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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Chilli Chorizo Beans - not exactly a hit!

I found this recipe care of the daily email from One Recipe Daily and knowing that Hubby tends to enjoy dishes cooked with a) chorizo and b) chilli together with beans forming a good part of his diet, thought it had the potential to be a hit.

The recipe is one of Antony Worrall Thompson's and it's amazing how the majority of his recipes that I've tried, we haven't liked for one reason or another.

Now I have to say that I thought that this recipe was okay.  Not earth shattering or delicious, but just okay.  I found it hard to wade my way through because I didn't have any bread to eat it with - which I suspect would have made it easier.

Hubby found it incredibly salty - which surprised me because unless the salt came from the chorizo or the three rashers of bacon, I am mystified where it came from - as I didn't add any and didn't opt to use any stock, so we can't even blame it on that.  He also said that he would have found it easier to eat had it have been accompanied by rice instead of bread, as the rice would have calmed down both the salt and the acidity of the tomatoes.

Son & heir ate all his chorizo pieces & bread, then ate as few of the beans as he thought he could get away with.

I think it comes down to the fact that the dish was unbalanced.  The acidity of the tomatoes isn't controlled by the muscovado sugar and when you add chilli to the mix, it tends to accentuate both acidity and saltiness.  I suspect I could titivate around with the recipe and balance it up so as to be acceptable, but the end result just didn't seem to be worth it.

So, on the whole, I won't be repeating the recipe here.  I have to say, that my end result looked nothing like the photograph of the dish on the recipe.  Either I did something cataclysmically wrong (and having re-read the recipe, I can't see where) or there's something intrinsically not right (for us - not necessarily for everyone) with the recipe.

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Sometimes, as much as you want them to, things just don't go right.

By and large, as you look at this blog, you might think to yourself that everything I cook turns out simply marvellously and - even against the odds - everyone likes it and everything's lovely.  Not so.

Parmesan Pittas

Just lately, I've had a little run of dishes that weren't quite right for one reason or another.

Take the Algerian Chakchouka that I served with Parmesan Pittas.  The pittas were lovely (drizzled with olive oil, covered with grated parmesan and baked for 15 mins), but the Chakchouka (really, just paprika, onions, peppers and tomato with an egg cracked into it to poach in the tomato sauce) really wasn't great.  I knew that hubby had a thing about eggs and was particularly leery of part-cooked eggs.  So, I broke his egg in a teensy bit early, which meant it would be almost fully cooked when served.  Hence, I was a bit surprised when he announced "I don't like hard-boiled eggs", and promptly removed his egg and sat it on the side of his plate, untouched.  (It was a Burford Brown, too! ~weep~).  I honestly thought it would be okay.  ~gallic shrug~  Ah well, you win some, you lose some.  Son, however, decided he liked his egg fine - he just didn't like the pepper/tomato mixture it had been cooked in.  *sigh*  Although, I had sympathies with him regarding that score, as I wasn't all that keen on it either.  (I did eat mine, however!).  So that was one of those nights when it would have been better to send out for chips.

The following evening, we had a Cheese, Leek & Ham flan.  Now as you know, my pastry has been the subject of some considerable rudeness from the family, but this time, I followed a different recipe for an all-butter shortcrust pastry.  It rolled out fine and baked to a lovely colour.  I had a bit of an accident with it when I took it out of the oven (darned near dropped the lot, in fact), which resulted in one side of it becoming broken.  Which was a pity, because it was looking quite lovely before that happened.

The recipe came from http://www.closetcooking.com/ and I had no reason to believe it would be anything other than extremely yummy.   In fact, it was extremely yummy - it was just the texture that let it down.

The tart filling comprised pan-fried ham, leek and grated cheese, mixed together with a touch of garlic (inspired idea!), an egg, cream and whole grain mustard - and put in the oven to bake for around 20 minutes.  Well, I'm afraid mine wasn't anywhere near ready at 20 minutes, it was still absolutely liquid in the middle.  Another 15 minutes and it was still soggy in the middle.  Another 10 minutes (that's 40 minutes in all) and it was sort of blobby, whilst accompanied by some sort of whey, or maybe it was leek juice - who knows?  Either way, the flavour was lovely - it was just the horrible blobby texture that we found quite difficult to get along with.  I can only think that somehow the egg/cream mixture had split during cooking - resulting in the blobs and whey.  As to why - I have no idea but would be open to suggestions!

So, to end this tale of woe on a positive note, here's a photograph of a dinner which hubby put together for us.  Yes, they are Chicken Kievs from the freezer, but if you can forgive that fact - doesn't it look edible?  Those little potatoes were just YUM!

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