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

[GetOrfMoiLand]

Bless her, I love her an all but some of her food is rank.

I tried those gnocchi roast potatoes and they were inedible - spongy and foamy tasting as well as rock hard on the outside.

Marmite pasta - well bloody hell it tasted like the devil's own excreta. Anne del Conte my arse.

DD made the sweet and sour from Kitchen - vile.

I think she has lost it slightly. Compared to How to Eat (food in the real world) I don't think her latest recipes come up to scratch at all.

I do love the way she writes but I think her recipes are so hit and miss it is not worth attempting any more.

i do admit a lot of her stuff is horrible

but i forgive all when eating coca cola ham :)

Do you think that, perhaps, it is your cooking ability that is the problem?

[snigger]

My DH loves pasta. He loves Marmite.

He thought the marmite pasta was so disgusting he wished he could scoop it out of his stomach. I refused to touch it. And I think she says that it's perfect for kids! Devil's excreta is PERFECT.

She definitely eats some of her food . Didn't you notice that in this series, she was rarely if ever shot from below the waist, and if she was it was all soft focus?!

Nah, I can cook (can't bake but never attempt any of that anyway).

ALL spicy food that she writes recipes for are very underspiced.

Her forte I think has been savoury food - he tunisian harissa stew and Georgian menu (from Feast) are brilliant.

And yes ham in coke is a triumph - I never cook ham any other way. And her Christmas recipes are excellent.

But she has strange enthusiasms (turkey mince? korean gochujang (sp) sauce?).

I liked the pasta, but of course you need to like Marmite.

The marmalade pudding cake is really good, as are the everyday brownies and the spanish chicken.
I've tried a few other things from it and not had any disasters yet.

Grasshopper Pie is lush. Might make that this afternoon now I have thought about it.

Really? Grasshopper pie?

Mind you I don't have a sweet tooth and never bake anything so it is lost on me really.

I think her recipes have always been dodgy.

Clementine cake is vile and I am a good baker [modest]

Marmite pasta - truly vile.

Her chilli with chorizo from the christmas book - hideous.

Mind you I got wonderfully drunk on her recipe for black velvet at Christmas, so she is not all bad.

I never bother cooking anything which you can remotely call spicy any more - she never gets the spice proportions correct and a lot of it is actually tasteless.

Her chilli recipe in Kitchen doesn't look much cop from reading it.

I don't have any of her books, but do like watching her on Tv.

Also the Coca Cola Ham wasn't originally her recipe

She has different tastes - not everyone has the same pallete (sp!!??) so what I think is OK you might not. Yes I do tweak her recipes a bit but then many other cookery books I have to also.

So if Nigella ever does CDWM I'll be ratting on all of you and she'll send round the heavies to sort you out .

I read her books. I don't cook from them. I have tried but her butterscotch cake with a cream cheese frosting was the last straw.

I doubt that she writes many of the recipes nowadays.

Feast was fab but won't be buying any more of her books.

I made nigela chocolate chip cookies and the recipe just didn't work - they didn't rise and were more like biscuits and yes I am a good cook.

ham in coke sounds revolting.

YABU.

ALL of you.

Nigella's recipes are always bang on the money in this house. Every single time.

It's called taste, dear.

I got given How to Eat and Domestic Goddess and do use some recipes from the latter. Usually taste fine, although I have had to adjust her cooking times as they were waaaaay out.

I nearly cracked a tooth on the chorizo in the spanish chicken. Perhaps it's my oven.

Oh I disagree. I love her party poussin and festive couscous. Also her little Reese's Cups are divine! Her quick thai prawn curry is immense, it's the only curry we cook at home these days.

I love her Christmas book from last year, there's so much I have, and still want to, cook.

I think there's actually a big section on her site with all the corrections for domestic goddess as the ingredients are wrong quantities - flapjacks being the classic example.

oh god yes, she is useless so often. i mean i love her, but that clementine cake. my friends all seemed to go through a stage of cooking it, blergh. and her victoria sponge is not light (although i'm sure this would be fine with a kitchen aid and doubt she ever tests recipes with elbow grease alone). and she uses twice as much sugar and fifteen times as much VANILLA as could ever be needed.

and ham in coke is nice but a sinful waste of stock. anyone tried making the black bean soup she suggests?

those who suggest she doesnt write her own recipes any more are wrong. She does and I know if for a fact (pretty taps nose mysteriously). However even I thought that some of the recipes were a bit blah this time around. That said everyday brownies are the best things in the whole world .

The clementine cake tasted of pith - it really did.

DH who will eat most things just laughed at it.

Some of her books are great - How to Eat, Feast, Christmas

Some are not - Nigella Express, Kitchen, Nigella Summer

Haven't got Domestic Goddess, hate baking so no point.

ham in coke is brilliant - doesn't taste of coke, just tastes barbecuey. I really recommend it.