To think that macaroni cheese is comforting and stodgy enough without making it with EVAPORATED MILK

[MorrisZapp]

Anybody else got their mitts on Nigella's christmas offering? I heartily recommend it - it's glossy, truly beautiful and full of inspiring photos etc... and the requisite comedy recipes that only the rich and job-free could possibly attempt.

Don't just roast your turkey girls! Soak it in brine first. In your biggest pan. You don't have a pan that size? Use a bucket. Guffaw.

I love Nigella and won't have a word said against her but her recipe for macaroni cheese takes the boudoir biscuit, it really does. First make your roux in the normal butter-heavy manner, then mix in... two tins of evaporated milk. Yes, you read that right. But it's ok - if you can't face tinned carnation, Nigella says just use cream. CREAM. In a cheese and pasta dish. Oh my lord!

I can't help thinking that if a greasy caff sold this kind of fare to people in tracksuits, then we'd feel moved by pity to send Jamie Oliver in to save them from immenent heart attack.

I love macaroni and I make the best (secret ingredient: English mustard. Unsecret topping: crushed crisps) but even with semi skimmed it's as rich and heavy as any human palate could bear.

I don't want to slap or punch Nigella or anything troubling like that, in fact if I met the lovely lady I'd give her a big hug and rest my head on her ample bosom.

But that recipe is just too, too much.

AIBU?

Nigella is glorious and delightful, but I do agree that her recipes are sometimes slightly nuts. The idea of evaporated milk in mac cheese makes me feel slightly queasy. However, she does attribute her lovely skin to eating fast quantities of fat, so maybe we'd all have a complexion likes peaches and cream if we ate more...peaches and cream.

Sounds revolting. But then my mother makes a fab potato gratin with cream, which I guess is not that different.

boak

I suppose it's not that different from carbonara though - butter, cheese, cream and bacon. That has to be more fattening.

nigella doesn't put cream in carbonara but you are right that is boak too. [admires own wit]

and a just tinsy tad repulsive..(if i had to say it to her face)

reminds me of war time recipes when they say add any old shit that vaguely sounds the same and tell them to eat it cause there is a fecking war on
maybe she's marguerite patons new bestest pal?

Aye but carbonara is more of a light coating on the strands of spaghetti isn't it? Whereas macaroni kind of bathes in the sauce and it all goes inside the tubes so to speak.

I've never made a carbonara becuase I don't like spaghetti.

Dora it is totally wartime! And in fact in one piccy she's lovingly holding a mug which says something like 'keep smiling and carry on' or some such wartime slogan.

It's like wartime mixed with Elvis's indulgent cooking lady.

She also offers a bizarre 'nacho soup' which looks like a plate of nachos etc like you would get in any gastropub, with hot water poured on it.

it must be hard churning out these books i think celeb chefs should only be allowed one book to prevent obscenities such as 'nacho soup' reaching our consciousness.

domestic goddess is one of my favourite all time books.

lol MZ
and a big double boaker at nacho soup, wtf...
has saatchi encouraged her push the envelope menu i wonders..

do you remember the crepes suzette in 'Nigella Express'?? It uses something mental like an entire pack of butter, and at the end of the cooking sequence she did that monumentally annoying saucy smile thing and lobs another great dollop in the pan. A cardiac arrest waiting to happen.

No, yanbu, that's just wrong, totally, thoroughly and artery crackingly wrong.

eeeugh yuk!

Cream - yes, why not - but evaporated milk is sweet and has an artificial taste.

Sounds foul.

Drink your cream out of this?

Isn't evap milk sweet or am I mixing it up?

Boak indeed. I can't help feeling that she knows fine well that these are odd and baffling 'twists' on old faves, but puts them in for the novelty factor.

I'm no fan of chilli con carne anyway, but Nigella asks us to make it with chocolate chips! Buy the book, you'll see I'm not making this up!

Nobody is going to pour water on their nachos, chocolate on their chilli or evaporated milk on the macaroni, are they? It's just a bit of fun and nonsense to appal us and further boost her profile I guess.

I've brined my turkey a la Nigella the last 2 years. Turns out lovely and moist.

Evaporated milk is the American way. Also made with scary orange tasteless cheese.

Ooh Marmite well done!

(hastily adds wartime mug to xmas list)

Evap milk is indeed sweet - Nigella says it will make the macaroni taste 'packaged'.

I think it's a gimmick tbh and I bet she doesn't let her kids eat much of it if any, despite bragging about how much they put away.

It's a bit cheeky of her to suggest that the sole measure of food is how much your kids will willingly munch. If that was the case, then chips, 'bought cake' and jam doughnuts would be haute cuisine. It's not rocket science to saturate everything with fat and sugar to make kids eat it.

i put chocolate on my chilli

For some reason that stuff is all over Pedlars this year see

Marmite, great website, Orla Kiely mugs wooo!

Nigella = Goddess = won't hear a word said against her!