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...)

@GlumyGloomer Jamie Oliver loves using loads of olive oil, butter, salt etc in his recipes - I think well of course they're going to be delicious, but also about a million calories

No exciting cooking here today, but I'm counting down the minutes days till the DC return to school and I can do some proper meal planning and food shopping, not to mention a fridge and freezer audit...

Pilchards and banana? not envy.

Well we have eaten meatballs all week and I am sick to death of them! Think I'll go for a quiche tomorrow. Although I also need to make some inroads into the veg box, but the contents are the same most weeks and I am uninspired. Carrot, parsnip, tatties, neeps, beetroot, kale. Any inspiration? These boxes are not toddler friendly!

Today we made crispy cakes, but the krispies had gone a bit soft... should perhaps just throw the rest out now. The cakes are edible obviously given they are mostly chocolate!

Imicola I make a parsnip and chickpea curry which is nice.

There's also a good food root veg and lentil curry that would use a lot of what you have (it's only gently spiced)

I like my kale fried in a wok with garlic as a side for something

Today I made a quiche... used bought pastry, which was not as good as home made obviously, but I thought it wouldn't make too much difference. It was mediocre. Had onions, peppers and mushroom plus feta. Made coleslaw and Swede chips to go with it. Coleslaw was fine, but the chips had a very bitter after taste. All in all, not a fantastic meal, but I did use up half a turnip. Toddler wasn't keen at all, which is unfortunate as its a huge quiche and DH is away.

@Imicola I think I would make a carrot cake and maybe chocolate beetroot brownies to get some sweetness out of the box, but then I do like cake turnips I'm not massively keen on and parsnips seem like such a faff to get them halfway edible...

I made this for lunch:
rasamalaysia.com/fried-rice-vermicelli/
To use up my vermicelli. It was simple to do and I'm pretty happy with the result. I didn't have any spring onions, and ended up just serving it with a pack of steam fresh, but in terms of noodle texture it's one of the better stir frys I've done.

GG, I followed that link, but almost gave up !

Posted too soon.

You're obviously more patient than me.
It took forever to page through to get to the recipe, but it does look good.

Haha @Georgyporky I'm always moaning to DH about all the faff that comes before the recipes! Agree though, that looks nice! I love noodles. In fact I had udon noodles tonight with sweet and sour veg.

Well, the cheese and pickle tart was...interesting. the flavour was nice, but it came out rather dry and less nice than a proper quiche. The family were not impressed. Oh well, win some, lose some.

How disappointing @GlumyGloomer! I made a tagine the other day from a Spicery pack. It was quite pleasant but on the bland side

Made school dinner cake with the DC today. It was a big hit, although I suspect anything with icing and sprinkles would be!

It was actually much nicer chilled. I've quite enjoyed it today. Still on my own on that one though, lol.
My kids would love that cake too Clara

I'm making this tonight :-
thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/ottolenghis-orzo-with-prawns-tomato-and-marinated-feta

Don't know why I bothered to buy the book "Simple" when so many recipes are available online.

It's a favourite, but...
Maybe it's me, but I don't think cheese goes with anything that comes from the sea - so feta is left out.
Fresh toms & chillies in the fridge that need using rather than tinned/dried, & I've got stock made from prawn heads & shells.
Not quite YO !

@Georgyporky interesting. I never know what to use orzo for! I've had some in the cupboard for ages.

Tonight we had lentil and prawn curry. Made it last night and just added prawns tonight. Looks like the photo but with little cold water prawns rather than big ones! I thought it was quite good. Used less water than the recipe (the magazine version says 1 litre!), iused half a litre which was plenty. Toddler also seemed relatively happy with it. I thought it might be good with paneer rather than prawns. I'd make it again.
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/one-pot-prawn-lentil-curry

I love risotto, but using orzo means you don't have to stir it constantly.
It's also useful for thickening soups.
I've seen quite a few complaints about that magazine website, I prefer the BBC itself.
But I like the look of that recipe, so I've printed it out.
BTW, the printed version quotes 600ml of water !

BBC good food recipes used to be fail safe but they do seem to be a bit more inconsistent now unfortunately. I like to get the magazine, but I might switch to delicious instead. Yeah I noticed the website had edited it after comments saying it was too much water! Glad i used my common sense as a litre seemed a ridiculous amount to add.

As part of my grand cupboard declutter I made this today to use up the pearl barley:
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/warm-pearl-barley-roasted-carrot-salad-dill-vinaigrette
I wasn't completely sold on the fennel, but other than that it was quite nice. Much more of a side than a main though, even for lunch.
I have 3 and a half bags of red lentils! Imicola I shall be trying that recipe soon, with paneer as I don't like prawns much.

I keep finding things in my cupboards that I don't remember buying.
Last night I used a "Thai red curry kit" with some chicken; it wasn't awful, but I wouldn't buy it again.
I think it was probably another of my attempts to get DH to increase his repertoire.

I was going to ask DH to help me clear out & re-organize the cupboards (he can reach the back of the top shelves), but he's OTT about BBE & use-by dates & would throw away perfectly good food.
I wonder what I'll find?

Georgy I was absolutely shocked at the amount of dried fruit and nuts I have. Also loads of stuff for bread making which I've not had time to do in an age. Hopefully soon.

We have loads of flour @GlumyGloomer DP goes through phases of "we should make our own bread, it'd be healthy and we can put what we like in it" and "bread is evil! Carbs are evil! We shouldn't eat bread AT ALL!"

When the DC are back at school I'll go through all our stores properly and reorganise everything. Who knows what delights I'll find?!

Yesterday I made these mincemeat shortbread squares which came out really well and were pretty easy to make. Wanted to use up a jar of mincemeat which was about to pass its best. Never got round to making mincemeat pies at Christmas time! It's another of those annoying ones where you need to scroll through all the chit chat to find the actual recipe!
www.anniesnoms.com/2020/12/17/mincemeat-shortbread-bars/

I feel like I missed a trick in not having any leftover mincemeat.

To use up some elderly cereal (wholegrain hoops the kids weren't sold on) I made cereal cookies. It was the first time out for my brand new cup measuring set. Dd1 much preferred them to the scales. I think botched my Fahrenheit conversation though, as at 13 minutes they were a bit over done. Otherwise quite nice, although in no way a substitute for breakfast as the blurb suggests. Lots of waffle pre recipe as usual.
www.theworktop.com/breakfast-brunch-recipes/breakfast-cereal-cookies/

Savory semolina today. It was fine, like a mildly spiced congealed mash. The kids hated it so that's never getting made again. Anyway, semolina used up.

GG, I think I last had semolina at school dinners in the last century !
It was served with a blob of very watery red jam.

Pearl barley & semolina gone, what's next?

Must admit, I use pearl barley. I mentioned upthread that I sometimes use orzo instead of rice for risotto, but I also use pb if the ingredients can take long cooking.

@Georgyporky another school dinner semolina eater here!! That and rice pudding with suspiciously bright jam (which was the only bit of the pudding which actually tasted of anything...!)

I used up a bit of semolina making roast potatoes @GlumyGloomer, it was supposed to give them extra crunch. To my mind it made zero difference but saved on extra calories roasting in oil, I suppose.

Made Jamie Oliver Thai curry traybake last night for DP's dinner (and lunch today) but used green curry paste instead of red, and chucked in a bit of beetroot too. Oh, and I didn't faff around scooping out cucumbers, sorry Jamie but DP said it was tasty anyway.

Aubergine parmagiana for me as I continue my quest to lose some lb's. It was, er, filling if not particularly tasty, but then I'm not a massive fan of aubergines and it was a veg box leftover to use up!