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.

tbh i find most 'first' cookbooks are the best. i'd be very hard-pressed to find two bookfuls of favourite, hard-won, brilliant etc recipes. the best ones are all bound to be in the first one.

the clemmie cake much improved by squeezing lemon over it when no-one looking, i found.

I have the 'Express' book and I LOVE IT!! So far everything has been delicious. Shame I am on a diet now... The rocky road is to die for.

True, How to Eat was very comprehensive.

I also think how different she seems now -though I suppose if I was married to a billionaire and lived in Eaton Square I would be a bit different as well.

nice macaroni cheese in Express. Nice chilli dip thingy in Kitchen also Chocolate and peanut butter cheesecake and tarragon chicken (got it for xmas so only done a couple of recipes)

Nigella Summer was a bit hit and miss but I liked the chicken and lemon thing and the hasselback potatoes.

I got Summer out of the library and have done courgette fritters several times, v popular in this house.

Summer is great - use loads from there, express a bit less so. Kitchen just dropped through my door today

Hassleback - we did these years ago and used to call them woodlouse potatoes for the DCs - not sure many recipes are really new just a re-hash generally.

She did the same macaroni recipe in How to Eat (in the kids bit).

Actually, I remember making the Amaretto syllabub from Express, that was lovely (ate the whole lot out of the bowl, stood up in the kitchen, as soon as I made it).

i do the venetian chicken from the ghetto thing so often that i no longer think of it as hers. that is a fantastic recipe. (although i do remember having the piss ripped out of me on here for suggesting it as a dinner party option because the person wanted to serve the meal to a black man and it would be offensive... ).

coke ham bettered only by her gingerale (Christmas) version!!!

Haven't brought any of her books recently though - I mean how many cookbooks do I need, can I store??

Love How To Eat though the coloured font occasionally does my head in. These days I mainly get recipes online - no storage space required.

PMSL at ghetto chicken offensive to a black man

but the STOCK... don't you all mourn the amazing lentil soup you might have had?

i KNOW, getorf. i was . even for here...

Has anyone tried the cherry coke version? I thought that might be a step too far so haven't bothered.

I mean does Venetian ghetto in the title not spell it out? It wasn't Detroit Ghetto chicken, fgs

Yes - Cherry coke for New Years eve - then added a few cherries to make the sauce a bit different.

Stock from that used to cook up the red cabbage - still some left in fridge awaiting something else too.

I LOVE Nigella, I love the way she writes about food, with complete love and enthusiasm. I LOVE the way she looks (fat and slim) and I love how she speaks openly about her depression and so on.

But her food is - at best- hit and miss.

I like her brandied roast chicken from Express, but BY FAR the bulk of the recipes of hers I try are pretty - well - ordinary.

That turkish delight syllabub is pretty special as well. I used cointreau instead of orange flower water.

Vic. Sponge from Domestic Goddess is my staple cake.

It is the cake that I make most often which invites positive comments and recipe requests.

I do however have a kenwood chef.

I cannot get her butterscotch layer cake or flapjacks to work though and have given up trying

hmm yes i can imagine that would be quite nice with red cabbage, actually. although i do like apples.

do you think i made the point about the venetian ghetto, getorf? and do you think i was BAFFLED when this buttered no parsnips with either the OP of the thread or other posters? it was mental.

I have her Christmas book from Christmas 2010...and inside was a list of alterations of measurements printed out from the editors and just thrown in. I use it as a book mark.

Her chocolate chilli looks vile.

I love her but some of her food is a tad far fetched-regardless of being a great cook.

Pity because I love her so.

Oh, and I am desperate to try that Georgian Feast. That bread looks a-may-zing.

God, I hate being on a diet

The butterscotch cake does work - is the problem with the cake or making the butterscotch?

The flapjacks the recipe in the book is wrong - the amount is something like 150g of syrup not 50g (not 100% sure would have to go get the book out). Look on the Nigella website for other (not that many omissions).

I had Kitchen for Christmas, I'm a bit new to cooking (can bake quite well though) and have yet to try any meals from it yet. I'm a bit worried now!
I did make the choc chip cookies for new year and they were divine! very sweet, but they spread perfectly in the oven and I had a lot more than the recipe suggested (I doubled everything to make sure there was enough for the party of 20 guests, ended up taking a tin full to the party, froze another 15 and froze dough for 10!) After a day or so they'd lost the chewiness, but even the defrosted ones were lovely.