Some weeks, you just can't cook a thing ...

Last week's menu plan turned into the menu plan from hell.  No, really.

Hubby's fish pasta began the sorry tale, in that he found it inedible.  I quite liked it, but it wasn't the sort of thing I'd be wanting to appear regularly.  The smoked salmon went very nicely with the lemon, but the cream cheese sauce just wasn't quite right.

It looked nice, though!

Next was my Minced Beef Curry with a Vegetable Curry.  Well, it doesn't often happen, but the minced beef went into the bin.  It was utterly inedible.  I haven't a clue what went wrong - but it went wrong with a vengeance.  We had fish fingers instead.

Thursday evening was okay - but then how wrong can you get sandwiches?  We had a lovely chicken and ham salad at my parents' for lunch and so didn't need a big meal come the evening.

Friday was supposed to be hubby's take on a Moussaka.  However, he spent a rather long time wearing himself out in the garden (we're remodelling the lower half of the garden - making it into a miniature wild flower meadow) and the Moussaka was dropped in favour of a rather easier but no less gorgeous Shepherd's Pie (which I'll be blogging the recipe for very soon).  It was a Prince amongst Shepherds, that pie.

Saturday's Sherried Chicken didn't go well.  The smoked paprika I'd got - I hadn't realised - was a hot paprika.  The recipe for the Sherried Chicken demanded one tablespoonful of paprika.  Well, thank goodness, I didn't opt for that much but reduced it down to two teaspoonfuls - which were still too much.  I think there is something intrinsically wrong with the recipe, as the photograph that goes along with the recipe bears absolutely no resemblance to what appeared on our plates.

We did butt up against hubby's intense dislike for a broth-like sauce or gravy (or "pond water") as he calls it.  He absolutely hated the dish (even if the paprika had been balanced right, he wouldn't have liked it) and says he knows when a dish demands a) vegetables, b) a tin of tomatoes and b) stock - that it's going to be horrible.

I didn't object to it anything like as strongly as hubby did.  Yes, the paprika was wrong, but the remainder of the dish had some promise - providing you don't object to a thinner style of sauce.  It made great ammunition for soaking your crusty bread in - which I felt was the object of the exercise when they recommended crusty bread in the recipe!

I suspect that our polarised views very much came down to personal taste.  Hubby doesn't like that sort of dish - I do.  It's a simple as that.

Sunday's Beef Olives dinner went about as well as it was possible for a recipe to go.  I was glad, as hubby had been so worried about it.  He was cooking a dish that he remembered from his childhood - which is never an easy thing.  He had found a number of recipes for Beef Olives and had taken the best bits out of several recipes, along with using his own common sense.

I'll be blogging the Beef Olives for sure - as they really were super and hubby's recipe is well worth sharing.  We'll just have to wait for him to write it up, that's the only problem!

This evening's dinner of Barbecue Sausages & Peppers was another stellar success.  As a variation on Sausage & Mash, it makes a lovely change.  I had a feeling that the spicy barbecue sauce would go very nicely with mashed potato - and I was right.  This is another one that I'll be blogging - so watch this space!

On the whole, hubby had a good week in the kitchen.  Me, not so much.  *sigh*  Even my Baba Ghanoush didn't work so well.  It tastes great - but it has set and seems distressingly jelly-like.  I suspect I didn't put enough olive oil into it - but hey ho, at least it's not so bad for the waistline in the jellified version!

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