Sarah Discovers How to Eat – Progress Report #11 [April]

Facts & Figures

Having completed 34 recipes in April, I am now up to 351 recipes, and on the home stretch of my project.


Hits

Pistachio Crescents (Dinner)
Ragoût of wild mushrooms (Weekend Lunch)
Cheeses with bitter salad (Weekend Lunch)
Elderflower Cream with Gooseberries (Basics etc.)
Guacamole with paprika-toasted potato skins (Dinner)
Lemon ice-cream (Weekend Lunch)
Digestive biscuits (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
Duck (Fast Food)
Choucroute Garnie (Weekend Lunch)
Salade Niçoise (One & Two)
Chestnut and pancetta salad (Dinner)
Proper English Trifle (Cooking in Advance)
Hazelnut cake (Dinner)
English roast chicken with all the trimmings – plus some (Weekend Lunch)
Onion sauce (Weekend Lunch)
Chocolate raspberry pudding cake (Dinner)


Misses

The only thing this month that I didn’t like was the lemon meringue ice-cream, because it was insanely sour. But my friend Frances said I’d talked it down too much, because she really liked it. So give it a go and tell me what you think.


My progress

I’m so close to the end of the project! My list of recipes is almost completely crossed off. I can’t believe it. In fact, I have no idea how I’m going to go back to normal cooking and menu planning, but I guess I’ll just take it as it comes.

Now, a piece of (possibly) exciting news. A couple of weeks ago, I received a mystery brown envelope in the mail, postmark UK, with no return address, and the instructions “Do not open until May 31!” on the back. Naturally I think it has something to do with my project… or maybe someone just got my birthday really wrong. Hmmm…

We're having roast pork for lunch today... YAY!

xox Sarah

Sarah Discovers How to Eat – Progress Report #10 [March]

Facts & Figures

I made 31 recipes in March, and I am up to 316 recipes. I’ve got 2 months to do about 80 recipes. Easy!


Hits

Baked figs (Fast Food)
Cold Roast Fillet of Beef (Dinner)
Yorkshire Pudding with Syrup and Cream (Weekend Lunch)
Baked Veal and Ham Pasta (Cooking in Advance)
Fancy Cake (Basics etc.)
Steak Béarnaise (One & Two)
The Irish Club's Irish Stew (Dinner)
Birthday Cake (Basics etc.)
Vegetable Soup (Basics etc.)
Tagliata (Dinner)


Misses

Ham cooked in cider with leeks, carrots and potatoes (Weekend Lunch)


My progress

Most of the remaining recipes fall into 3 categories – those that I’m saving for a special occasion (e.g. the chocolate-raspberry pudding cake), those that contain hard-to-find ingredients (e.g. poached quince, and those that just plain freak me out (e.g. the second pheasant stew and the mostarda di venezia). However, 10 months into the project, I’ve been able to source almost all of the hard-to-find ingredients, or at least think of suitable alternatives. So I think that we’ll be seeing a lot of interesting and unusual recipes over the next 2 months!

xox Sarah

Sarah Discovers How to Eat – Progress Report #9 [February]

Sarah keeps plugging along. And finds lots of those really random little recipes, hidden away in chunky paragraphs of text.


Facts & Figures

By this stage, I conclude that it is pointless to be calculating recipe rates – as of 1st March 2006, I have completed 285 recipes and 3 months left of the project. So I’ve got 92 days to do about 115 recipes. It’s totally doable. I think…

(What does it say about me that 9 months into my project, I still haven’t figured out exactly how many recipes are in this book?!)


Hits

Gooey Chocolate Puddings (Fast Food)
Baked Sauternes Custard (Weekend Lunch)
Apple Crumble (Basics etc.)
Garlic Fried Potatoes (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
Zabaione (One & Two)
Fried Prawn Cakes (One & Two)
Christmas Queen of Puddings (Basics etc.)
Cheese Stars (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
Bakewell Tart with Fresh Raspberries (Weekend Lunch)
Kale with Chorizo and Poached Egg (One & Two)
Chick Peas with Sorrel (One & Two)
Macaroons (Basics etc.)
Hollandaise with Saffron (Basics etc.)


Misses

Nah… it was all pretty good this month.


My progress

Tsk tsk tsk. I really did not entertain enough this month. That’s gonna change. As of tomorrow, I do believe. My friends should brace themselves for a barrage of emails, phone calls and text-messages. I'll be inviting them over, we'll be co-ordinating schedules, and all the while my one and only, constant request will be for them simply to "eat... eat... eat...".

xox Sarah

Sarah Discovers How to Eat – Progress Report #8 [January]

Sarah makes her first ham! And appears in Australian Gourmet Traveller! Wow!


Facts & Figures

Bloody hell, I only made 28 recipes this month! This is because of work, Chinese New Year, and general apathy.

My recipe rate is down to 1.06.

I really need to turn it up a notch. Bam!


Hits

Despite my making relatively few recipes, a high proportion of them were fabulous.

Rhubarb Meringue Pie (Weekend Lunch)
Pasta Sauce with Sausage (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
Chicken Patties (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
Pea, avocado and mint salad (Dinner)
Cod with Clams (One & Two)
Crab & Saffron Tart (Weekend Lunch)
Baked Caramel Apples (Weekend Lunch)
Home carpaccio of beef (One & Two)
Golden Root-Vegetable Couscous with Chorizo (Weekend Lunch)
Harissa (Weekend Lunch)
Great Aunt Myra's Moroccan Orange and Date Salad (Weekend Lunch)
Sweet and Sour Cabbage (Dinner)
Pavlova (Dinner)
Ham in Coca Cola (Weekend Lunch)
Cherry Pie (Weekend Lunch)
Lemon Curd (Basics etc.)
Ham & Turkey Meatballs (Feeding Babies & Small Children)
A Summer Lemon-Meringue Pie (Weekend Lunch)
Braise-roasted lamb with Caper Sauce (Weekend Lunch)


Misses

Duck liver sauce – One word. Ew.
Bread & Milk


My progress

Everything seems to be going smoothly (touch wood) and the whole cooking-and-eating-together thing is really enjoyable. I think I’ve reached the stage of the project where I really need to just get my head down and push on through.

xox Sarah

P.S. The “Q&A with Sarah” post is coming soon!

Sarah Discovers How to Eat – Progress Report #7 [December]

Sarah gets busy. And she gets recognition from Nigella herself! FAINT!


Facts & Figures

I made 48 recipes this month, bringing my grand total to 232. This means that, 214 days into the project, I’m going at a rate of 1.08 recipes per day. Not quite on track, but getting there, and a significant improvement from last month.

I seem to have cooked a wide variety of recipes, from all chapters of the book. There were quick midweek meals, hearty family stews and soups, more complicated impressive stuff, and a good dose of domestic goddess-style baking.

I entertained heaps this month (liam and pork; Summer Dinner for 6; Christmas Eve goose; Christmas) from the Dinner chapter, the Weekend Lunch chapter and the Basics etc. chapter (Christmas). Additionally, I made up a couple of Weekend Lunch menus just for my family, (Another Spring Lunch, High Summer Al Fresco Lunch).


Hits

Almond and Orange-Blossom Cake (Cooking in Advance)
Chicken with Salsa Verde (Fast Food)
Aubergine Moussaka (Cooking in Advance)
Cawl (Cooking in Advance)
Roast Pork (Weekend Lunch)
Swedish Rhubarb and Horseradish Sauce (Weekend Lunch)
Marinated, Butterflied Leg of Lamb (Dinner)
Garlic Potatoes (Dinner)
Poached Peaches (Dinner)
Christmas Eve Goose (Basics etc.)
Red Cabbage Cooked in the Viennese Fashion (Weekend Lunch)
Frangipane Mince Pies (Basics etc.)
Turkey (Basics etc.)
Gravy (Basics etc.)
Roast Potatoes (Basics etc.)
Brussels Sprouts and Chestnuts (Basics etc.)
Bread Sauce (Basics etc.)
Bubble & Squeak (Basics etc.)
Hummus with seared lamb and toasted pine nuts (Weekend Lunch)
Garlic chicken (Weekend Lunch)
Beans wrapped in prosciutto (Dinner)


Misses

Thankfully, there weren’t any disastrous recipes this month, so I’m giving the “misses” section a miss.


My progress

One thing I've noticed is that How to Eat is heavily biased towards Western-style food - roasts, potatoes, stews, etc. And although I do love them, it turns out that every single time I don't cook or that we eat out, we always go for Asian food. Who knew I'd ever be craving fried noodles and rice so much?

We've also been eating shitloads of leftovers, but I have learnt how to deal with them more satisfactorily... and also I've learnt how to restrict portions (sometimes).

But in terms of the cooking side of things... well, after so much practice, I can now make pastry like a pro. I also learnt how to roast pork and to make a mean crackling. And I most definitely know the proper way to treat a bird.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY!

xox Sarah

Sarah Discovers How to Eat – Progress Report #6 [November]

Facts & Figures

Argh! November was not a good month! I hardly had any time too cook, even less time to blog, and my recipe count is down, down, down. I place the blame squarely on my exams. It’s been 183 days… and I’ve done 183 recipes. So I’m at the sad, sad rate of one per day. My aim was to be at 200 by this point, but I figure that with Christmas coming, and 3 months of uni holidays, I will be fine.


Hits

The Tenderest Chicken (Dinner)
Blini (One & Two)
Bean and Pasta Soup (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
Gigot Boulangère (Weekend Lunch)
Chicken with egg and lemon sauce (Dinner)
Chicken Pie (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
Spinach, Bacon and Raw Mushroom Salad (Weekend Lunch)
Strawberries in Dark Syrup (Dinner)
Proust's Madeleines (Dinner)
Linguine with Lardons (One & Two)
Baked Sea Bass with Rosemary (Weekend Lunch)


Misses

Mascarpone, Rum and Lime Cream (Fast Food) – it did not have the desired effect.


My progress

Like I said, uni is over for the year, and with three months of glorious holidays ahead of me, I’m very keen to throw myself back into it. I'm ready and super-pumped to cook, to entertain, and to blog!

xox Sarah

Sarah Discovers How to Eat – Progress Report #5 [October]

Facts & Figures

It’s been 153 days… and I’ve done 168 recipes. This means I’m doing 1.09 recipes a day.

But you know what, I just realized that my recipe rate, the figure on which I’d been basing my progress, is all bullshit. See on the sidebar on the right-hand side of the screen, the “About” section? I’ve written “385 recipes in 365 days”… meaning I’d need to do 1.05 recipes per day in order to get through them in time. So, as long as I do more than 1.05 recipes a day, I’m fine. When I started the project, I counted 385 recipes in the book, but as I’m going through it I keep discovering new recipes, hidden in sidebars, as suggestions and so on. So the actual number of recipes in the book is probably closer to 400. Which would mean I’ve probably fallen behind… ah crap.

Well, if I’ve done at least 200 by the mid-point (i.e. end of December), then I figure I should be fine. I hope.


Hits

Fairycakes (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
Beef Stroganoff (Fast Food)
New Potatoes with Truffle Oil (Weekend Lunch)
Rice Pudding (Weekend Lunch)
Lamb with Garlicky Tahina (Fast Food)
Chicken with Morels (One & Two)
Linguine alle Vongole (One & Two)
White Tiramisu (Cooking in Advance)
Children's Couscous (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
Ratatouille (Cooking in Advance)
Translucent apple tart (Weekend Lunch)
Apple and Walnut Crumble (One & Two)
Scallops and Bacon (One & Two)


Misses

Er… if I had to chose a “miss” it’d probably be the pea orzotto – but that’s only because the stock I used sucked balls. Massel stock cubes rock, but their liquid stocks obviously suck. The orzotto itself was fine.


My progress

So those 5 kilos I gained still haven't gone anywhere... not that I'm getting any complaints, thank-you very much. Mmm'hmm. But I just had a flick through my older posts and realised that I bitch about my weight / exercise / lack of motivation quite a lot. In fact, I think I'm almost starting to sort of sound like a Bridget Jones type of character - YUCK. There's nothing I hate more than that self-obsessive, microanalysing chick-lit bullshit, which is so pointless and never actually gets anywhere. So, I've decided to stop bitching about that kinda stuff here and just get on with it.

In terms of cooking, I realised that I still haven't totally overcome my pork aversion. I'm fine with bacon, but I've yet to cook any of Nigella's hams or pork roasts. There are four hams and three roast porks in the book. I have to get cracking on them if I don't want to arrive at May next year, with one week left on the project and seven pigs to slay.

I also want to entertain a lot in the next few months to get through more recipes (and because entertaining is fun!). Exams finish on the 21st of November (thank God!) and then I have 3 months of freedom, in which I am just gonna cook cook and cook! If you want a special Nigella-meal made for you, book in early!

xox Sarah

Sarah Discovers How to Eat – Progress Report #4 [September]

I’ve been asked if I’m sick of Nigella recipes yet – and the answer is no. I do often (like I said last month) look wistfully at Bill Granger, Delicious, Australian Gourmet Traveller, or even Nigella’s non-How to Eat recipes, but because the recipes in How to Eat are consistently satisfying, I’m certainly not tempted to throw in the towel.

What’s more, I’m not exclusively eating Nigella-food for every meal – because of my hectic schedule, I often have to eat out. (There’s a Nando’s right opposite the cinema where I work – SWEET! And it’s healthy if you don’t order the chips!) Also, sometimes I’m just too buggered to cook, so Mum or Dad take care of dinner.


Facts & Figures

By September 30th, 122 days into my project, I’ve done 135 recipes and gained about 5 kilos. I’m going at a rate of 1.10 recipes a day, which means I’m still ahead of schedule – but only just.


Hits
Marsala Muscovado Custard (Dinner)
Muskily Spiced Prunes (Dinner)
Minestrone (Weekend Lunch)
Stem-Ginger Gingerbread (Cooking in Advance)
Mushroom Risotto (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
The World's Best Chocolate Ice-cream (Basics etc.)
Lemon linguine (Weekend Lunch)
Irish Tarte Tatin (Weekend Lunch)
Blakean Fish Pie (Dinner)
Steak au Poivre (One & Two)
Pea Soufflé (One & Two)
Marinated Chicken Drumsticks (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
Macaroni Cheese (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
Pea Soufflé (One & Two)
The Biscuits (Feeding Babies and Small Children)

Misses
Children’s Chocolate Mousse – really, it was the snot-like texture. I think it definitely needs whipped cream in it.
Rhubarb Crumble – but only because Nigella said to cut them in 5cm pieces… and half of them ended up still uncooked once the crumble topping was browned.


My Progress

So this month has seen me draw a lot from the kids’ chapter, and do many stand-alone recipes (i.e. not doing suggested menus in their entirety; making biscuits/cupcakes as gifts etc.) I’m just fitting in cooking wherever I can – I’m generally getting five shifts a week, on top of three days a week of class. So basically, whenever a pocket of free time becomes available I’m whipping out How to Eat and trying to make something which doesn’t involve lots of thinking or shopping (hence very few Cooking in Advance recipes). I can’t wait for this semester to be over!

I’ve also been avoiding the suggested menus because I’m sick of doing so many bloody puddings. This is partly because of vanity, and partly because I’m just a bit over unhealthy food right now. It’s been mega junk-food overload for me this past month – what with assignments, stress, and yet another job where we can try out our food. And when I say “can try out”, I obviously mean “compulsively scoff down”. In my section of the cinema, the premium area, we prepare food like chips, chicken strips, gourmet pizzas, greasy kataifi prawns, honey mousse, raspberry cheesecake etc… Of course, the main reason for this pigging out is pure greed – but all these other factors aren’t helping. And because I’m working so much, I’ve hardly been able to go to the gym.

My clothes are tight and I’m feeling really fat right now. For your amused pity, here’s a snippet of a conversation I had with my friend Robbie tonight…

Me: Goddamn, I’ve gotten so fat recently.
Robbie: You’re not fat!
Me: I’m fatter… oh my God, I went clothes shopping today and everything looked like shit! I mean, I’m happy that my boobs are bigger, but…
Robbie: So just draw the attention to that area.
Me: What, ‘cos I don’t do that enough already?

(You can trust me, but check my other blog for random photos of nights out with me wearing crazily boob-a-licious outfits).

Another reason why I'm finding it so hard to restrain myself, even when not cooking from How to Eat is that through this project, I've really adopted the Nigella way - that is, large portions, and a feeling of generosity and abundance when cooking and eating. I love her approach, but this is getting serious – if I don’t stop eating so much crap I am going to end up a big fat ugly blob shopping in the Options Plus section of Target, for whom Miss Sixty dresses and Calvin Klein cropped trousers are but a distant memory… And unfortunately, I am not like Nigella, in that I'm not the type of woman who looks totally stunning no matter how much I weigh. I really have to stop eating fattening foods when they're not directly from How to Eat, and reduce portion size when I do cook from the book.

I know I keep whining about my bad eating habits, and there’s nothing I hate more than those girls who keep complaining about shit like this (“Oh I eat so badly, oh I really should get fit”) but never actually do anything about it. I know I have the willpower to restrain my food intake (I’ve done successful diets before), but all I need now is the desire to do so. I think the main reason for the failure of my so-called “Low-Fat August” was that I really didn’t care about losing weight, as I was still looking decent in all my clothes. But now that my clothes are tighter and the scales are actually UP, I think I have the motivation. I hope.

I ate healthily today… let’s hope I can keep this up for more than a day…


Fruit Salad - 1 orange, 1 kiwi fruit, strawberries, last night's poached apricots, Greek yogurt and pistachios.

I think that fruit salads for breakfast are definitely the way forward - the way I make them, they're full of vitamins, low fat and low carb, keep you filled up for ages (what with all the citrus, yogurt and nuts). This way, I can be content in the knowledge that I started the day right, and not be tempted to slide off the rails (like I have done so many times following a big fatty carby breakfast).

Also people, be proud of me. We had a function at work tonight, which involved taking around plate after plate of delicious canapes around, and we had heaps of leftovers. Usually I'd greedily scoff the lot, but tonight I didn't eat a single thing! After work, I had a nice healthy grilled Nando's 1/4 chicken with some salad. Damn straight I can eat healthy.

Ok, enough self-indulgent moaning. I'm back to focusing on the food... (but still laying off the puddings for the moment)... hmmm... what's for dinner tomorrow night?

xox Sarah

Sarah Discovers How to Eat – Progress Report #3 [August]

Facts & Figures

It’s been 92 days… 107 recipes down, 278 to go. My recipe rate is 1.16 per day. I need at least 1.05 recipes per day to stay on track – so I’m still ahead of schedule.


Hits and Misses

Hits – Low Fat
Salmon marinated in Den Miso
Brown Rice Salad
Restrained Mushroom Risotto
Mushroom Udon Soup
Beef Braised in Beer
Vegetables with Ginger and Garlic
Braised Fennel
Poisson au Poivre
Cambodian Hot and Sour Beef Salad
Fine Pasta with Crab

Other Hits
Lemon Pie (Weekend Lunch)
Red Wine, Cumin and Onion Gravy (Weekend Lunch)
Pig’s Bum (Weekend Lunch) – ohhhh yeah!

Misses
Braised Pheasant with Mushroom and Bacon (Cooking in Advance)
Beet greens with buckwheat noodles (Low Fat)

The Low Fat chapter is a treasure trove of quality recipes that can be made quickly and simply, generally with store cupboard ingredients. I’m planning to repeat many of these recipes when the mood takes me (I’ve already re-done the mushroom udon soup). And there are still a couple I haven’t done yet – tataki of tuna, the Thai mussels, Thai clams, two salad dressings and the two char siu marinades – so I’ll be trying these ones soon.

One thing I’ve discovered is that we don’t like beetroot! Raw, cooked, and especially the leaves.


How I’m Feeling

About recipes and the project in general… as much as I (obviously) love Nigella’s recipes and her writing, I think I've reached a slightly jaded and over-it point - suddenly all the recipes I see in Australian Gourmet Traveller, Delicious, Waitrose Food Illustrated, Vogue Entertaining and Travel, and even (I'm ashamed to say) Donna Hay are starting to look incredibly inviting. I even got Bill Granger's new book, simply bill, today and his Peach, Almond and Yogurt cake is just crying out to be baked! But obviously I can't start cooking from these sources - I have just enough time to cook all the How to Eat recipes, and I'll definitely fall behind if I start going to other recipes. Not to mention all the unnecessarily excessive calories I'd be ingesting if I were adding yet more puddings to Nigella's plentiful ones. Waaah!

And speaking of excessive calorie ingestion, I’m feeling rather sheepish – August was supposed to be the low fat month, where I’d recharge myself, calorifically speaking, ready for the onslaught of cakes, custards and puddings that are to come in the next nine months. Did I succeed? Did I bollocks. In general, as you can see, I was generally eating healthy meals, but just going nuts in between (alcohol, puddings, chocolate, ice-cream etc.)

This isn’t to say, necessarily, that the advice and recipes in Nigella’s Low Fat chapter are bad, or no longer relevant – even in the current post-Atkins, post-post-low-fat era of dieting. I honestly think that if you were serious and motivated about wanting to lose weight, then the advice in the low-fat chapter would be incredibly useful. I mean, low calorie is low calorie.

And just an aside – this month’s dramatically increased consumption of vegetables really made its effects felt on my family’s and my digestive systems. Feral, yes, but I thought I should just warn anyone else who’s thinking of doing this. (For any Malaysians, wa lung pumpwee, pung sai kia chay… hehehe)

But now that the supposedly low fat month is over, I’ve really, really got to stay motivated with exercise. And with that in mind, I’m off to the gym to work on my pecs. Laterz babes!

xox Sarah

Sarah Discovers How to Eat – Progress Report #2 [July]

Facts & Figures

As I’ve said previously, I need to be doing 1.05 recipes a day to make sure I get through all these recipes within my time-frame. At the end of June, my rate was 1.37 recipes per day. At the end of July, having made it to 72 recipes, I seem to have slowed down a bit – 1.18 recipes per day – but am still ahead of schedule.


My Situation

In last month’s Progress Report, I said I’d make an effort to go to the gym more, in order to counteract all of the rich and fattening recipes I’d been making. And this month, even though I was on holidays from university, I only went to the gym twice! (How embarrassing). I also said I’d make an effort to stop grazing on random desserts whilst working at my restaurant. Er… well… I made it through one whole weekend of work without eating any crap. But since then it’s been gobble gobble gobble. Of course, I’m justifying it to myself because work’s been absolutely terrible, and I’ve “needed” to gorge on sweet gooey fatty desserts in order to cope with the stress. In fact, the environment was so bad that I’ve just quit! (Read here for details).

I’m currently looking for a new job, but in the meantime I’m gonna be taking advantage of my free weekends to cook!

But oh dear, how fattening was everything I made in July?

Hits

Chicken & Chick Pea Tagine (Cooking in Advance)
Pancakes (Basics etc.)
Salmon Fishcakes (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
Anna’s Chick Pea and Pasta Soup (Cooking in Advance)
A Moorish Cake (Basics etc.)
Mixed mushrooms (Dinner)
Pea and Garlic Crostini (Dinner)
Victoria Sponge (Basics etc.)Mayonnaise (Basics etc.)
Oxtail with Mackeson and Marjoram (Cooking in Advance)Rhubarb and Muscat Jelly (Dinner)
Rhubarb, Muscat and Mascarpone Trifle (Cooking in Advance)
Pasta with Cream and Truffle Oil (Fast Food)

My whole family has been looking forward to and are enjoying Low-Fat August. I just need a rest from all this rich food!

Ooh and one more thing. When I went shopping last week, I decided to buy this fabulous, colourful, striped Pepe Jeans jumper – but my dad offered to pay for it, and wouldn’t take no for an answer, “because you’ve been working so hard and cooking so much for us”! SCORE! My mum also spontaneously bought me a super-cute green tea towel with a “Sweet Pea” design on it, “because I know you like peas!”


Me with my friend Natasha - Check out my new jumper. I knew this cooking lark would pay off!

xox Sarah

Sarah Discovers How to Eat – Progress Report #1

Facts and figures

To get through 385 recipes in 365 days, I need to be going at a rate of 1.05 recipes a day. It’s been 30 days, and I’ve made 41 recipes. This means I'm averaging 1.37 recipes per day, so I’m ahead of schedule. The Fast Food, Weekend Lunch, and One & Two chapters have been the most profitable so far, but now that I’ve got more time, I’m drawing a lot more from Cooking in Advance.


Hits vs. Misses

I love Nigella recipes (can you tell?), as do my family, so it’s no surprise that so far we’ve found almost everything she suggests in How to Eat to be nice, or at least edible. However, here are the ones that we weren’t overly impressed with, and thus that I’m not going to make again. They weren't shit, they just weren't great.

Chicken with Spring Onion, Chilli and Greek Yoghurt
South Beach Black Bean Soup
Chambéry Trout
Squid with Chilli and Clams

Naturally though, the hits outweigh the misses. And like I said, we tend to like Nigella’s recipes on the whole, so all the “hits” I mention are real hits – ones that brighten up people’s faces, that they can’t stop eating, that they can’t stop talking about, that they keep bugging me to make again, and that make people wonder why the hell I’m not married yet.

Fish & Porcini Pie
Basic Vanilla Ice-cream
Steak and Kidney Pie
Meatballs in Tomato Sauce
Cinnamon-hot Rack of Lamb
Cherried and Chick Pea’d Couscous
Anglicised Involtini
Pea Risotto
Pasta with Butter and Stock Cube Juices
Tagliatelle with Chicken from the Venetian Ghetto
Duck with Orange Salsa
Noodles with Spring Onions, Shitake Mushrooms and Mangetouts


How I’m feeling

So far, I feel that it's going well. I'm still excited about the whole project, and most importantly, I'm still enjoying reading How To Eat! I’ve been cooking a lot more since exams finished, but I think I’m going to have to work hard if I want to stay on schedule, as I’m now back at work, and I'm planning on taking university seriously next semester. Remember how this project started off as the "Sarah Discovers How to Procrastinate" blog?

This leads me to another problem… this is soon to become the “Sarah Discovers How to Get Very Fat” blog if I’m not careful. It’s not the recipes themselves that are so bad for you, (well, some are, especially in Nigella-quantities), but my greed and general laziness. I mean, how much of that Chocolate Surprise Pudding did I eat? I used to have exams as an excuse, but not anymore. I also tend to graze at work – a few pieces of fruit or cheese here and there, and desserts too. Why, oh why do so many of our desserts have to come in individual miniature serves? They’re just too easy to eat! I obviously can’t be on a “diet” whilst doing this project, you see, and when I’m not on a regimented diet as such, I find it difficult to limit myself. I just can’t say no. And I haven’t been going to the gym much these past couple of weeks. I’ve been sleeping late, sleeping in, going online, watching DVDs and going out.

I was really tempted to make July the low fat month, drawing exclusively from the Low Fat chapter, but have been advised to save this for later on, especially with dozens of cakes, creamy sauces, pies, crumble, jellies, puddings, stews and biscuits all still to come.

But I don’t think this necessarily has to become a problem. I’ve just got to go to the gym more (I’m so motivated, I even bought sports bras), and make a rule about food: If it’s fattening, and it’s not from How To Eat, I’m not eating it.


Anyway, enough of my problems, just thought I'd share those with you. I don't wanna do a Bree Vandercamp / Stepford Wife and try to deceive you into thinking it's all effortless (how 1970s would that be!). There is effort, but right now I'm feeling confident that I will reach my goal, and I'm enjoying the process. Hope you're all enjoying the blog!

xox Sarah