Recipe review club

[GlumyGloomer]

I love trying out new recipes, and thought it would be fun to have a thread where we try stuff out and report back. Source must be cited and link provided if online. Photos encouraged.

Tonight I'll be making asian aubergine wedges, from Nadiya Hussain's Time to Eat book.
I like the taste of aubergine but have grave doubts about the texture. Still, I'm being brave and giving this a go.
Worth noting that I leave the chilli out of everything so that the dd's can eat it (I add at the table).

Anyone fancy joining me? (Waits for tumbleweed...)

@Georgyporky 🤣 mine is the same. He has 5 pasta dishes he's happy to cook, and that's it. He's very good at them, but he will not attempt anything new.

@Georgyporky ha! Yes fairly similar here but with a slightly wider repertoire (spag bol, lasagne, curry, carbonara, etc), but occasionally he'll attempt something new. Last night he made roasted cauliflower with pepper salsa and it was lovely! www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/cauliflower-steaks-roasted-red-pepper-olive-salsa

Yesterday I was going to make a pie with the leftover guinea fowl, gf stock, etc I mentioned it to DH. He loves pies, but I don't make them very often.
I forgot to take the frozen puff pastry out of the freezer, & CBA to make shortcrust.
It was a lovely casserole, but he said "I thought you were treating me to a pie?"
Told him a lidless pie was trés nouvelle cuisine, but he didn't believe me.

@Imicola That cauli recipe looks good, but I'll never make it!
About 4 years ago, I served cauli as part of a meal to DH. He went into the kitchen , & covered it in ketchup .
I said something (possibly WTF), & he admitted he didn't really like cauli unless it was au gratin.
We'd been together 19 years at the time, & he'd never said anything before.

It sounds like your DH is a traditional kind of chap @Georgyporky

DP will eat most things but then moan about it later but he likes more traditional food too. He wouldn't see soup as a main meal without having half a loaf of bread with it!

I made this red cabbage recipe earlier, more to use up an enormous red cabbage from the veg box than anything else, but it was quite tasty. I substituted balsamic vinegar for cider vinegar and needed more water than it stated (maybe because the cabbage was huge!) but worth doing and reasonably easy, once the cabbage is finally shredded...

DH will actually eat most things - including some offal that a lot of people won't touch.
But he lacks a sense of adventure.
I ordered lambs' brains in Rome; they were a regular item when I was a child, & I used to cook them regularly, but I can no longer buy them here. He wouldn't even try them.
There were chicken feet on a buffet in China, again I ate them but he wouldn't try them.

Georgy I'm with your Dh on this one, I'd be so disappointed if my pie didn't have pastry. My Dh on the other hand would see it as an improvement
I used to eat liver and kidney as a kid, but then became super squeamish (couldn't stand to even look at offal squeamish) and I've not had anything like that since. Years ago I did have to woman up and get used to handling organs for work (preping dissection materials) but I think I'd still draw the line at eating them.
Nothing exciting food wise here at the moment. My dishwasher is playing up though, which I regard as approximately equivalent to the end of the world. Ordered some special cleaning stuff which will hopefully unblock it. I tried bicarb and vinegar but that did nothing.
Clara I'm contemplating signing up for veg boxes in the new year. Red cabbage is exactly the sort of thing I would eat but would never choose to buy.

GG, have you tried ordinary household soda crystals?
It's an old-fashioned remedy, but I use it regularly in DW, WM, & all waste outlets.

I was looking for something in my cupboards today, & realised I had 10 varieties of pasta! And rice & soba noodles.
I'm not a panic buyer or a hoarder as such, but I've brought back interesting ones from Italy (6 visits in 2018-2020), & Aldi often have specials.

Georgy I don't actually have any regular soda crystals. Besides drains what do you use them for?

Today I made a potato and pastrami tart, another Nordic Bakery recipe. I wasn't impressed. The filling is covered in a creme fraish/horseradish mix, which tasted fine but didn't set at all, so it was more like a warm potato salad in pastry. Still got half of it to eat, maybe it'll be better cold.

Happy new year everyone!
For dinner tonight the kids are having mild curry out of the freezer, and I've made a hot tandoori chicken for me and DH. Hopefully I've not made it too hot, I'm way out of practice with chilli...

We've got satay chicken with fried rice, leftover from last night, but it was rejected by the toddler yesterday so not expecting her to eat much!
I love red cabbage! Not yet got one in my veg box, I just keep getting Savoy which I don't love!

GG I do a very hot wash with soda in the machines - without clothes or dishes - about once a month. I was told to do this by a WM/DW repairman years ago & it seems to work. He also said that it was better than Calgon, and cheaper. DM & DGM used to use soda for all sorts of cleaning.

Happier New Year to everyone - I don't want another one like 2020 !

I'm doing sweet & sour pork tonight. A Hairy Bikers recipe that I love, & no batter.

Sodium hydroxide based cleaner seems to have worked! I think, obviously a bit early days. I'll give monthly soda washes a go, hopefully stop this happening again.

Btw, curry was nice but very jealous of satay chicken and sweet and sour pork, both sound awesome

I added a random dressing made with sesame oil, honey, white wine vinegar and peanut butter which tempted the toddler to eat half her plate, so that was a win!

Sweet and sour is one of my favourites but I make it out of my head... not sure how close to the original recipe it is anymore. Might look up the hairy bikers version for variety!

I've got 3 different versions of HB s&s pork.
2 use tomato ketchup, but the version I prefer proudly boasts that there's no ketchup in sight !
I've noticed this with other cooks with multiple books.

Lazy night tonight, I've got a "campfire stew" out of the freezer, so just a carb & something green to cook.
I wasn't very impressed with the stew, won't be making it again but can't bear to throw it away.

We had pot roast beef tonight, which was delicious. When it come to beef joints I alternate cooking them medium for Dh, and well done for me. At the moment the kids are sliding with me, be interesting to see how that pans out eventually.
Georgy I keep looking at a portion of fish curry in the freezer which I don't really want to eat, but can't quite throw away either. I expect we'll eat it eventually.

The second worst meal I've ever made was a fish curry ! Pre-freezer, so just one meal for 3 got thrown away.

Worst meal was gammon in coke; even slicing off the outside of the joint didn't remove the taste. I don't know what on earth possesed me to try it - I don't drink coke.

Oh goodness I can't remember the worst I've ever made. There have been a few disasters but I have sucessfully repressed them. Fish curry probably makes the top 5 though.

Meanwhile I'm thinking of getting a bigger slow cooker. At the moment I have a 2-3 person size (it feeds 2 adults 2 small kids no problem). I'd like to get one big enough to batch cook in though, and I have no idea how many litres I need.
Recommendations (with brands) please!

Tonight we had chicken arrabiata stew with Parmesan dumplings from BBC GoodFood magazine. It was delicious and I will definitely make it againThe photo is the one from the magazine, but it did look just like that!

My ridiculously picky children wouldn't try it, so they had homemade chicken dippers (a household favourite from the Pinch of Nom book).

@SilverOtter that sounds lovely. I've made a bbc good food pesto chicken stew with dumplings before, only didn't manage to make the dumplings. I'm now wondering what other pasta dishes might work as stews...

I remember a convo with late DM about dumplings.
I said I never cooked them, & she said I was being cruel to DH - it was a joke!
I said I didn't like white, doughy, tasteless lumps whose sole purpose was to fill you up so you'd eat less meat - an even worse filler than Yorkies.
She did not realise it was a slur on her cooking.
I did try once, & added horseradish to the mixture for a beef dish, but they're just not for me.