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.

And I only opened this thread to see if there was anything I should try and cook

Good god, is this in classics yet?

Through my tears of joy and mirth (and some sympathy for leaky fanjo/sainburys incidents, although has never happened to me )

I just wanted to add that the pork chops and gnocci in cider & mustard sauce in Express is lovely. Although I do add extra mustard, and mushrooms, and cook it for longer than Nige. Lovely though

yeah and i only wanted to know what to do with leftover coke - now i can't sleep as thoughts of name tatoos/racist chicken and GOML leaky fanjo are keeping me up

it is all a bit disturbing

Would never have happened if you'd posted in food OP

Davidtennantsgirl methinks you do protest too much

Are you NIgella?

I wish I was Nigella, MoldyWarp - but the only similarity I share with her is a laaarge derriere - and I suspect mine's square acreage is greater than Nigella's!!

Now I adore Nigella, but have to say her chocolate Christmas cakey thingy (with the edible gold stars that I went and bought from bloody turkey gobble neck Jane Asher) was, erm, interesting, not exactly unpleasant, but it sure as fuck was not a Christmas cake. It was sort of shiny and puddingy and very very very sweet. It will still be in my Mum's cake tin next year, missing only the bits we had on Christmas Day.

Someone on the poncey Christmas thread said that Nigella has an obsession with bicarb and I now miss out the bicarb in everything because it tastes of soap.

Dp vomited over the very idea of marmite pasta. (and I love Marmite, but no, no no)

PS Getorf, if you grit your teeth your fanjo won't leak! (every tried weeing while gritting your teeth??? Impossible unless you have a hooooooge bucket of a thing)

Christ. Nobody has mentioned the gnocchi roasties but you all are commenting on leaky fanjos.

Am going to bloody kill LeQueen

Have you found her yet?

I can't comment on the gnocci roasties, having never had them, but when an MNer was suggesting roasting gnocci, a 'la Nigella instead of boiling them in the normal way, I did think "that can't be right".

I wanted to try the gnocchi roasties. Obviously I shan't bother now.

That mustard sauce she did with gnocchi in the Express book was all right. Not brill. But Ok for a change.

Used to love Nigella until I tried her butternut squash and sweet potato soup with buttermilk

It was emulsified vomit

Boak at the memory

And the "first night" pasta - recipe for two and it could have fed 400.

I don't have a leaky fanjo either (the joy of the cs )

Ham in cherry coke is really good. We use the liquid for parboiling potatoes before roasting them sometimes.

at this thread

gnocchi roasties and leaky fanjos in one sentence just sounds wrong

Loving Aitch's racist chicken - maybe the leftovers could be put into some fascist fajitas...

Blimey this thread has moved on a bit since last postings.

Can't comment on leaky fanjos as I don't have one .

There is an autobiography on Nigella - well its unauthorised by Gilly Smith but has lots of lovely pictures of her.

Was going to go to a Kitchen autogrpah signing in Bristol but work got in the way so never met the lovely Nigella...still prefer curvy women to sticks anyday.

All you ham in coke people, I highly recommend the pasta alla Medici with left-over ham. We love it even though it has become known as 'Poisoners' Pasta'.

Also loved by dcs are chocolate malteser cake and (since New Year) Toblerone fondue.

GetOrf I share your post-bath swoosh issues. Unfortunately it is more likely to occur within half an hour of a bath, which shows how completely shot my pelvic floor is. To compound my shame, DS2 has announced to the household "Mummy's doing a wee on the kitchen floor!"

Getorf I know exactly what you mean re post-bath gush. But it usually happens to me about five mins afterwards, so never have embarassing supermarket issues I thought it was fairly normal? According to others on this thread it appears not... apart from Foundwanting

Aitch can you share your racist chicken recipe? Sounds interesting...

And, back to the main point of the thread, I have Nigella's Express I think but never used it - is there a recipe in there guaranteed to work, and worth cooking? Am concerned at the high failure rate!

What I know we've had from Express - and never really had a 'failure' from Nigella as tend to only make things that we know we'd like and also tweak a bit if we taste / think it needs it!

Mustard pork chops
Quick calamari (squid) with garlic mayo
Steak Slice with Lemon & Thyme
Chicken Liver Salad
Mirin glazed salmon
Butternut & Sweet potatoe soup
Apple Green Martini
Potato Cakes with Smoked Salmon
Duck breasts with pomegranate & mint
White chocolate mint mouse
Quesadillas
Flan (and a coconut variation made with tinned coconut milk)
Sesame noodles - without peanuts
Hokey Pokey - and chocolate dipped too
Linguine with Lemon, Garlic & mushrooms
Snowball
Marshmallow crispy squares

Now you've made me read through it and will make a few more things..

I tried doing the chicken cacciatore from Express - and since I get my meat from tescos online, I had to bone the chicken thighs myself, and it took forever and I ended up with a measly amount of meat. It didn't taste terrible, but wasn't nice enough to justify all the effort involved (and it did rather miss the whole point of the Express thing).

I'd be quite happy just to cut a boned thigh in half (if big) or would just use them with the bone in.

If you are quite confident in the kitchen then being able to take the idea of a recipe and change it works but I can see others will folow an exact recipe which maybe to someone elses taste and so it 'fails'.

re thighs, do them bone in and remove bone prior to serving. it pretty much falls off.
but i do find thigh a big rubber if cooked quickly...

am mooching through jamie's 30 mins at the mo. anyone got that? nothing's jumping out at me, and i want MEAT for dinner.

will have a look for my racist chicken.

Aitch - the mustard chicken and quick dauphinoise is good.

Or have a steak and bearnaise. (ooh I want a steak now)

Jamie 30 minute recipes good - but not a good recipe book for an idle read.

And I don't cook it anything like he says.