Weezl and friends Phase 2 -giving it a whirl for Shirl! Testing meal plan for a month

weezl74

I'll have a go!

If a food stuff has a lot of positive associations around it, like our asparagus example yesterday, or perhaps something like parma ham. And we think that the kind of people who eat them are wealthy, attractive, slim, successful...

and then we have one recipe debacle using say the parma ham, those glamorousnesses buffer us from rejecting the ingredient.

but say it's the marrowfat peas from planner 1.

our associations are not lovely jamie and jools oliver! they are memories of a portly, sweaty man we once saw on holiday in blackpool eating mushy peas out of the newspaper smelling vaguely of malt vinegar.

So when the recipe goes wrong.... we walk away?

(huge apologies to anyone from blackpool or who finds my illustration annoying! I'm only meaning to say our mushy pea chap isn't a lifestyle guru, and fair play, why should he be?!)

taka

Can I jump in here?

You have an inbuilt warning about how hard/easy the recipes are as you list this info on the recipes page. You have already warned people some recipes won't necessarily be easy to do.

I'm a terribly unconfident cook but I've tried (an early version of) the onion pie. It was about the 4th time I've ever made pastry and the 1st time in over a decade. I've never blind baked anything before and am somewhat phobic of milk. Mine wasn't perfect - it looked faily rubbish as I got too carried away with the pricking the pastry with a fork and half the filling leaked out! :rotfl: My onions also refused to caramelise, but it tasted good. The next time I make it I, and therefore it, will improve!

I try to follow things to the letter but even so things still go wrong sometimes. Different people will struggle with different things too. I don't blame the recipe - I blame me. But with practice I improve... or investigate alternatives! Learning how to successfully make things/find something else is part of the learning to fish...

If something goes wrong I end up either eating it (if it is edible enough! ) or flinging in random herbs/spices in the hope it improves things and often ending up making it really taste odd! Unless it has curdled or smells really bad I eat it anyway... I do occasionally have to add some branston pickle / sweet chilli sauce to try and make it edible enough though...

If you are worried by the pastry in the onion tart maybe we should have a easy alternative available (if its not already there!) on the alternatives list? Maybe onion/pea/carrot soup and mini cheese pastry bites if the pastly doesn't look to be enough to line the dish?

I'm a sucker for a pretty picture to inspire me when I cook (and so I know what it should look like) rather than a named chef/cook and I think your website appeals to me soooo much due to your totally drool-worthy pictures!

If your site didn't have info on how much the food costs etc and was simply a recipe website I would still want to eat a fair number of the recipes simply by how "posh" and yummy your food looks in the pics!

Allegra

Errr, Weezl, aren't you forgetting one very, very important word here ? Starts with S.....

weezl74

Allegra wrote: »

Errr, Weezl, aren't you forgetting one very, very important word here ? Starts with S.....

ermmm...


probably!

Is it sausage?:rotfl:

artybear

weezl74 wrote: »

I'll have a go!

If a food stuff has a lot of positive associations around it, like our asparagus example yesterday, or perhaps something like parma ham. And we think that the kind of people who eat them are wealthy, attractive, slim, successful...

and then we have one recipe debacle using say the parma ham, those glamorousnesses buffer us from rejecting the ingredient.

but say it's the marrowfat peas from planner 1.

our associations are not lovely jamie and jools oliver! they are memories of a portly, sweaty man we once saw on holiday in blackpool eating mushy peas out of the newspaper smelling vaguely of malt vinegar.

So when the recipe goes wrong.... we walk away?

(huge apologies to anyone from blackpool or who finds my illustration annoying! I'm only meaning to say our mushy pea chap isn't a lifestyle guru, and fair play, why should he be?!)

Well Shirley needs to bloody grow up then. She is in debt, this a subsistence planner and if she cant cook flaming mushy peas she needs to learn how!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

shanks77

Not sure if after yesterdays discussion if i will ever find asparagus attractive ever again no matter who cooks it:rotfl:

weezl74

Hiya Taka

Thanks for your thoughts and for saying the photography helps:A

Allegra is the s word subsistence

Allegra

That is a very important word, yes, but the one I meant was "subsistence" !

weezl74

shanks77 wrote: »

Not sure if after yesterdays discussion if i will ever find asparagus attractive ever again no matter who cooks it:rotfl:

:rotfl:

oh go on, eat it! It's that or the singing

weezl74

taka wrote: »

If you are worried by the pastry in the onion tart maybe we should have a easy alternative available (if its not already there!) on the alternatives list? Maybe onion/pea/carrot soup and mini cheese pastry bites if the pastly doesn't look to be enough to line the dish?

pinkhayley, what about the above suggestion?