No Nigella

Short post this time.
Just an update on the epic recipe book challenge.
This has been going quite slowly to be honest, but I am still plugging away. Here's a book to tick off: Nigella Express.

A while ago I fancied making donuts. I have done them in the past, and it is a bit of a faff really. A tasty faff, but a faff really.
I was looking through Nigella Express and came across the Donut French Toast recipe so I thought is was worth a go.
There was still a small level of faff, but nothing I couldn't get over and they were relatively successful. Until then i had never tried french toast, so this introduction was quite a good one. The only slight issue for me was that they were no donuts. Maybe one of our many other recipe books has a faff-free donut recipe...

One thing is for sure though. Mine were far less sophisticated or pretty as the illustration in the book, thus proving one thing: I am no Nigella.

Refined and sophisticated? Tasty though!

Recipe Books

This weekend saw the proper start towards the epic goal of cooking something from every recipe book we own.
I have started to plan this out, by reading through various books and noting down what I fancy doing. Either because the recipe is simple, or because its a dish I like but never cooked, something I think is do-able, something ambitious I fancy trying or because it was the first recipe to catch my eye when I first opened the book.
We have several Jamie Oliver books, but never actually cooked from them all. So this first recipe was from The Naked Chef book which I assume to be one of his first.

I halved the recipe as I was only cooking for the 2 of us and it said that it serves 4-6, and given the amount of lamb the recipe said, it looked like there would be plenty of left overs even with half the recipe. But an important thing to remember: When halving a recipe, halve everything. Yes, there was a mishap. It could have been worse though. It only involved the amount of salt used to salt the aubergines. (Whatever that actually, really achieves - I know the theory, but does it honestly make a difference?!) The overall dish was on the salty side, but it didn't ruin it - far from it, but it did perhaps contribute to a thirst in the middle of the night!

I won't copy out the recipe here, just note that it was lovely, and that I have copied the recipe out elsewhere...

This also links to something else on the list. To get back writing the food blog we started years ago, before the little person was born - and we actually had more time to cook things, and eat out more often than we do now. So double ticks!

This blog won't now become a duplicate food blog. I will not be chatting about each recipe we try on the recipe book mission, but I might note down the disasters, any interesting finds, and interesting books (Cooking With Men In Mind anyone? Yes I really do have this book - for its novelty value actually - honest). But thought I'd kick-start the recipe book with this entry as it was particularly tasty, warming and just what was required last night for tea while it is a bit snowy out there.

Mmmm!