Anyone tried the new Delia book?

[bext]

Is it worth buying?

do you scoop the middle out of put the whole potato in a ricer, Aitch?

Another approach to a halfway house would be to use ready-meals but do proper fresh veg with them.

i just cut the potato in half and put it in with the cut side to the holes. it just leaves the skin behind.

kewcumber - def not up for cooking twice. The potato was sloppy as it defrosted when cooking in the over. Hubby not impressed either with his processed dinner. He told me that he liked his dinner freshly prepared every night. I just looked at him with my unwashed hair, milk sick down one shoulder and could have punched him!

pmsl edinbrughmummy - get him a freshly cooked macdonalds tonight.

kew you surely coudlnt have ready meals every night

your kidneys would pack in with all that salt

i ahve a dead easy sausage recipe - cooked sausagges (you could cook then freeze for even quicker times), tin of toms, tin of mixed beans, tom puree and some herbs. heat up and hey presto

serve with rice

yes he def deserves that. He asked me if we could have a starter with our evening meal too as his mother always makes one! I told him to move back in with her! Yesterday was a bad day for being appreciated.

at the moment naily - you know I really feel I could and sod my kidneys

Actually I'm not normally too bad - make big pot of bolognese sauce then eat it all week with angel hair pasta - dull but worthy. For some reason this dull but worthy routine has gone to pot. Think I just need to find something diffferetn I can cook once a week then eat for the rest of the week...

when I was young starter = small glass of orange juice. try him on that!

Am more than a littel shocked with your DH

oh kew

id invite you round for tea but its a bit far i suspect...

i really recommendthe chicken curries and spiced mushrooms in the slater book, kew.

oh yes please naily - or maybe you could come and be my cook. I have a spare room. No money but a spare room so you'd be doing it for love...

mushrooms are only good to be chopped up very small and hidden in things - don;t try to poison me with your stories of spicy mushrooms.

weirdo

oh no they've brainwashed you too. Large slimey lumps of slug textured things are not intended to be eaten wihtout disguise or very small.

Kew, my mum has lived on her own for years - I completely understand your point about veg, cream etc going off before you've used it up.

My mum sometimes has a big cooking session a couple of times a week and freezes most of it. I'll get back to you with the sort of things she does after school (do you like spicy food btw?)

oh yes no problem with spicy food just mushrooms (bleuuch) and shellfish (bleuuch)

kew my mum lives on her own too - she uses her slow cooker quite a lot. and freezes stuff in batches.

Interesting to hear from some of you who have actually tried some recipes. I am so not going to buy that book.
Surely a cook is some one who loves cooking, not some one who buys lots of pre packaged foods and puts them together.
As I said in an earlier thread about this, either buy ready meals or cook from scratch. Both can be quick if you pick the right recipes, but one of them is invariably cheaper and healthier.

kew you clearly are cooking ushrooms wrong, they don't have to be slimy and sluggy

when raw they are just about acceptable - when cooked there is obviously a nano-second when the optimum mushroomy-ness is reached - before that = raw, after that = slimy slug

Right, you need to buy things like pesto sauce or curry paste which last for ages in the fridge.

Also things like 'Straight to Wok' noodles which come in one-person size packs and will take literally 5 minutes to stir-fry with some strips of chicken breast, (or pork or beef steak) plus a couple of bits of veg.

New pots are really quick to cook and last for ages; you could have these with baked salmon and frozen peas. Or a grilled chop.

Plain pizza base, add your own toppings.

Ready-roasted chicken portion with salad (in fact substantial salads are good full stop)

kewcumber - In relation to your Q re working mothers and mashed potato, could you pop a potato in the oven when you get in from work? Then maybe it would be ready for you to eat by the time you feed/bath/bed your wee one? I love baked potatoes done in the oven yum.