cost: Approx $6 and this was for 4-5 serves, even though I had halved the amount of lamb, onions, carrots, parsnips and potatoes.

Mess: Luckily the barley pan cleaned up fine.

Special utensils: You need a casserole with a lid on top.

Advice to self: Don't wander off while cooking. If you do wander off, use the kitchen timer to remind yourself that something is cooking.

Good Food and Wine Show 2006

Yay! Today we went to the Melbourne Good Food and Wine Show. I had bought tickets beforehand, as I had a special deal through work's social club.

I somehow convinced Hubby that coming to this show was much more important than working overtime.

We arrived there around 10.30am, and Hubby said: "We'll walk down each aisle, but we'll only walk down once. No repeats."

Fine. I grabbed food samples as I went, including:

• a pikelet with jam and cream
• chilli vege chips
• cranberry juice
• pecorino cheese
• bread with salt sprinkled on it (eww. too much salt)
• gourmet yoghurt
• four 'n' twenty beef and mushy peas pie. It was okay.

There were more samples available, but Hubby was pulling faces at some of the food and muttering about hygiene. He didn't try any samples, which was no fun at all. I didn't worry, I have a strong stomach. I would have liked to stop and look at what the stalls had to offer, but only had a chance to grab various samples as we power-walked by...

I walked past the cool bartender Hayden Wood (I was telling Hubby about how he does tricks like Tom Cruise did in cocktail, only cooler) and at that time he wasn't doing any tricks, only he was having trouble taking the lid off the tupperware container, so I didn't point him out.

If you have eagle eyes, you'll see that we had pre-booked seats for Bill Granger, but unfortunately we never ended up there. I would have loved to watch some of the cooking demonstrations, unfortunately Hubby's response was "You can watch all that on telly."

Look, don't be too harsh on him. I would probably have had the same reaction if he had dragged me to a car show or something - "Can we go soon?" But lesson learnt very well.

Oh sorry? What was that? Did you say you wanted goodies? I'll show you goodies. 3 showbags as souvenirs...


Exhibit No 1. The Super Food Ideas showbag. I think it was $4. The little bottle is of rice bran oil. And the magazine is current edition, July 2006.Exhibit No 2. McCormick showbag. Cost $2. I bought it for the sea salt grinder.

Exhibit No 3. Good Food and Wine showbag. Cost $4. The tool is a cheese knife.
And overall, this is what you get for $10.
Lessons:
- Much as I love spending time with Hubby, I wouldn't take him next year. I would either take someone who is food-obsessed (and not shy about taking photos), or go by myself.
- I would probably go on the Friday, taking a day off work, as I presume it would be less busy
- I had a backpack (and didn't carry my handbag) which made it easy to grab samples. I noted that some people had wheelie-trolleys (like what some seniors take to the supermarket), which were a little annoying.
- I thought the showbags available were great deals. There were also other showbags that I didn't go for, such as the St Dalfours ($12!) and Delicious magazine (free with subscription which I think was around $50?)

Lesson: Read the recipe

Recipe:
31. Red wine, cumin and onion gravy (served with sausages)
32. Mashed potato

Source: Gravy is from How to Eat, mashed potato is from Nigella Bites

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I still have a lot of the cask wine left (both red and white actually), so no problems with using red wine in this recipe. I substituted ready-ground nutmeg for the fresh.

Preparation: I kind of did this in the wrong order. My first step was to chuck the sausages in the oven. Then wash the dishes. Then peel and boil the potatoes. Then start the gravy. Oops.

Cooking process: I cook my sausages in the oven too! But you would know that already, if you read recipe #24. Not sure if I pricked them enough, as at around the 40-ish minute mark, they started to go "wheeeee..." and I hurriedly turned the oven off and hoped they wouldn't explode while they were waiting (you can breathe easy, they didn't).

Cooking potatoes is easy, just a matter of boiling them. I weighed the milk and then added it to the potatoes, it seemed like a hell of a lot of milk! I was afraid that the potatoes wouldn't absorb it all, it's a lot more than I would usually add. I didn't bother adding the butter in the end. The mashed potatoes were very creamy (thinking, ah, so THAT's how you make creamy potatoes).

With regards to the gravy, I didn't read the part about how at the end it needs to simmer for 30 minutes, so I did a fast-track version (read: turned the heat up to max and only did it for about 10 minutes).

End result: The gravy was very tasty, however, I found that the onions were still a bit crunchy. Definitely cooked, but with a bit of a crunch to them, as opposed to soft onions. Perhaps if I had actually followed the recipe, it would have been perfect. Still tasted very nice though.

As I have said, the mashed potatoes were very creamy.
And all together, it was a very nice meal.

Repeatability: Yes to both.

Cost: Sausages cost about $5, total meal about $7, and I reckon there's probably two more servings left.

Mess: 3 pans (one for the sausages, one for the potatoes, one for the gravy). Quite a bit, but it's okay.

Special utensils: I didn't bother using the food processor to cut the onion. Nigella suggests a potato ricer for the mashed potatoes, but I just used a potato masher.

Advice to self: I really must read the recipes beforehand...

Clementine cake

Making this cake reminds me of that song "Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine..."

Recipe:
30. Clementine cake

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: Clementine mandarins. Apparently, it's the season here locally, like RIGHT NOW. About a month ago, I made one of my work friends help me search all over Queen Vic market for them, with no luck. He found them in Coles (Melbourne Central) last week, and I immediately made a bee-line for them. Yum. I can see what the difference is between Imperial and Clementine mandarins (never knew about them before), I find that Clementines are sweeter and have less seeds.

Preparation: Rather than cook for 2 hours, I followed Sarah's tip and put them into a bowl of water, microwaving for 2 minutes at a time, then turning them. I think I went for 10 or 12 minutes before I was happy with their softness.

Cooking process: Bake in the oven for an hour, putting foil on top for the last 20 minutes.

End result:I cut up slices for work the next day to hand out to some members of my posse, including the poor person that went to Queen Vic market with me.

Here are some of their comments:
"Delicious."
"Mmmmmmmmmymmmmch" (closest I can get to a munch munch munch equivalent for a soft cake)
"Good effort, although you need to grate the peel a bit smaller, some of those peel bites can get a bit much"
"Did you pour syrup over it?"

I do like it. The cake has a nice texture, very damp. I didn't mind the bigger bits of mandarin peel, but probably could have left it in the food processor for a little longer.

Repeatability: Yes.

Cost: $4 for the ground almonds, 90c for the clementines, so $7 all up.

Mess: A bit. It does use a few mixing bowls, and depends how you feel about cleaning your food processor.

Special utensils: Food processor, although Nigella does suggest that you could pulp the clementines by hand. If I didn't already have a food processor, that would seem rather hard to me. She suggests a 21cm tin, but I just used a 23cm (the smallest I have). The cake didn't seem too flat as a consequence.

Advice: Possibly leave it in the food processor to be pulped a bit longer, to make sure you don't have big peely bits.

Baked veal and ham pasta

Recipe:
29. Baked veal and ham pasta

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I substituted bacon for pancetta (but Nigella says you can!). I had never tried mace before (could only get blade mace and not powdered), but it smelt wonderful - very nutmeggy, I know that mace is the outside bit of the nutmeg, but not sure why you would use one over the other.

Preparation: At least there was nothing to soak. A bit of chopping and food processing.

Cooking process: Cook the food-processed vegetables, add meat; cook pasta; make bechamel sauce. Then chuck it all together and plonk it in the oven for 40 minutes. I found that when I assembled everything, it was too much for my ceramic casserole, so the trusty French Oven got half of the mixture as well.

End result: Very nice, I do love the flavour that the Marsala imparts. Creamy, cheesy, nutmeggy, yum. Glad that we enjoyed it, because there's at least six meals worth in there. I'm not sure that the photo below does it justice.


Repeatability: Yes.

Cost: About $12. For about 6 servings as I said before.

Mess: God. This kind of meal is what this category was created for. Yes. 3 saucepans, 1 wok, 1 food processor, the casserole, the French Oven, mortar and pestle (but that was only because I chose the blade mace and not ready-powdered), colander plus various plates and bowls ended up used.

Special utensils: Food processor. And you need some ginormous lasagne/casserole dish to bake this in, as I found that I needed two pans for it. I must only have little dinky serves-two pans.

Lamb and bean braise

Recipe:
28. Lamb and bean braise

Source: How to Eat. I'm finding that I'm making a LOT of recipes out of this book, and I certainly don't intend to repeat Sarah's project, but this is a great book...

Weird ingredients and substitutes: Safeway didn't have dried cannellini beans, so I think I substituted with borlotti. I substituted the large dried chilli with dried chilli flakes.
And at Dan Murphy's, betraying my sophisticated appearance, I ask "So, what red wine is best for cooking stews?" and the pimply-faced teenager says "I dunno." OK. Here is a rant. If you work in a wine store, at the very least, you should have basic knowledge about wine. On the same topic, if you work as a Coles checkout chick, you should at least be able to tell the difference between various types of fruit and vegetables. Mr Dan Murphy and Mr Coles, if you are reading this, please give your people some type of training.
Bored check-out chick "Is this an apple?"
Next Nigella "Actually, it's a nashi."
Bored check-out chick "Is this garlic?"
Next Nigella "Shallots."
That rant sounded better in my head than it looks all typed out. End of rant.
So, I ended up buying a cask of cabernet merlot. Because it said fruity, and I like fruity. Please forgive me if I bought the wrong thing.

Preparation: Soak beans overnight. Marinade lamb in red wine.

Cooking process: Get a French Oven (yay!). Cook everything for about 1.5 hours. I kept the chilli flakes in, as I am a big chilli fan. You also cover the pot with greaseproof paper, and then put the lid on, which is supposed to help stop the liquid evaporating, but it just looked weird.

End result: Yum. I really liked it. I was afraid that it would be too winey, because the only liquid is the red wine, but it was really nice. However, Hubby said: "It's all brown."
Next Nigella: "I see orange, and green, and..."
Hubby: "I don't like stews. Everything turns into the same colour. I want stir-fries. Where's my stir-fry?"
Long-suffering Next Nigella: "This is stew week. I bought stuff for stew. You'd better eat your stew."

Repeatability: My vote yes, Hubby votes no.

Cost: Approx $7, as the lamb was just a cheap cut. Despite the recommendation to serve 2, I found that it will serve 4.

Mess: Not really.

Special utensils: Either a French Oven or a thick-bottomed casserole with a lid. A sieve or colander.

Butternut and pasta soup

Recipe:
27. Butternut and pasta soup

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: None.

Preparation: Just a bit of chopping, half an onion very finely and some butternut squash.

Cooking process: Quite easy, although I did find that I had to add more water to the pot while the pasta was cooking.

End result: Served with parmesan cheese shaved on top. It was so nice, which was a relief, given that the last few recipes have not been winners. This would be nice to make again to take to work. Which I should do soon as I have the rest of the butternut squash to use up.

Repeatability: Definitely.

Cost: About $1-2 for two small servings. Given Nigella's usual portion sizes, I was surprised that there wasn't more.

Mess: It's a one-pan meal, although one ladlespoon is put into the food processor.

Special utensils: Food processor or blender.

Advice: Keep an eye on the amount of liquid you have in the pan after you put in the pasta. I found that after a few minutes, the pasta started sticking to the bottom of the pan, so had to add about 1/2 cup more water.

Spaghetti aglio olio

I was home by myself last night, and mentally drained from the presentation I had given. Just wanted to drink (fruity lexia, from a cask) and wanted something very very simple to go with.

Recipe:
26. Spaghetti aglio olio

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I didn't have any spaghetti. Okay, I had some spinach fettucine that I had bought in a fit of virtuousness, but it's been sitting in my cupboard for months, and the green colour isn't that appealing. Substituted with the last of the pasta shells.

Preparation: None required, unless you count peeling two cloves of garlic.

Cooking process: This is the easiest meal to cook of all. Cook the pasta, turn the garlic cloves in some olive oil, discard the garlic, add pasta and some dried chilli flakes. Takes just a couple of minutes.

End result: Look, the meal is very easy to prepare. But it's not very exciting to eat. Much as I love chilli flakes, it was a dull dull dish.
Repeatability: No, it's too boring.

Cost: About $1 or possibly cheaper (for 1 serving), but don't bother.

Mess: I found that once I added the pasta to the oil, there was a bit of sticking, but it was fine to clean off.

Special utensils: No.

Advice: Don't bother.

(Almost) Chicken McNuggets

Recipe:
24. Ritzy chicken nuggets
25. Capery salad to turn ritzy chicken nuggets into a grown-up meal

Source: Feast

Weird ingredients and substitutes: What are gem lettuces? I had iceberg in the fridge, so that's what I used.

Preparation: Uh, after thinking about dinner on the train and deciding that chicken nuggets would be nice, I get home, defrost the chicken, and then read that the chicken needs to be marinated in the buttermilk for up to 2 days. Given that we were going to have chicken nuggets THAT NIGHT, the recommended marination of 2 days actually only became 10 minutes (while I washed up the dishes from breakfast. Oh okay, I admit it, and the dishes from the night before). Then I read that the chicken needs to be bashed with a meat tenderiser, and I really could not be bothered, as it was already in the marinade. OK, OK, one more thing (how many cooking confessions can one person have? This is showing you how inept I am). Because I was so hungry, I had already opened the ritz biscuits for a nibble, and didn't do the rolling pin thing while the ritz was still in the packet. I just used my fingers to crush them. With the dressing, I taste it, and it seemed too oily, so I added more gherkin brine.

Cooking process: I don't like frying things. I could tell you stories about how much healthier it is, and how we didn't have vegetable oil but only extra-virgin olive, but to be honest, it makes a mess and I have been oil-splattered enough times to know better. Don't believe me about the health aspect. If someone else is frying, the health aspect doesn't stop me gobbling up fried stuff, as long as it's their mess and their kitchen to clean-up. So I put the crumbed nuggets into the oven. However, this did mean that they did not get that lovely crunch that fried stuff would.

End result: If I had done this recipe properly, the chicken would be lovely and tender from soaking in the buttermilk. If I had done this recipe properly, the crumbs would have been crunchy from frying in the hot oil. It was okay the way I did it. But not amazing.

I've also discovered that I don't like capers. They have a funny flavour to them. Don't send me hate mail.

Repeatability: No, I'd like to give the Tenderest Chicken in How to Eat a chance, which I think is similiar in that it is also marinated in buttermilk.

Cost: $12 ($9 of that being the 2 chicken breasts which were free-range, so cheaper if you go for normal chicken).

Mess: Yes, the dipping into the crushed ritz biscuits made a sticky mess.

Special utensils: Rolling pin or meat tenderiser.

Advice: Read the instructions. Make sure you are aware of the requirement to marinade for a period of time.

I'm back and cooking

I didn't end up going interstate, as I cancelled my trip at the last minute. As I had a presentation to do yesterday, I stressed out about that instead during the week.

Recipe:
23. Pasta with ham, peas and cream

Source: Feast

Weird ingredients and substitutes: No substitutes, but I managed to finish the packet of peas from #22, the cream from #21, and the last of the ham that we had leftover. Yes!

Preparation: None required.

Cooking process: Cook pasta, add rest of ingredients. Easy.

End result: It was okay. Not sure that I really love these creamy pasta dishes. Edible, but as a once-off.

Repeatability: No.

Cost: Can't remember how much we bought the ham for, so if I make a guess that the portion we had left was about $2 worth, you'll forgive me if it is not exact? Which brings the total meal to $4.

Mess: Not really.

No blogging for the next few days...

Begging forgiveness in advance, but unfortunately my work obligations (yes, I have things to do outside of blogging, such a pity) are calling, and I will be unable to post until next weekend. I shall be interstate and will record anything in the food area which may be of interest, however, I do warn you that the Qantas meals may not comply.

Lucky for Hubby that we have lots of leftovers! As he usually just makes canned soup when I am away.

I know it's not Easter but...

Recipe:
22. Hot Cross Bunny (Chicken)