Recipes NOT to be repeated!!

juliettet

Laughing too, especially with moanymoany as I have been there with my OH. He used to march out in a huff as he said cooking was easy and made a complete mess which had me in fits of giggles.
I use my never fail Be-Ro book for most baking but as I am familiar with everything in it, I shouldn't go wrong. I have 'forgotten' my earlier disasters except for putting a sponge in a cold oven and after the time was up it was still runny.

I like Nigel Slater too and most Nigella cakes have worked. Although if I cook for visitors I stick to tested as I become a cropper if I show off.:rolleyes:

ampersand

Hello moanymoany -
Know Pelorus cake well - haven't been to Pelorus Sound though.
YES - brought up on EDMOND'S recipe books and Aunty Daisy and later Graham Kerr and all the rest, not least of which was Australian Women's Weekly.
Are you a kiwi, too?
#################
V.G. signature Nix143:exclamati

rog2

My wife uses a VERY OLD 'Mrs BEETON' Cookbook. Once you have fathomed out the measures - the recipes always turn out excellently, especially the cakes and puddings.
I suppose she was one of the first 'Celebrity Chefs' - shame there was no TV. :rotfl: :rotfl:

wherediditallgo

Lasagne - always watch someone else make it before you attempt it yourself. The first time I tried it, I put the bechamel sauce between the mince & the pasta, in layers. The result was a grey lumpy mess interspersed with sheets of pasta that hadn't cooked properly because the oven had been on too low. To this day, I still can't get lasagne to come out looking even half decent.

boo81

I love the australian womans weekly recipe books but I was using american cups for the muffins for ages before I realised. They still worked ok but as I weighed some ingredients and measured cups with others the texture was completely different and more like fairy cakes.

There is an error in their creative cooking on a budget book though, the macaroni quantity is about 3 times more than it should be. It should have served 4 people as a soup, but I got 11 portions out of it having it as a a macaroni vegetable bake!!!

jillie1974

havent really had any major disasters yet.. apart from a ww egg/chiken fried rice thing, egg never really cooked or did what it was meant todo. wasnt very nice and the worst one was when i was 12 and my mum had justgiven birth to my sister, i decided to cook the dinner for when she came home from the hospital so, bought cooked chicken, did the spuds etc and decided to make a trifle, one of those birds packet things... welll when my mum makes the jelly she used 1/2 hot water to dissolve it and then adds cold so it doesnt take a slong to cool down and set. so i put in the hot water and also the cold at the smae time so some dissolved so we had lumps of undssolved jelly cubes... from what i remember it was all eaten anyway!!
i/we tend to get recipe books when we're on hols ie... Greek Recipes, Soanish etc and generally find these ones are great.. we just tailor make them to our measurements... i'll see if there is a recipe for houmous as lots of peolple struggle with that one.

moanymoany

ampersand wrote: »

Hello moanymoany -
Know Pelorus cake well - haven't been to Pelorus Sound though.
YES - brought up on EDMOND'S recipe books and Aunty Daisy and later Graham Kerr and all the rest, not least of which was Australian Women's Weekly.
Are you a kiwi, too?
#################
V.G. signature Nix143:exclamati

I haven't thought about Aunt Daisy for years!

I know a funny story about Graham Kerr. I lived in NZ for four years in the early 70's. I worked with a man who had worked for the New Zealand Broadcasting Company in the early days of Graham Kerr. Kerr was not well liked by the staff and created many enemies. They got their revenge. Before one of the LIVE broadcasts they replaced all the eggs on set with hard boiled eggs. He wasn't best pleased!


Overall, the Edmonds book is a similar book to the BeRo book. An icon that was known and used by most cooks. Mine has been used to destruction, I would love another, but don't know anyone in NZ who can send me one.

I used to get the Australian Woman's Weekly and I love the glossy cook books they put out. A good place to buy them near me is Wing Yip, the Chinese supermarket in Purley.

Aunt Daisy - I keep smiling to myself as I think about her.

Angelina-M

Robothell wrote: »

I made Nigella's "ham in coke" and it was lovely......like she suggested I saved the stock to make her black bean soup. This on the other hand was vile.....there's so much coriander in it it's completely unpalatable and the coke/black beans give it an unappetising purple colour.

Never again.

I simmer the stock right down until it becomes a thick black treacle, its gorgeous as a dip for potato wedges that I do to go with the gammon.

wherediditallgo

I've been feeling so sick today (good old Norovirus), but this thread has cheered me up no end. Anyone remember Wendy Craig? She played the mother, Ria, who couldn't cook - Geoffrey Palmer played her husband, & almost every episode featured her putting some odd-looking creation on the dinner table that her family struggled to eat. They could make a whole new series based on this thread.

One tip I give anyone trying a new recipe is to halve or even quarter all the quantities in it. That way, if it goes wrong you haven't wasted a load of money & you still have enough ingredients left over to try again if you feel up to it.

wyebird

When we were first married my mother gave us a recipe for Kedgeree, and my OH decided to give it a go. Unfortunately, she didn't write that you should cook the rice, so he didn't! V V Crunchy!