What recipe have you tried, hated and wished you never wasted so much time making it?

[kevintheorangecarrot]

I have just tried a creamy garlic, chicken and mushroom sauce and I really wish I hadn't now. I consumed as much as I could as well as my DH, then thrown the rest in the bin (thank god for food waste recycling where I live!)

Chicken tikka masala. It took all day, it made enough for about 20 (I should've checked the recipe) and cost so much money. The Indian behind my house would've been cheaper and easier. It tasted divine but the absolute effort was not worth it. The saag paneer on the other hand was amazing and easy.

Oh and anything with pumpkin or tomato soup.

For those struggling with scones, I have a recipe I’m happy to share if you ever want to give them another go, I usually make a quick batch in the morning before I go to work if it’s my turn to do cakes. They are honestly so easy and utterly utterly foolproof, even when my dd2 was about 10 she could make these and they turned out perfectly.
The true key is to barely touch the mixture - mix everything in the bowl with a spoon and then basically turn it out on to a very well floured surface and then roll out the dough.

I don’t use trex, just add more butter. And they bake for about 12 minutes.

Any slow cooker recipes. I have given up

Honey and lemon chicken. Tasted like chicken with Lockets. Revolting.

Spiral vegetable tart from the Bosh cookbook. Tasted ok but definitely wasn't worth the hours of peeling, fine slicing and general faff.

Glad to report that my Yottam chocoflan was a triumph! I should have taken a photo, but forgot.

I do a glazed ham for Boxing Day each year, and I boil it in either coke or cider, and either way comes out delicious. But whatever Nigella says, you can’t use the cooking liquor as stock for soup - it is just too salty. I made lentil soup with it one year, and it was completely inedible.

I did a gammon in cherry coke yesterday and it went down a treat - so much so that there is none leftover and I’m gutted!

I agree that the problem with JOs gravy is the star anise, I’ve never put it in and this year, as with every other year, it has been very well received.

Another vote for hot cross buns - total faff and not as good as M&S ones.

Also almost all marinades - hours of chopping/soaking and you can barely taste them. Just do a sauce.

I love the JO gravy. Yes, it costs a bit and takes a couple of hours, but we use a pack of chicken wings and once they're all roasted we eat half of them before turning the rest of the mix to stock, it is a very easy and relaxing evening job in the run-up to Christmas. Then on Christmas day just tip both it and the juices into a pan to heat through. It is tastier than regular meat juice gravy which I do the rest of the year.

I do both the get ahead gravy and ham in coke, both are absolutely delicious. You must be doing something wrong for those two to taste rank.

But the gravy munis the star anise. The gravy needs finishing off too, you add the juices and i add giblets, turkey wings, it was so delicious!

Jamie Oliver has a thing for aniseed/liquorice type tastes in strange places, I've noticed. He's mad keen on fennel but I can take it or leave it.

It's great in the right recipe, Christmas gravy is not it.

This is why I don't get on with JO recipes - I HATE aniseed! He also tends to chuck a tonne of chillies in everything which I also can't stand, but if you leave them out the dish doesn't taste of anything.

This is basically how I do a turkey crown at Christmas every time now, particularly as the stuffing is so popular. Just posting because the gravy method applies after roasting any meat. I used madeira instead of masala, probably port would work too.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1788639/italianstyle-turkey-crown-with-roast-garlic-and-pa

That's how I do my gravy for a normal roast, but I prefer JO (- star anise) for Christmas.

That's how I do my turkey gravy but instead of a stock melt/cube or similar I use JO method to make the stock also minus the star anise, then on the morning simmer the giblets and the neck in with it too. I use white wine in with the roasting juices and flour and nice big blob of red currant jelly.

As PP said it's a nice relaxing thing to do before Christmas, I usually do the gravy stock, JO's stuffing and a load of mince pies one evening in the run up. It's very festive.

A salt crusted chicken recipe. I think it was Jamie Oliver. A fucking faff and totally not worth it. In fact barely edible.

Anything cooked in the slow cooker.Always smells amazing but tastes of nothing.

Nigella's Christmas Day muffins

I followed the recipe to the letter, but they were so bland and heavy and it was a right faff to weigh out the ingredients on Christmas Eve

I make Nigella's Christmas muffins so often for my children's packed lunches. I usually swap the flour for wholemeal and they're not heavy at all. Could you have overmixed them? For light muffins they need the minimum of mixing.

I made a sausage dish from a Jamie Oliver recipe, it was edible but it was nothing special and was quite tasteless. I’ll stick to sausage and mash next time!