to think that Nigella doesn't taste half the horrible food in her cookbooks?

God yes DB, the whole set up would be an overdose of glamperesque shitola and naked flame peril with nigella in the middle of it all guzzling butter and 70% coco solids chocolate in a low fitting top and inadequate footwear.

slubber - in the unlikely event of sharing a campsite with nigella and her gorgeous -rent- -a- -mob- friends, you just know she will be in a yurt fucking about with bunting and fairlylights and yes those tin cans with ickle patterns punched out

I am most definitely NOT a Nigella fan and think she is now veering towards some sort of trans-Atlantic sugar n'syrup kitschy market.

However the two things that I do think are worth making are the clementine cake and the chocolate pavlova.

Lol at her hamfistedly cocking about.

I know all her tv series are staged but the low level lighting always makes me doubt her accurate measuring ability. Cooking by fairy lights is bound to result in recipe failure.

The amount of recipe corrections on her website also put me off. You never get that with a triple tested Good Housekeeping recipe. No siree.

I think nigrella imagines writing about some foodstuff or other and sees pretty pictures in her head and then ham-fistedly cocks about in the kitchen until she has come up with an approximate recipe.

I think nigella likes to stuff her face and she's not too bothered what with.

Her recipes are crapola.

And I agree, aitch. I do like to make a lentil and bcaon soup with the ham stock.

Marmot pasta! Fabulous :o

Actually - you were all much more civilised than I thought I remembered it being. It's rather sweet, actually. :)

Look what I found

I love most of her stuff to be honest. I think most cooks will have stuff you dont like in it. I would never make marmite pasta as I am a definete do NOT like marmite.

OMG marmots pasta. I love it Well not literally, obviously. Just the fantastic autocorrect lol.

OMG I remember the racist chicken thread - it was bonkers. :)

Please, please somebody link to it!

Sounds delicious, Slubber!

DAMN YOU AUTOCORRECT

Hmmm

Marmots pasta

1. Lay out snare for prarie dwelling rodent mammal
2. skin and bone creature
3. Sauté with onions and a tablespoon of vanilla essense.
4. Add 2 litres of double cream
5. Sprinkle with Parmesan and serve with fusilli.

Lovely

I've made the clementine cake on several occasions and pretty much everyone has loved it - mind you, it does need cooking for longer than Nigella says, and when she cooks it on the tv, she completely misses out the stage where she tells you to take the cooled boiled clementines and quarter them to remove the pips before blitzing them 'to a nubbly puree'.

I'm doing her sticky ribs tomorrow - the boys adore these, and ds1 once ate 17 (though they were pretty short ribs, not great long ones).

We love marmite pasta too - ds1 cooks it every weekend for his lunch, and ate so much of it over the christmas holidays that I ran out of marmite - and when did anyone ever see the the bottom of the marmite jar?? It is lovely with a lightly poached egg, or a bit of grated cheddar on it.

Everything changed for me and Nigella after the girdle buster pie (see other nigella thread).

I think as you get more cooking mileage you can spot things that in all likely hood are going to be foul. I haven't seen the recipe for the marmots pasta but I can imagine the deep horridness of it, and I'm someone who likes marmots.

No more nigella books here for me. Domestic goddess is enough.

1. don't make nigella's flapjacks, make mine.
2. make the chocolate gingerbread from Feast [drool]
3. lemon syrup sponge is great but Marslady's lemon drizzle is equally good. I make Marslady's cake and use nigella's syrup (double the amount).
4. Nonconformist Christmas pud in Feast is fabulous,

interestingly have just cooked marmite pasta and watched my 3 dc gobble it down faster than anything whilst screaming for more. dh tried it and said that it was horrid (I didn't even try it) but she does recommend it for children and it did work on mine :)

I've only read the first page of replies but I have to both agree and disagree with the OP. Kitchen does feel a bit like Nigella is scraping the bottom of the barrel, even in terms of the book's layout (not that I dislike it, the quirkiness somehow appeals to me) - but it must be a big challenge, 5 or 6 cookbooks down the road, to come up with something new and innovative each time.

On the other hand, I have found Nigella very inspiring over the years. When I bought How to Eat (just before I had children), it was my lunchtime reading for weeks and weeks (work from home). Feast has recipes which are now the only way we do that dish in our house - the chilli with cocoa powder, ham in coke, granola, etc. Nigella Express came at the perfect time where I was juggling several children and a busy job. I missed the TV series but caught up on YouTube and have a lot to thank Curry in a Hurry for!

I felt the exact same about the marmite pasta, could hardly choke it down (but had to in front of the children because the cupboards were bare that day, no back-up plan!). I think though that I used much too much marmite and would've had a different result with (much) less. I might actually try again sometime.

DH and I are in love with her Jumbo Chilli Sauce. Made last week for first time, and a couple of times since. Try it, but add the lime juice and salt cautiously first to your own taste. It's fab, as a dip for tortilla chips or veggies, we also had it with giant fusilli, and parmesan on top, super-quick meal so full of zing and freshness.

Fecking cheek of it. I use Baileys for my tiramisu. I've been doing so for decades. Bloody copycat

It's not the cake or the butterscotch that's minging. It's the cheesy frosting on top .

Thanks Storm

It isn't a bad thing. I really like Harry Belafonte and the Banana Boat song(though my favourite is "Get an Ugly Woman to marry you". Tis awesomeness in song form).

I've just googled the recipe. I had no idea it was that one - I love that (although my fingers are so pathetically unasbestosy that the chicken is virtually cold by the time I can rip it off the carcass)

I'm so glad I read this thread - racist chicken and the tattoo crossword have made me wee with laughter :o