I don't really make New Year's Resolutions, but I have decided this year to try out some of the hundreds of recipes I've got lurking around the place on odd bits of paper. I have nice, organized files for my recipes, but they all end up looking like this
Every time I pick one up to use it, a pile of loose papers falls out of the back. The rule is that a recipe can only go into a display pocket once I have tried it and know that a) it works, b) we like the food!
So, let the experiments begin! First on my list was a pumpkin and chick pea curry recipe by Nigel Slater that I must have snipped out of an Observer Food Monthly several years ago. I couldn't follow the recipe exactly, fresh lemongrass being an impossibility in this remote corner of Aude, but I put in all the other ingredients and the result was...
...absolutely delicious!
Having attacked a large pumpkin for the curry, a couple of days later I had a bash at a BBC Good Food recipe I had downloaded for pumpkin lasagne.
Sadly, despite the glorious colour, this turned out to be an exercise in bland. Despite the presence of paprika and nutmeg, it had no flavour at all. It didn't even taste of pumpkin!
Time for something sweet, so I reached for a "honey and lemon flapjacks" recipe I had printed from a random honey recipes site several years ago when I was looking for something else. My favourite recipe for flapjacks uses honey as well (rather than the more usual Golden Syrup), but I'm always willing to review my favourites if I find a yummier one!
Sadly this wasn't it! The big lesson was that, while many things work beautifully in flapjacks (dark chocolate chips, glace cherries, stem ginger, sultanas, dried apricots......), the addition of lemon just makes them taste weirdly medicinal!
On the basis of "jamais deux sans trois", I didn't hold out much hope for my third "new" recipe, a Jill Dupleix offering photocopied from a Waitrose Food magazine (oh, how I miss those!) a few years ago - Spicy baked eggs with spinach and yogurt.
How right I was! If you're going to cook spinach with eggs, in my book you need to go Fiorentina and add a cheese sauce, a generous sprinkling of parmesan, and a warm ciabatta.
So, that's one recipe in the file and three in the recycling bin. Ho, hum!
As a recompense for being my culinary guinea pig, I've promised Kevin steak and chips for his lunch tomorrow!
5 comments:
I have files that look exactly like that!
At least you managed to get one good one out of the four. Do you manage to get Kevin to eat them if they aren't up to scratch? I do new recipes and sometimes Ian doesn't like them enough to even eat them once and he gets takeaway!
Well, they all look gorgeous :-)
Ah, well, looks aren't everything!!
Kevin is a very good taster. He'll always taste whatever new thing I make. He ate all of his portion of the pumpkin lasagne and one of the flapjacks. He ate the eggy bits of the egg dish, but Athos got the spinach. I don't ask him to try things that feature ingredients I know he doesn't like and as we're about 600 miles away from a decent takeaway, his only backup is a big bag of crisps!!
I'm glad to know that at leat the curry was (and looked) delicious! I would happily taste any of your recipes - you seem like such a great cook...
Aw, thanks!
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