Layered Salad with Roast Quail

Where's the fog horn button??? Because this recipe is a joke. A bad joke. I can make a better salad in my sleep. Sorry Nigella I do apologize and I do love you still...but this one's shit. Okay so I couldn't find the pomegranate but I don't think a few pomegranate seeds are going to raise this salad from the depths. Disappointment doesn't even begin to cover it. This salad was blah.

I wasn't going to go out an buy a wee quail for Husband to massacre. So I roasted him up some drumsticks in stead. Husband loved the chicken...but honestly, he dumped so much bbq sauce on the chicken that I'm not sure that Nigella's dressing had anything to do with that.

Don't waste your time on this one folks.

Rib-Sticking Stir-Fry

Well, I'm havin' a pretty decent day. Things seem to be coming up Milhouse. I went and got a hair cut which is always nice. Relaxing. Then I picked up a pretty cool new sweater at my favourite shop with a gift card I had. Score. All day there have been James Bond films on TV - I'm obsessed with James Bond. Sweet! And then I find out that one of my besties is coming to my town for the week! See, comin' up Milhouse!
So to cap off my good day I thought I'd make some stir fry. I used tofu instead of chicken to make this and I wasn't really sure what to do about the Chinese Cooking Wine. I googled what I could use as a substitute. Someone suggested apple juice. No effing way was that gonna happen. I hate apple juice. I've been traumatized against apple juice. When I was about 5 years old I was in the kitchen with my mom and my sister. My sister reached up on the counter to have some of the glass of yummy and delicious apple juice my mom had left on the counter. Only when she took a gulp my sister's face contorted into a picture of absolute agony. And there was a film on the glass. My sister had just taken a nice big gulp of vegetable oil!!!!! Ever since this day neither my sister or myself like to drink apple juice. If I do have apple juice I have to psych myself up for it. It's crazy. Serious trauma.

So definitely not happening with the apple juice. I decided in the end to go with sake. So I fried the tofu in sesame oil and added the vegetables. Then you add some soy sauce and, for me, sake. Cook it up and add your beans and, voila, dinner is served. I wasn't too pumped about this based on the look. It seemed a little to "rustic" if you know what I mean. So I wasn't expecting much. When I tried it though, I was pleasantly surprised. It's actually pretty good. This dinner is perfect for those nights you have no groceries - because there's very little to making this. Or the nights you don't feel like cooking - the effort is almost zero. All in all this recipe isn't Nigella's best, but it's a good meal for when you're in a pinch.

Lamb Cutlets with Chilli and Black Olives

Plegh! I can't eat lamb. I don't eat anything but fish anymore of course meat wise, but lamb has never been on the menu for me. I mean who can eat a sweet little lamby? If your name is Lucifer or Tim you may like this recipe though. I made this for Husband for dinner tonight. He said it's good but he's not really a lamb person so he wouldn't really want it again. This is was easy to make and that's the only points I'll award this recipe. Because frankly this dish looked pretty effing gross to me. ZERO appeal. Maybe the picture looks good to you??? But to me it looks pretty nasty.

Anyhow, if you want to try this you marinate the lamb in garlic, chillies, oregano, lemon zest and juice and olives. Then you fry them up in the marinade and serve. Sure there's a few more steps involved but that's the gist of it. See pretty simple. I'm only going to recommend this to you if you're a big fan of the lamb otherwise don't waste your time...and save a sweet little lamby.

Butterscotch Fruit Fondue

I have to tell you that I was truly disgusted by the photo of this recipe. I'm not much of a fan of butterscotch and the idea of dipping fruit in butterscotch seemed repulsive to me. But I decided that I'd have to make this eventually so I thought now was as good a time as any. I really wasn't too hungry for dinner so I skipped right to dessert. I made a half portion of this based on how much of the ingredients I had. Also I decided that I would use agave nectar in the place of golden syrup. The idea of that much processed sugar was just too much for me to bear. I had to add a natural factor which is why I went with agave.

It's really simple to make just bring your sugars and butter to a boil and let boil for 5 minutes. Then remove from heat and add - you guessed it - double cream and vanilla, then let cool. As you can see I served this with strawberry and banana. I was blown away by how much I liked this. Truly, truly delicious. If you have kids this is the PERFECT dessert to make them for a special occasion or to fun up a regular day. The banana was terrific with the sweet fondue and what would really be fantastic is granny smith apple! The strawberry was yummy too but ohhh the banana. I have tons left over (from a half recipe!) which is even now resting in my fridge awaiting further indulgence. I'd say this will keep in your fridge a few days to give you a sinful snack that you don't have to feel too guilty about given the fruit factor.

Mortadella Tempeh Pasta Salad

So I really wanted to try this recipe but I was urked that this recipe had pork in it. I didn't know what to do about this and then it hit me the other day. TEMPEH! Why didn't I think of it before??? I love tempeh so I really can't believe it took me so long to think of it. Overall this recipe is pretty darn easy to make. Pasta salads generally are. This one's not much different than any other pasta salad and I wouldn't say that it's anything to right home about. But if you're looking for a different pasta salad you may want to try this one. It's nice and light but not a home run. The dressing is a lemony mustard but not really a strong flavour. I think I did want the dressing to have more of a kick to it but it didn't deliver for me. Perhaps if you like a more mild flavour you'll enjoy this.

Lentil and Walnut Salad

Pay attention!!! I have a new alternative protein dish for you. Lentil and Walnut salad is delicious! You will have this made in about 5 minutes and then you have a great dish to

A) take in your lunches

B) serve at a party for veggie/vegan option

C) take yourself out the "protein box" if you will.

Can you work and can opener? Can you? Because if you said yes than you can make this recipe. Seriously, open a can, chop some chives, do a little measuring, give a stir and there you have it. A fantastic dish that literally anyone can make. Yes even you who has a hard time boiling water. I strongly recommend this recipe. I will be adding this to my regulars.

Noodle Soup for Needy People

Well, I have PMS today so that definitely makes me a needy person. And it really makes Husband a needy person, putting up with my mood swings and what not. You know the ones I mean. Men out there, as bad as it is for you it's worse for the woman, trust me. Sometimes you say something all mean and snappish and you immediately think in your head "Oh that was mean. That's the PMS talking - not me." But you don't apologize because the PMS is in you like a beast and if you keep talking you're only poking more at the beast and God knows what will come out of you mouth next. You'll mean to apologize but end up telling your Husband he's got terrible taste and why can't he do things faster or more correctly? So silence is best I find. And yes I do encourage people to steer clear of me when I'm moody. Sometimes I don't even want to be around myself.

So given this is my state of mind today, Husband and I surely qualify as needy. The one good thing is that Spike is having a Star Wars marathon today so that is soothing to me. I made Husband and I this to slurp on while we watch the original Star Wars. It took me only about 10 minutes to make, so I had little time to get frustrated. I found out while I was making this that I didn't have enough sugar snap peas but honestly I found my portion to be quite enough. I used about half the amount. Also, shockingly my Metro didn't have shitake mushrooms. I thought about getting oyster mushrooms instead but then I chinced out and just used the regular old button mushrooms I had in the fridge at home. Were I to make this again, I would use the oyster mushrooms if I couldn't find shitake. Not that the buttons weren't good they just didn't add to the Asian feel of the soup. I would compare this soup to a Japanese Udon Soup (given the udon noodle that's a little stating the obvious). I love udon soup so this really hit the spot for me. Husband enjoyed this as much as I did. The title certainly fits the dish. If you're feeling needy a bowl of this may just well be your cure.

Caribbean Creams

This recipe has been tantalizing me for some time now. The picture in Nigella's book looks so yummy that I couldn't wait to try it. It is true that I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that this recipe too has double cream in it...though I'm not sure why I was surprised. I'm thinking about taking stock in double cream the way Nigella uses it. And I'm not exactly sure how I'm supposed to loose weight eating all this double cream. Anyhow, I did run into a touch of a problem at Metro with this one of course. But this time it was truly disappointing because normally my Metro does have coconut yogurt. But last night they were all sold out!!! Can you believe it? I couldn't. I just can't win with this grocery shopping thing. I didn't feel like driving to another grocery store so I decided to just go ahead and use the Greek Yogurt. So it wouldn't be as flavourful, but I would keep that in mind when reviewing the recipe I told myself. "Chances are it'll still be pretty good." thinking of that lovely photo beside the recipe. So this morning I made this recipe for after dinner dessert.

First off, I wasn't sure what dish to make this in because my ramekins are not glass and I thought this recipe needed to be seen, what with the layering and what not. After some hard thinking I decided the best thing I had to use were martini glasses. I lined the bottom of my glasses with banana, covered the bananas with the yogurt/cream/rum mixture. Here I'll tell you I used banana flavoured malibu rum (I thought the banana in the rum would help out the lack of coconut in the yogurt). Then you Sprinkle with brown sugar...I kept reading the instructions over again after this because my dessert looked NOTHING like Nigella's delicious looking photo. But after a few re-reads I found I hadn't missed anything and put my desserts in the fridge feeling let down.
Six hours later, I was a little hungry so I decided that I'd have my dessert as an appetizer to dinner. I took it out to the couch and dug in (Husband had the good sense not to question this behaviour). I have to tell you it was pretty damn good. And remembering that this was without the coconut yogurt I'm gonna say this dessert is damn fine. Mine still didn't hold a candle to Nigella's appearance wise but it sure did taste yummy. I wasn't too sweet and since my sweet tooth is baby tooth size this dessert is perfect for me. As a matter of fact about an hour after I'd had my caesar salad dinner I felt a little peckish again. So I ate Husband's pudding too! Caribbean Creams are light, yummy and when you are eating this you'll feel everything is Irie Mon! I really liked this dessert and I can't wait to try it with the coconut yogurt!

Crepes Suzette

This is my 100th post! And for my 100th post I wanted to make a really flashy recipe. What's more flashy than crepes suzette? I was nervous to make this because I was afraid of burning the house down. I thought about doing the flambe outside to make sure I didn't burn the house down..but then I thought that may be a bit too much. I decided that I could be a grown up and handle my shiz and do this in the house. So before dinner I prepped everything for this so that after dinner I could just make it happen. I asked husband if he would take a picture of the "flambe" which he agreed to do but not without trepidation. Basically he was afraid I'd burn his face off. I assured him I would neither burn him, myself or the house down....Though honestly I wasn't 100% sure about any of this. In Nigella's picture she has a massive flambe happening so this is what I was going for....It didn't happen so much for me...I used about 5 matches and I hadn't even gotten it lit. I did get some flame at one point where Husband snapped a blurry photo. But overall I felt let down about my serious lack of flames. But better too little than too many flames I guess. One thing I was not let down with though was the taste. Sooo orangey and sweet and boozey! I am a huge fan of 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s fashion and the whole history of pop culture in the first half of the 20th century. Crepes Suzette is the muscle car of desserts so for me it just has an aura of je ne sais quoi about it. But I am enchanted with this dessert. It's very retro chic and it's clear that there's a reason this recipe has stuck around to the next century!

Gammon Steaks with Parsley

Have I ever told you that my commuter train station is located directly beside a pig slaughter house? It is. And you can imagine the horrors that I endure from that. It's bad enough seeing the truck loads of pigs going into that place. And being at the stop light beside those pigs is even worse..I have the put my hand up like a horse blinder so I don't see. Have you ever made eye contact with a pig that's 2 minutes from the slaughter house? I have. It's awful. I could see the fear in the pigs eye. Terrified from being packed on that scary big rig truck and knowing they're going some place that something very bad will happen to them. Yech! Once I was looking at a poor little piggy and it was so scared it barfed right there. Ever since then I put up the hand blinder. What may be worse is seeing the empty trucks leaving because you know there's a fresh kill going on inside that awful building. But the absolute worst thing of all is the days that you can hear the pigs squealing!!!!! I almost vomit when this happens. The first time it happened I wasn't sure I was hearing what I thought I was hearing. I thought maybe it was my paranoia about this place that made my ears play tricks on me. But then it happened again and again and now I stand for the train as far from that house of horrors as possible. If I hear one more squeal I will barf all over the train platform. Honestly, to me this feels like I have to wait for a train everyday beside a fully functioning Auschwitz. I say that with 100% sincerity. Pork was the first meat I stopped eating in the past little while. Not because of taste but because of spending 10 minutes of my day beside Auschwitz 5 days a week.

Frankly, I have a really hard time coming home and even making anything pork for Husband because of this...and it's really too bad for him because he loves pork. I prefer my pigs on the farm as opposed to my plate though. But today I sucked it up for Nigella an this blog and cooked up a piece of what I'm sure was a Jewish slaughtered pig. Now I know that after my giant spiel maybe you're no longer in the mood for some swine but if even the images I just planted can't deter you from your love of the magical pig then this recipe is quick and easy. Husband really enjoyed it. This will take you about 7 minutes to make start to finish.

Because I'm being a terrible sales person for this I'm going to suggest to you some side dishes. I accompanied this with Marscapone and Truffle Infused Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans Sauteed in Butter and Garlic. The side dishes were amazing. They are not Nigella recipes - they are recipes I made up on the spot so you can't google those titles...well maybe you can but what ever comes up good luck with. I ate a veggie burger patty with my beans and mashed - I'll recommend that to you also. For those of you who have no soul or don't visit Swine Auschwitz daily try the Ham.

PS- Husband does wait for his train the same station I do..but like 98% of the people there he doesn't seem to be able to hear the pig squeals and when he sees a load of pigs pulling into Auschwitz he gets a sudden craving for bacon....Different strokes...

Nutella Pancakes

I love Nutella. It is so yummy. But I never have it. I associate Nutella with Germany and therefore don't think to buy it in Canada. You see, I did a student exchange to Germany when I was in high school and when I was there we ate Nutella all the effing time. What we did was we would dip granny smith apple into Nutella right outta the jar. If you haven't tried that - you'd best start now because you have seriously been missing out. Honestly.
But what's more decadent are these dessert pancakes. You could really knock the socks off your friends with this one. You can make these with shop bought crepes - but I decided just to make my own. Crepes are really quite simple to make. Then you spread them with Nutella and fold. Then cover with a butter and Fra Angelico concoction. But I didn't want to spend the money on another bottle of booze. So I opted to use Kahula. And this was a good substitution. Also, I couldn't find any hazelnuts (though admittedly I didn't look very hard) so I just went without. So bake in the oven for 10 minutes and while you're waiting you whip a little of the booze into some double cream (yes more double cream!!). I thought maybe this was a bit much but honestly the cream is such a compliment to the sweet, nutty, buttery crepes that I say don't go without it.

This dessert is so easy and so delicious. I urge you to try this. Let's face it crepes are not an everyday kinda treat. If you serve these to your guests or even your significant other you'll make them feel special and loved. And isn't that how we want to make the people we prepare food for feel?

Oeufs en Cocotte

With Husband being gone for the weekend that means I have to sleep by myself. Which means there's a chance I'm never going to sleep. I never thought there would be a day when I wouldn't be able to sleep in my own bed by myself because I used to LOVE sleeping by myself. I used to look over at Husband in the bed and think about all the valuable space he was taking up. Then I realized the best part about having someone beside you is you now have someone to take a bullet for you. Someone to be horribly murdered in bed while you get away. I've now got a 50/50 chance to get away if ever a serial killer enters the home. When Husband isn't home all I do is lay in bed and think what I'll do if a rapist-robber decides to strike that night. See normally, with him there, the plan is hide behind him or send him out into the trenches to battle the bad guy while I call 911 and either hide or escape to safety. I've never actually gone over this plan with him but I'm sure he's game for this approach. So what I have to do when he's not home to defend me is make myself incredibly tired so that I immediately fall asleep. As opposed to laying there for 6 hours becoming more paranoid with every minute. Oh, and I have to make sure I don't watch any CSI.

Last night was a particular challenge as there have been a couple of break-ins in my neighbourhood lately. We're all on a neighbourhood watch here currently. However I did manage to sufficiently tire myself last night and had little trouble making Zs. This morning I woke up feeling very proud of myself for not sitting up all night in a state of paranoia and deserving of a fabulous breakfast.

I'd planned that I would make this for breakfast today but I wasn't sure if I would like it or not. For one thing there's double cream in it and I feel like I've O.D'd on double cream lately.

(Ever since the margarita ice cream disaster) Secondly the eggs look a little runny in her photo and I don't like runny eggs. But I was really curious about this and I thought the addition of white truffle oil could only mean good things. So after giving myself a few minutes to wake up I started on the recipe.

It takes about 3 minutes to put it all together and then you bake in a water bath for 15 minutes. I still wasn't sure when I took these out of the oven. But then I took my first bite and oh. my. God. Flavour heaven. Maybe I should tell you that I used free range eggs because a) they're less cruel and b) they taste better. Don't chince of the quality of the egg you use for this. Nigella even specifies organic eggs. But seriously if you serve this to someone for your next brunch when they will look at you, you will have an aura of stars. You will become the God or Godess of breakfast. I don't know how to describe the flavour but it's nothing short of decadent. The white truffle oil adds layers of taste and dimensions of flavour. This is by no means a cheap breakfast but it is worth every penny you spend on it.

Jumbleberry Crumble

Husband is out of town this weekend. This means I can eat whatever I want for dinner. Tonight I had chips and dip. That's right I had chips and dip for dinner. I'm shameless. But I was a little hungry still so I thought 'hmm maybe I need some dessert'. That's when I decided to make this. I figured when you have chips and dip for dinner you should have fruit for dessert. It's crazy easy to make and it actually pretty tasty. Mine was a bit too runny - I think I should have added more cornflour. I used agave nectar instead of sugar and I should have accounted for the extra liquid when portioning the cornflour...I'll know for next time I guess. Sorry maybe I should clarify in regards to the sugar..because you use sugar twice. First you use raw sugar (Nigella calls this Demerara sugar) to make the crumble topping. Then when you put the berries in the ramekin you toss them in cornflour and sugar - this is where I used the agave. And where I should have used more cornflour though. But no matter it still tasted delish.

Make this if you want a real comfort dessert. Almost like a pie but much less work!

Festive Fusilli

Have you ever felt a little guilty for loving mac and cheese so much? For sure Kraft dinner is a gift from the God for the poor. But maybe once your over 25 you start to think...wow! Should I really still be loving this shit? Aren't I a bit old to be eating this ghetto food for kids? If you've ever even for a moment had that thought then this recipe is your way of classing up your mac and cheese. How does mac and cheese get better maybe you're thinking...I'll tell you - Vodka. Doesn't vodka make everything better?

So this is how you make this. Make some moonblush tomatoes chop 'em up then soak them in vodka, a touch of sugar (I used agave) and a wee bit of salt. Then you cook your pasta, drain and and melt in mascarpone (just like mac and cheese) then you toss in your tomatoes and add some parsley and boom! you've got yourself some classy mac and cheese. It's like changing to champagne after spending years drinking 5 dollar bottles of wine.

I totally recommend this and it definitely has a christmas vibe to it's presentation so this would be perfect to take to a christmas time potluck. It's also super easy to make so full point all around. Treat yourself to this for sure!

Grilled Venison with Pink Gin Apple Sauce and Roast Pencil Leeks

Venison...I know I told you before that beef is my arch nemesis of meats but I'm modifying that statement. Beef is my arch enemy of the typical daily non-game meats. Venison is my ultimate nemesis. I can't even remember ever having eaten a piece of venison but there is a chance my parents fed this to me when I was a kid telling me it was beef. But I can say I have never knowingly eaten venison. Let me put it in a Star Wars context for you...just because I like Star Wars...If I were Princess Leia, then beef would be Jaba the Hut and Venison would be Darth Vader. So maybe you think 'How can you hate venison so much if you've never even tried it?'. And you've got a point...but when the mere thought of putting that food in your mouth causes you to have an instant stomach cramp and you know you would just be chewing and gagging, chewing and gagging - like those people eating testicles and intestines on survivor - you really don't even want to put it in your mouth because you know you won't be able to swallow it. So venison works on me like Lord Vader with that no-name henchmen. Without even touching me I am crushed and killed.
However, Husband is perfectly happy to dine on Bambi. So I was lucky to get a small piece of venison from my sister to make this one just for hubby. I started with marinating the meat. I let the meat defrost overnight and then marinated it all day. Next I started on the leeks. I wasn't able to get pencil leeks so I just rolled with the regular leeks. Once I had the leeks prepped for the oven I then pre-heated the oven and started on the apple gin sauce. Once I got this to the point where you just cover it an let it cook I put the leeks in the oven. After 20 minutes my leeks were done and the apples were ready for the sieve. I left the leeks in the turned off oven to keep warm and covered the sauce to keep it warm. Then I put the venison in my scorching pan and tried to cook to medium well (but I'm not good at that...). Once I had some good grill marks I plated the dish and called Husband to dinner. Husband liked this meal but he said it wasn't amazing. He gives this a solid 7 out of 10. So not too shabby.

I had a plate of the leeks and I put some of the apple gin sauce on the leeks. They were pretty decent. Out of all 3 parts of this meal the Pink Gin Apple Sauce is the best. I liked it so much I drank a couple spoon fulls on it's own..then I realized that was a little gross and pathetic so I stopped. But pathetic or not it was good!

All in all if you're making some venison (for god knows what reason) I think you may want to try the gin sauce. The leeks I'd pass on, unless you have an affinity for leeks of course.

Margarita Ice Cream

I love Tequila...I mean LOVE tequila. So I was very excited about the possibilities of this being my new favourite dessert. I was terribly let down though. First off this is expensive to make. I don't know what you pay for double cream in the UK but in Canada it's 7 dollars for about 1 cup. You're supposed to have nearly 4 cups for this so I made about a half recipe of this.

What you do is you mix lime juice, tequila (yay!), triple sec, and icing sugar with your double cream. Then you freeze it. Then you wait.

Now while you're waiting you might consider exercising for the entire 6 hours because double cream is one step away from being pure lard. Speaking of which I'll take this time to tell you the tale of when my uncle thought he'd play a trick on my grandpa. My grandpa used to like to eat vanilla ice cream and one day gramps says to my uncle "go get me a bowl of ice cream son" and my practical jokster uncle gets himself a bright idea and takes out to my grandpa a bowl of lard. But it looks like ice cream because he scooped it out with the ice cream scoop. What's crazy is my grandpa ate the whole damn bowl and never knew that it wasn't ice cream!!! True story.

What's more disturbing is that this is how this ice cream made me feel when I was eating it.

This recipe was just too much for me. It's so rich and fatty. I could feel my colon swelling shut as I was eating it. I couldn't eat my 2 scoops I'd portioned out. I ate one and then dumped the other. If you do feel the need to make this. I think the only way this would be tolerable to your intestines is if you served just one tiny scoop of this on a brownie or something. I'm not going to recommend this to you..but i wouldn't deter you from it either. If you're interested give it a shot but I recommend very small portions for this.