“Macaroni Cheese” from “A Taste of Home”

Tom: This is great! I’m having seconds. This is the best macaroni cheese recipe so far. Yum!

Miles: It’s delicious!

Kirstin: Should I make it again, Miles?

Miles: Um, no thanks.

Tom: Why not, Miles? Do you just like other things?

Miles: When I tasted it with loads of sauce on it, then I didn’t like it. I wanted to taste the sauce. With a little bit, then I liked it. With a lot, then I didn’t like it. May I please be excused?

Kirstin: It was very easy to cook.

Miles: And very delicious!

Ella (eating it from the pan): I like the crunchy bits. They are all chewy!

Tom: Leave some for me!

Ella: Uh-uh. These are the only bits I will eat.

Kirstin: I will keep cooking macaroni cheese recipes until these two decide that they like it.

Ella: You will be cooking for hundreds of years. And into the afterlife.

Kirstin: Well, there’s a challenge! And I really struggle to make macaroni cheese look good in a picture, I so do. I feel another challenge coming on….

“Macaroni with Asparagus, Cream and Ham” from “A Taste of Home”

Anna: The spinach was a guest ingredient, but I actually think it made the dish.

Peter: This was good. I liked the fact it was a small pasta. The ham was a change from the usual pasta we have. It was like a luxury macaroni cheese. With vegetables.

Anna: I thought it reminded me of a carbonara actually. The salty ham and the cream and the parmesan.  It was so quick and easy we’ll definitely have this again I think.

Peter: You could probably adjust the vegetables for whatever is in season.

Anna: I’d do it just with the ham and spinach.  Angela did miss one trick with this recipe. She instructs you to cook the asparagus separately to the macaroni, when in reality you can do it in the same pot at the same time, and just take it out after a couple of minutes. One pot. Time saved. Simples.

“Red Wine and Chorizo Risotto” from “A Taste of Home”

Judy: Yum, yum, yum.

John: You have to say more than that.

Judy: It’s very moreish. Fantastic flavours.

John: It definitely needs an intercourse interval though.

Peter: Boom boom!

John: Because it’s heavy and rich. Like an Italian princess.

Peter: Are you just back from the northern club circuit?

John: I have nothing against Italy, just the Bunga Bunga…..

Judy: It’s definitely not Bunga Bunga.

Anna: I’m lost now.  It’s very winterish I think, quite heavy.

Judy: It’s not heavy, it’s light. I think risotto is always light, at any time of year. The textures are wonderful. The al dente rice, with the crunchy onion, and the chorizo.

John: It is quite regal.

Judy: Like the Italian princess.

John: It would go well with a Verdi opera.

Anna: Which one?

Judy: Il Trovatore.

Peter: Well I thought it was unctuous.  It had a refreshing blend of large bits of chorizo and small bits of chorizo. I think it was the surprise and delight of the dish.

Judy: I agree with that. At first I thought there were only small bits and then I found the large bits.

Anna: That was by accident rather than design. The chorzio fell apart when I was cutting it up.

Peter: Did you like the way she structured the recipe? It looks quite simple to me.  Compared to, say, Jamie’s 30 second Whatsits…..

Anna: It was great. Easy to follow, easy to make, delicious to eat. Though a bit hot to make on a hot, muggy night. But well worth it. I will be making this again.

Judy: And I will be copying the recipe from you!

“Pasta with Walnut Sauce” from “A Taste of Home”

Maureen: We’re on duty tonight, folks. We’ve got something from the new cookbook. It’ll be a month of Italian recipes from Angela Hartnett. It’s bound to be a good month. Today we’re having pasta with walnut sauce.

Nicholas (8): I would have liked it without the lettuce.

Tim (with mock horror): There’s something green in this, Mom. It might be good for me! You know I don’t like green salad stuff!

Nicholas (not picking up on the sarcasm): Yes, it ruins it a bit.

Maureen: It’s just parsley! It won’t kill you!

Nicholas: Sorry. Erase that.

“Stuffed leg of lamb with spinach, feta and olives”, “Aubergine, courgette and basil gratin” and “Strawberry and lemon curd tart” from Good Things to Eat

Kirstin: That was the best lamb and the best gratin. Ever. I had seconds!

Anna: You don’t have seconds very often.

Kirstin: I never have seconds.

Tom: It smelled fantastic when the lamb was cooking.

“Spaghetti with mushrooms and fennel seeds” from “Good Things to Eat”

Kirstin: Did you like it?

Tom: Yes. A very good midweek pasta dish. And I always think mushrooms are the nearest thing to having meat, if you’re not going to have meat.

Kirstin: He’s good at these pasta dishes, isn’t our man Lucas?

Tom: He is. Like the carbonara, this was really substantial. It’s not like one of these pathetic spaghetti sauces where you don’t feel like you’ve eaten anything.

Kirstin: I had one problem with this recipe, and that was that he didn’t tell you to chop the mushrooms. I assumed you had to. You can’t eat whole mushrooms with spaghetti. Could you taste the fennel?

Tom: Yes. I didn’t realise that was what it was, but it was rather good.

Kirstin: Do you know what would have been really good as well? A little bit of chilli.

Tom: Ooh, yes! Next time! And I suspect there will be a next time. There was no cream in this, either, so it wasn’t too rich. I can see us making this on holiday.

Kirstin: It was lovely and quick. With all these end-of-term concerts and plays and shows going on at the moment, these quick pasta recipes are just what we need.

Tom: Right — let’s see how your macro food photos came out.

Kirstin: I need more practice, I suspect. What a shame! Sam will be pleased though. She loves a bit of macro; I can just see her grinning as she reads this!

Tom: I’ll help with eating the food.

“Summer Vegetable Broth with Pesto” from “Good Things to Eat”

Nicholas (8): I’ve got one thing to say. In the event of an earthquake, if you had these vegetables, it would be the only thing that survived.

Maureen: I don’t understand what you’re talking about. It’s delicious. I love it.

Andrew (11): It seems to be missing something. I’ve got another comment about the Jamie Oliver prunes dessert.

Maureen: But we’re talking about the soup!

Andrew (undeterred): The prunes were good for only one thing and that was to clean out the sewers.

Maureen: Back to the soup. This is really nice. There’s nothing weird in it. It’s not spicy. It’s just yummy vegetables made into a soup. I’m not asking you to love it. I’m asking you to eat it. (The boys begin to eat it) Is it growing on you?

Andrew: Yes, actually.

“Pea, asparagus and Parmesan tart” from “Good Things to Eat”

Anna: I’m not really a tart person….

Jane: Guffaw! I don’t know, I’ve known you a long time  – have you forgotten the Nineties?

Anna: Thank you for that. As you well know, what I mean is that I seldom make tarts, quiches, those sorts of things. In fact I think I manage one a year.

Jane: Well this is beautiful.

Anna: I’d call it ‘rustic’. The pastry is threatening to fall apart. I’m not quite sure why, as I followed the recipe. It’s pastry alchemy. I don’t have the secret.

Jane: Did you make the pastry from scratch?

Anna: Did I hell. There’s a limit to how much work I’m prepared to do on a Sunday morning, even if I have the Archers Omnibus to keep me company.

Jane: It reminds me of the south of France. It’s delicious. Can I have another slice?

Anna: It is very good, isn’t it? But it’s not very filling. I put more parmesan in than it called for too, but I think it’s because there isn’t enough filling mixture. It feels like there’s more pastry than tart, if you know what I mean.

Jane: I do. It looks quite big and rich in the dish, but once you put the slice on the plate it looked a bit thin and sad.

Anna: Though that might have been because the pastry fell apart, as feared.

Jane: We had enough for seconds, and I still think it was delicious. Thank you for my lovely lunch!

“Roast tomatoes and mozzarella”, Slow roast lamb shoulder with garlic, vermouth and rosemary”, “Roast potatoes”, “Courgette and pine nut salad” and “Little chocolate pots with cardamom” from “”Good Things to Eat”.

Katherine:So how do you pick the recipe you are going to try?

Kirstin: There are only a few dinner menu recipes. It wasn’t hard.

Katherine: My problem is I’d want to do too many different things that don’t go together. Mussels with leeks, why didn’t you choose that?

Kirstin: I just chose things that go together. I don’t cook mussels. But you know, I should. I should definitely try and cook mussels sometime.

Tom: So what did we think?

Katherine: The tomatoes were the perfect temperature.

Kirstin: I was supposed to use a big piece of mozzarella and break it up, but I used small ones. And I forgot the lemon juice. They looked good, though.

“Macaroni cheese with bacon and mushrooms” from “Good Things to Eat”

Kirstin: I realised today when I was making this that I subliminally wanted to make an Italian version of this.

Tom: What do you mean?

Kirstin: I used pancetta instead of bacon because I forgot to buy any and I almost used mozzarella instead of cheddar.

 

Tom: Well, it was yum. Macaroni cheese can be all liquify and gooey. But this was more like frittata — it was just the crispy bits.