Wrapping Up How to Eat, and Up Next

 Nigella Lawson's How to Eat perfectly demonstrates why I shouldn't allow the design of a cookbook to factor into my expectations of the book's quality. I do maintain that this book is not laid out in a user-friendly fashion, and there is way too much chit-chat for my taste. I don't mind intros to recipes, and I don't mind essay-type writing at the start of chapters, but this book has big chunks of chatter in between the recipes. It's distracting, and hard to find what you're looking for. There are recipes, like the Exceptional Salmon that we loved so much, that don't appear in the contents, since it's in with the chatter instead of broken apart as a separate recipe. In the paperback version, at least, there are no pictures.

HOWEVER, nearly every recipe I tried was good, if not great. I was worried that Nigella was just an English Rachael Ray, with her emphasis on quick cooking. She's not. Nigella's recipes never feel cluttered. She uses fine ingredients and cooks them simply, to maximize their flavor.

I'm not bored with this book after a month, and there are lots of recipes that I still want to try. There's a treacle tart with my name written all over it. Trying to cut back on the desserts, so I didn't get around to making it this month, but I will. Oh, I will.

My only other minor complaint is that there are a lot of recipes for game and wild fowl that I just don't have access to. If you don't have access to them either, this may not be the book to start with. I'm trying desperately to control the urge to order all of her books. Santa brought me Kitchen for Christmas, and I can't wait to jump into it. Later.

For now, I'm very excited to start my next book. I've bitched and moaned often enough here about Corpus Christi's nonexistent Indian food offerings, that I'm guessing you've figured out that I really like Indian food, but am intimidated to cook it. Well, it's time to conquer that mountain, because from what I understand, Naples doesn't have a whole lot to offer in terms of non-Italian food. If I want Indian food without having to drive a few hours to get it in the next few years, I'm going to have to make it myself. For the next month, I'll be cooking from Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking. 

Doesn't she have kind eyes? I trust those eyes, and the recommendation of my friend Brigit, who steered me toward this book. I bought myself another coffee grinder for spices and a mini food processor, since a number of her recipes involve small amounts of onion puree. I stopped at the organic store yesterday and picked up whole spices and dry beans. I'm ready. Now can someone tell me how to quarter a nutmeg?? Blood shall be spilled this night! Nah, I'm better off quadrupling her garam masala recipe, even though she says to just make a little at a time.

Fingers crossed that I'm not totally sick of Indian food by the end of the month. The recipes look pretty diverse, so I think I'll be okay.

A Few Lovelies

I'm a few days late finishing up How to Eat. Woops. I lost track of the month. Oh well. I got two Charlie-Approved meat dishes out of it, so the extra few days were worth it.

The Chicken Patties (pg 439) from the "Feeding Babies and Small Children" section did not come out remotely how I expected them to, which is probably a good thing. I thought it would be a version of a cafeteria chicken patty, which, I'm ashamed to admit, I always loved. I'd probably think it was vile if I tasted one now, but in third grade, those things were awesome.

Gorgeous.

Nigella's starts with blitzing boneless, skinless chicken thighs in the food processor. She says you can substitute ground turkey, so I did, because it's easier, and I had a pound in the freezer from my handy local good-to-the-animals meat farm. Mix it up with pork sausage, nutmeg, bread crumbs, and parsley, make patties, and fry in a bit of oil. I used the whole package of ground breakfast sausage, because I wasn't sure how much the required two links would equate to. So, these tasted like breakfast sausage, which is to say that they were delicious. I made slider-sized patties, and Charlie gobbled his right up. Which reminds me, I have to throw the leftovers in the freezer so that I don't burn him out on them.

Conclusion: Liked it, and Charlie Approved.

One thing I've learned from this month with Nigella is that, under specific circumstances, Charlie will eat a drumstick. If I put the drumstick on his plate with the rest of his dinner, he won't touch it. However, if he climbs on Matt's lap--not mine, only Matt's--and Matt tries to take a bite of his own drumstick, Charlie will take and eat that one. Perhaps not the best etiquette, but we're just happy to see protein going into him. With this in mind, I made The Tenderest Chicken (pg 315). Chicken pieces marinate for 8+ hours in buttermilk, soy sauce, garlic, and mustard. When you're ready to cook, you wipe them down, then brush them with melted butter mixed with olive oil, salt, and pepper. It just tastes like roast chicken, and it was, indeed, quite tender. I poured the leftover butter solution on fresh brussel sprouts and roasted them in the stove with the drumsticks. Best brussel sprouts ever.

Conclusion: Liked it, and Charlie Approved. I'm not the hugest drumstick fan, but I'll be making them regularly, since boy-o will eat them.

Twice this week, I re-tested the Yogurt (pg 46) from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, paying much closer attention to the temperature of the milk. I'm now certain that, the first time I tried this, I let my milk cool too much before stirring in the bit of live-culture yogurt. These two times, after an overnight rest in the oven, I opened the oven door in the morning, and voila! Yogurt. Warm yogurt, but yogurt nonetheless. I was reprimanded throughout childhood every time I left the milk carton on the counter, so I do psychologically grimace at the thought of letting it sit all night, but it's worth it. The flavor is nicer, without that sharp edge that can be in store-bought plain yogurt, plus, I'm no longer beholden to Fage. Even using organic milk, it's cheaper to make my own than buy Fage. I haven't actually strained the yogurt to make Greek-style yet, but I will.

Conclusion: Love it. It's simple, it's cheaper than store-bought, it tastes good, and I find myself eating more of it because I made it.

I ran out of peanut butter, so I made Reese's recipe. All you do is blitz peanuts and a bit of peanut oil in the food processor until you have the texture you want. Jennifer says to make it thinner than you think it needs to be, because it will firm up in the fridge. This was true. My one qualm is that she says homemade peanut butter is 80 percent the price of Jif. Maybe peanuts are just expensive in Texas, but my jar of peanuts cost nearly the same as the natural peanut butter I usually buy. A huge Costco-sized box of peanuts would be cheaper, I'd think, but the only container I could find was not.

Conclusion: Liked it, but I doubt I'll make it regularly. It costs the same here, so it's not worth the added step of pulsing it myself.

Lastly, Matt and I had date night last night, in which our friend took Charlie away for hours, and we cooked awesome filet mignon and mashed potatoes, drank wine, etc. Fun times. I planned to make creme brulee for dessert, but forgot to add the ingredients to Matt's grocery list, so I couldn't. Searching for a similar replacement that wouldn't require another trip to the store, I landed on Vanilla Cup Custard from Dorie Greenspan's Baking. All it needs is milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and some almond extract. Easy. Unfortunately, this tasted very eggy. Neither one of us was impressed, and Charlie only picked at his. We kept thinking up fruit sauces that would mask the egginess, which doesn't speak well of the custard's flavor.

Conclusion: Just okay.

Happy Day After Valentine's Day

I had a chemistry teacher in high school who ended every class by saying, "If no one else tells you they love you today, I do." I always thought that was nice. She'd probably be arrested for saying that today. We live in sick times. I don't remember one single thing about chemistry, and I can't think of the teacher's name off the top of my head, but I remember that.

I have no point, besides that I had that in my head on Valentine's Day. Fortunately, I had someone who told me they loved me, but not who you'd expect...

I don't see us having a long-term relationship, Cake. You'll be gone by sundown.

Just kidding. Matt loves me, too. He should, after being served Nigella's Chocolate Raspberry Pudding Cake (pg 316 of How to Eat). I love chocolate and raspberries. It's my favorite fruit/chocolate combo, and I have no idea why I've never thought of baking raspberries into a cake or brownies, instead of just placing them on top or turning them into sauce. This is a dense, moist cake, and the raspberry flavor really shone through from the fruit, even though I replaced the framboise that's supposed to be mixed in to the batter with amaretto.

My only problem with this cake is that there is coffee in it. I used instant espresso, because I don't own instant coffee. I'm one of those people who can't drink caffeine after noon, or else I'll be up all night. At midnight, I was still wide awake and could feel my heartbeat. I blame the cake. I'm beat today, and Charlie is not cooperating with my idea that we should both spend a few hours napping. Must admit, I've dozed on the couch a few times. Not for long, though. Apparently my son thinks that when I close my eyes, I'm inviting him to tackle me.

Conclusion: Loved it, but I would omit the coffee in the future, even though I know people say that coffee amplifies chocolate flavor. I guess I could use decaf, but decaf is gross. Regardless, the leftovers are going to work with Matt tomorrow.

I bought more crab meat at the farmer's market, so the other night, I made Linguine with Crab (pg 393). Nigella says that this recipe borrows flavors from Thai and Korean crab cakes, so it's unlike any other crab sauce I've had. Garlic, a red chili pepper, lime, scallions, white wine, and cilantro.

Conclusion: Liked, but next time, I'll use shrimp. It wasn't delicious enough to warrant the cost of the crab, and I don't think that replacing crab with shrimp would hurt the recipe.

If no one else tells you they love you today, I do. :-) 

There She Goes With Her Weird Titles Again

I made most of the components of Nigella's "Spring-Scented Lunch for 8" (for 2) for dinner tonight. Spring-scented? She's so weird. I love her, but she goes a little overboard with the titles.

Tarragon French Roast Chicken (pg 271) was lovely. Mix a load of chopped tarragon, a bit of sherry, and a bit of white pepper in with soft butter. Rub butter under the skin of the chicken. Roast. I followed Nigella's timing instructions, and have to say that the breast came out a bit dry. The skin was beautifully crisp, though. I would follow this recipe, in terms of the tarragon butter, but probably follow my normal roasting method, which is to lay the bird breast-side down, then flip it for the last thirty minutes.

Conclusion: Liked it. The tarragon was a little sweet, and tasted like it was born to roast in my chicken.

Nigella includes a recipe for Foolproof Rice (pg 272). This seems silly to me, because a) it's not much different than the normal rice cooking instructions and b) it's not foolproof. Mix a cup of rice in melted butter, then add a cup of water (I used stock) and bring to a boil. She says to simmer it on the lowest setting for 30-40 minutes. She does not take into account the irritatingly slow response time of an electric stove. I turned my rice to low. Fortunately, I checked it again five minutes later. The liquid was gone and the rice was beginning to stick to the bottom of the pan. I added a butt-load more water, and all was well.

Conclusion: Just okay. No different than any other rice recipe.

German Leeks and Wine (pg 270) sounded like they'd be amazing--thick slabs of leek, cooked in butter, then wine. It wasn't so great. Not a lot of flavor, and the outer rings remained tough.

Conclusion: Somewhere between okay and disliked, but I'm going to go with disliked, since I only picked at it.

Nigella ends her "Spring-Scented Lunch" with a lemon pie. Man, I wish I made a lemon pie. That would hit the spot right now. A glass of wine will have to do.

Damn Hippies

As I threw together Jennifer Reese's Granola (pg 44-45 of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter), I self-righteously grumbled about how many extraneous calories are racked up by all the butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, and shredded coconut, compared to Ellie Krieger's version. Yes, there are certainly many calories here. Oh my lord, though. In terms of flavor, it blows Ellie out of the water. (Sorry, Ellie). This granola is addictive. It has a delightful salty/sweet element to it. It cooked for over an hour at a pretty low temp, so it turned gold without coming anywhere close to burning.

Conclusion: Loved it. Deeeeelicious.

With granola, one needs yogurt (pg 46). Reese's recipe seemed straightforward enough. Heat milk to almost-boiling, then let it cool until it's warm. Mix in some live-culture yogurt and let it sit overnight in a warm place. Supposedly, the next day, you have yogurt. I had milk.

Ew.

I want to try this one more time before I judge. I suspect I may have allowed it to cool too much to activate the cultures. I definitely won't be wasting money on organic milk again until I know it works, though.

With an abundance of granola on hand, I couldn't resist baking Granola Grabbers (pg 82) from Dorie Greenspan's Baking. These cookies throw calories on Reese's granola's calories. You add more coconut, more nuts, more butter, more brown sugar. Yummmmm. The cookies merge soft cookie with crisp granola, so it's chewy and crunchy. GENIUS!

Conclusion: I like them, but Charlie LOVES them. Score!

Now, back to Nigella. Cambodian Hot-and-Sour Beef Salad (pg 385 of How to Eat) was not-so-great. Strips of steak are stirred about in a mixture of fish sauce, lime juice, shugar, chilies, shallot, and mint, then dumped on lettuce. It was fine, but not very interesting.

Conclusion: Just okay. Salad needs to be really flavorful to make me eat it. I didn't finish my serving.

Fortunately, tonight's dinner ore than made up for it. One-Pan Chicken (pg 360) is just what it says. I used drumsticks instead of a whole chicken (cut up). Salt the chicken, chunks of red onion and red pepper, baby potatoes, unpeeled garlic then drizzle with olive oil and roast for a little under an hour.

Conclusion: Loved it, and Charlie actually ate an entire drumstick. Yay for protein!

Yums

Every recipe I've ever tried for Moules Mariniere (pg 126 of How to Eat) has been pretty much the same: mussels in a broth of wine, butter, garlic, shallots, parsley. Nigella's is just the same. Why mess with perfection? Every time I make this, I kick myself for not doing it more often.

Conclusion: Loved it.

Obviously, I needed bread to sop up all that lovely broth. Jennifer Reese's recipe for Everyday Bread (pg 8 of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter) met my last-minute needs. No kneading necessary, this dough just gets stirred together and then left to proof in 2 loaf pans for two hours. After two hours, my dough had not risen much, so I turned on the oven for a minute, then put the pans in, and after a half hour, it had leveled with the pan. Huzzah!

This is a heartier loaf than I expected. Guess that's the wheat flour. Very dense, with a nice crust.

Conclusion: Liked it, and it's Charlie Approved.

I tried one more stewish Nigella recipe: Lamb and Bean Braise (pg 139 of How to Eat). I conclude that I do prefer lamb stews to beef. Matt thinks stew is a waste of lamb, and he thought there were too many beans. And he wanted to know what Nigella has against potatoes. (Nothing. The answer is nothing.) Oh well. I thought it was really tasty, and the beans absorbed much delicious broth (red wine and balsamic vinegar, with herbs and orange peel).

Conclusion: Liked it.

I count three chocolate puddings in How to Eat, so I simply had to make one. I went with the Gooey Chocolate Puddings (pg 169) recipe from the Fast Food section, as I am lazy, and I love the word "gooey."

This easy recipe produces a layer of cake on top of liquid chocolate goodness. Holy mother. Joy of joys, the recipe makes four ramekins, so we have two for dessert tomorrow. WORD!

Conclusion: Loved it.

Phew!

Charlie's birthday shenanigans have come and gone. A few good friends came. Cupcakes were eaten. Fun was had. I have mixed feelings on celebratory days. I resent the Navy for keeping us away from family, but I'm also so grateful for the friends that we make at each of our stations. The universal isolation forges surrogate families, and it makes me happy to see Charlie surrounded by people who love him, even if we're not related.

Earlier in the week, I made Kale with Chorizo and Poached Egg (pg 149 of How to Eat). This is a recipe that I wish I had on-hand back when Matt was out to sea for 7 months. When I'm by myself, I don't cook much. I hadn't discovered that I enjoyed cooking yet at that point, so I practically survived on cereal, eggs and toast, and english muffin pizzas. Lame. I like to think that if I had a recipe like this in my catalogue, I'd have eaten better. This took no effort, and was delicious.

Boil kale. Cook chorizo. Add kale to the cooked chorizo and mix it all up. Top with a poached egg.

Conclusion: Loved it. This is my new "Matt's out of town and I'm feeling lazy" dinner.

I baked Cocoa-Buttermilk Birthday Cake (pg 257 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking) for Charlie's birthday. Dorie says that this is a good choice, "whether you're celebrating your baby's first birthday or your great-grandfather's ninety-fifth." I disagree. This is an incredibly rich cake, which is not what I think of for a kid's birthday party. It was good, but every adult that tasted it took one bite, said, "Wow, that's good," and immediately followed it up with, "I need a drink." Charlie licked the icing off his fingers, and wanted nothing to do with the actual cake. Whattaya gonna do?

)

 Conclusion: Liked it, but it's not really a kid's cake.

I waste most buttermilk I buy. The cake needed a cup, so instead of buying yet another bottle, I used Jennifer Reese's recipe for homemade Buttermilk (pg 53 of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter). Couldn't be easier. Vinegar + milk = buttermilk. Jennifer stipulates that this method works fine for baked goods, but that you should use fresh buttermilk for "buttermilk soup or a Southern buttermilk pie--or anything that relies heavily on buttermilk's unique satiny-rich-sour personality." For my general purposes, souring a cup of milk at a time will work just fine.

Conclusion: Loved it because it will reduce my enormous buttermilk waste.

Baked ziti was the main dish at Charlie's birthday party. I planned to buy ricotta cheese because of it's convenience, but I just couldn't do it when I saw the little 2 cup containers were SIX DOLLARS each.  Reese's recipe for Ricotta Cheese (pg 198 of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter) involves a gallon of milk and some vinegar (two bucks and change), warmed on the stove, then left to sit for twenty minutes until curds form on top. Drain the curds for twenty minutes, and voila! Cheese.

 I was a little worried that it would be grainy, because the curds looked big to me, but it wasn't. I had a hard time refraining from eating the whole sweet batch with a spoon. It stayed creamy after being baked with the ziti, too.

I'm never buying ricotta again. We're all being defrauded by the dairy industry.

Conclusion: Loved it.

 Plus, the liquid left behind by the cheese is whey. Reese says to replace water with whey in bread and bagel recipes. I don't know what impact it has, but I'm going to find out. It keeps for ten days in the fridge, so I better get baking.

Eating my curds and whey.

Do Leeks Count as a Vegetable Serving?

 You may notice an uptick in pork-related cooking in the future. A few weeks back, Matt decided to do as the Texans do, and try hunting. He shot a feral hog, and apparently is now hooked. By hooked, I mean obsessed. It's super weird. I don't have a problem with the hunting itself, though it's not something he's ever expressed an interest in before. My conscience is more peaceful eating a hog that spent it's life wandering around, doing what hogs do, rather than cooped up shoulder-to-shoulder in a pen and being fed antibiotics. I read the book Eating Animals a few months ago, and it actually managed to change the way I look at meat, which I didn't expect. I've been buying as much as I can once a month when a grass-fed organic farm brings ice chests full of beef and chicken to the Farmers Market. What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Feral hogs.

The thing with the hogs is that, since they've spent their lives running instead of being fattened, the meat is tough. Really tough. And there's a lot of it. And Matt went hunting again today, even though we still have 3 hams and 3 loins in the freezer from last time. He promises not to go again until we eat what we have. Phew!

So I really need to find a way to cook this meat that makes it a little easier to swallow. Literally. It's dry. haha. Matt wants to get a meat grinder so we can make sausage. That may be the way to go.

I'm rambling about. Sorry. Anyway, today I cooked Nigella's Roast Loin of Pork (pg 286 of How to Eat). It's hard to actually call this a recipe, because she doesn't provide measurements. She suggests that you rub cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom into the meat before roasting it, and toss in a glass-full of cider or wine to help make a gravy, so that's what I did, eye-balling the spices. She said to cook it for 20 minutes a pound. This loin was a little less than a pound. Twenty minutes just seemed too short. I should have trusted her and checked it then, but I let it go for thirty, because that's how long my roasted leeks needed. I overcooked it. My bad. The seasoning was mighty delicious, though, and would have been great on a moist piece of meat. It smelled like chai when I rubbed it in, which was lovely.

Conclusion: Liked it. I don't hold the tough meat against the recipe.

Nigella recommends Roast Leeks (pg 286 of How to Eat) as an accompaniment to the pork. Oh my lord. These were delicious. I could have stuck my face in a whole bowlful. All you do is cut thick chunks of leek, toss them in oil, add salt, and roast. It doesn't get much easier than that. The outside of the leeks brown up and get that nice burned onion flavor, while the inside stays mushy and sweet. I'm going to be making these a lot. Nightly, perhaps. Matt's not home from the hunt yet (so, so weird), so if I eat his serving, he'll never even know they were here. Mwa ha haaa!

Conclusion: Loved it. LOVED it.

Hunting update: Matt and his friend shot a hog, but when they went to go get it, a herd of cattle tried to stampede them, chased them back to their car, then followed the car as they drove away. Huh?? I...I have no words. I couldn't make that up if I tried. On the upside, I still only have one tough hog to eat.

I took yummychunklet's suggestion and am linking this post up with the folks who participate in Forever Nigella. As far as I can tell from my forays into How to Eat, I love Nigella, so cooking something--anything!--from her book once a month is a challenge I'm more than happy to take on.

Not a Day for Cooking

Last night, I had a grand ol' time drinking mojitos and eating tacos at my friend's Girls Night. Today, I paid the price. Namely, Charlie gave Matt a really hard time going to bed last night (as in, screamed for me for two hours), and then woke up a lot during the night. This created a very cranky, very clingy little monkey who would not get off of me. I think his face is forever imprinted in the thigh of my pants, Shroud of Turin style.

Anyway, by dinner time, I'd had it. I was a frazzled mess, and apparently even a dish as easy as Lemon Linguine (pg 230 of How to Eat) was beyond my skill-set. The sauce, if you will, is made of raw egg yolk, parmesan cheese, lemon zest and juice, and heavy cream. I threw in some leftover roast chicken, because it seemed like a good use for it.

Problem #1: The recipe calls for TWO POUNDS of linguine. My brain started to putter as I tried to do fractions to figure out proportions of sauce ingredients for only half a package of pasta. I took the easy way and made a whole pack of pasta, knowing full well we were never going to eat that much and the leftovers wouldn't reheat.
Problem #2: I forgot to halve the egg yolks, so to only use one instead of two. So then I was spooning out what looked like half of the broken yolks. It was dumb.
Problem #3: Right around when the pasta was ready and timing became a factor, Charlie needed more blueberries, more cheese, more blueberries again, more cheese again, etc. Totally forgot to add butter right after the pasta drained, so the noodles solidified. Nigella says that "butter is the best flavoring, best texture, best mood enhancer there is." I agree, but apparently I was beyond salvation.

I accept that if I'd been taking my time and my focus wasn't being pulled in four directions at once, I would have tasted it and tweaked the flavors before mixing it all together. It wasn't lemony or cheesy enough. I like the concept, but what I ate wasn't good enough to bother trying again, unless the only ingredients I had in the house were an egg, pasta, cream, and a lemon.

Conclusion: Just okay.

Next Thursday is book club. Now I know to plan to order a pizza on Friday. 

I Should Know Better By Now

I need to accept the fact that I don't like stew. I keep thinking that if I can just find the right recipe, I'll be converted. I give up.

Beef Braised in Beer (pg 397 of How to Eat) was different than any other stew I've tried, so I thought it was worth a shot. A lot of prunes soak in stout (I used Guinness, due to its awesomeness) for two hours. Cook some onions and carrots, brown some floured meat, and throw everything into a Dutch oven to cook at low temp for 3 hours.

This picture won't sell the recipe to anyone. Sorry.

If you like stew and prunes, you'll probably love this. The Guinness/prune combo created a rich, balanced broth. I just don't like stew meat. Period. No offense to the recipe. It's just my own thing.

Conclusion: Just okay. I bumped it up from dislike, because the broth was very good.

Fish and Tomaters

Apparently, Nigella has a problem with combining fish and tomatoes. Not sure why. I've never minded the flavor combo. Two nights in a row, I'm flouting her preference.

Last night's Exceptional Salmon (pg 127 of How to Eat) was, in fact, exceptional. Matt declared it his favorite salmon of all time. This is coming from a man who loves salmon. That's one hell of an impressive introduction to Nigella.

Behold: the world's greatest salmon!

The recipe is simple, which is why I didn't expect to be blown away. All you do is cook bacon in a touch of oil, then sear both sides of the salmon in the bacon grease, turn down the heat, and cook it through. Move the fish to a plate and squeeze a lemon into the bacon grease. Use this as the dressing for the lettuce, bacon, and scallion (and I added tomato) salad that is to be served with the fish. That's it. The salmon browned beautifully without danger of burning, and the onioney, lemony, baconey flavors all worked perfectly together.

Conclusion: Loved it. Pleased to meet you, Nigella.

Tonight, I made Crab and Saffron Tart (pg 227). We froze the leftover crab meat from a week or two ago, so this seemed like a good idea. Turns out, it was a great idea.

Canned tomato that has been cooked down with garlic and herbs until it's thick is layered in the bottom of the tart shell. Crab meat is folded into a custard of saffron-infused heavy cream and egg yolks, poured into the shell, and baked. Matt brought nice saffron back from Bahrain, so I'm always on the lookout for good ways to use it that will do it justice. Apart from the multi-step process that always accompanies a partially baked crust, this came together without much fuss. According to Nigella, she is willing to overlook her distaste for tomato and fish in this dish because "everything melds so harmoniously, seductively together." I'll agree with that.

Conclusion: Loved it. It was not nearly as heavy as I expected it to be. Matt thinks it needs a sprinkling of gruyere on top, because clearly, gruyere makes everything better. Now I just have to remember that if I want to make it again, I have to look up the meal idea titled "Lunch, Tentatively Outside, for 8." If I cross that out and write in, "Dinner, Definitely Inside, for 2," at least I'll have written all over the page and will be able to spot it without too much trouble. 

I didn't bake a bread this weekend, so I decided to mix up my norm and bake Apricot-Ginger Bread (pg 14 of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter). This is a no-knead recipe, but somehow it didn't work out right for me. The dough didn't rise, even after it sat overnight in the oven, which is where I usually let dough rest. I don't know what went wrong. The yeast was still active two weeks ago when I made brioche. Beats me. One thing I thought was weird was that she says to use cold water in the dough. I used warm, because I always thought that was necessary to get the yeast going. Maybe not following that one instruction bungled things up?

Regardless, I baked the bread anyway, even though it hadn't risen. I had to add some dates to mine, because I only had half as many apricots as I was supposed to.

When I checked on the bread at the low-end of the time frame provided, all of the apricots and dates that were poking out the top had burned.

 Those problems easily could be the result of flawed execution, rather than a flawed recipe. Still, I didn't really like the flavor. It was in a weird middle ground between being too gingery and not gingery enough, and the apricots and dates seemed mealy, where they weren't originally.

Conclusion: Dislike. Hopefully, everything looks up from here.

Wrapping Up and Up Next

This month flew by quite pleasantly, cooking-wise. There were some duds, but I'm happy with most of the recipes I've tried from Ellie Krieger's The Food You Crave. I wouldn't call it health food, but healthier food. She uses whole grains and lots of vegetables and puts the more caloric ingredients--cheese, nuts, etc--up front so that it's what your eye sees first. I've said before that this is one of my most-used cookbooks, and that statement stands. My old favorites (Macaroni with Four Cheeses, Roasted Pork Loin, Balsamic Chicken with Baby Spinach and Couscous) still hold up, and I've found some tasty new recipes to add into my rotation. I feel sufficiently detoxed from the holidays, and I think that the general greaselessness of Ellie's recipes helped.

I'm a little concerned that by not revisiting many of my perennial favorites, I may have provided a skewed impression of this cookbook's offerings. Over the years, I've tested many of the recipes that most enticed me, and haven't mentioned them here: Fish Tacos with Chipotle Cream? Amazing. Baked Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta? So good, and easy. Lemon Chicken Soup with Orzo? Cozy perfection.

I strongly recommend this book. I feel good cooking from it because the food is healthy, but don't feel deprived, like I'm cooking diet food. Some of the meals err on the side of bland, but it's nothing that can't be fixed with a tweaking of the spices.

For me, it's a keeper.

I've also decided to call it quits on David Lebovitz's Ready for Dessert, primarily because I need to stop thinking about dessert so much. With this book on my mind, it's very difficult not to bake constantly, because everything looks delicious. The recipes are pretty flawless. I loved 11, I liked 14, and only 3 were just okay. I hated 1. Those are amazing results. I want to try plenty of more recipes in this book, but I'm too preoccupied with their deliciousness and need to shelve it. There's an entire ice cream section that I couldn't test out, because I don't own an ice cream machine. They look gooood, though.

If you like to bake, you need this book. If you know someone who likes to bake, you need to buy them this book. Without doubt, a keeper.

So, moving on.

This month, I'll focus on Nigella Lawson's How to Eat.

I love Nigella's easy attitude and her philosophy that cooking and good eating shouldn't be stressful. This particular book--her first--is a very annoying format. There's no organization, and huge chunks of text. I like a bit of personality in my cookbooks, but I don't want to scour chunks of text to find the recipe I want. Real recipes are titled in pink, but there are other recipes within pages of chatty essays that are identified by gray headings out in the margin. This book is hard on my eyes. It doesn't make me want to cook.

This book features a lot of stews and roasts. Cold weather food, in other words. I kept putting this book off because it's so hot here, but I've decided to explore it now, because I'm pretty sure this is as cold as it's going to get this winter. It's going to be 78 degrees tomorrow. Oy.

Also, I'm replacing Ready for Dessert in my long term projects with Jennifer Reese's Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook From Scratch.

Jennifer writes the wonderful blog The Tipsy Baker. I love her, and I mentally refer to her as "Tipsy." I'll try to refrain from calling her that here. In her book, she set out to determine what foods are worth making instead of buying, in terms of cost and difficulty. I've made it a long term project, because most of the recipes are for components, rather than whole meals. So, it's food like breads and cheeses and cured meats (I'm not sure I'm that brave. We'll see.), etc. There are some full recipes, but not many. Her book is funny, with essays about her adventures trying to raise chickens and goats and ducks. As opposed to Nigella's book, I don't mind the essays here, because everything is clearly sectioned out and labeled.

I'm excited to start. Yahoo!