wester's Profile

From: Soesterberg, Utr Netherlands

Joined: September 24th, 2009

About me: I love cooking, I love eating, I love discovering new recipes. I have so many cookbooks I sometimes lose track of which recipe is where - though this site helps a bit. I have gone low-carb in 2010, so that's different recipes to explore again. This also means I may not agree with my own reviews anymore if they were written in 2009 or before. ------------------ I have a lovely husband and ten-year old twins who also love eating. ----------------- You can also find me on LibraryThing, BookMooch and EatYourBooks, using the same handle.

Favorite cookbook: The Complete Meze Table by Rosamond Man

Favorite recipe: Melissa Clark's Roasted Broccoli with Shrimp

Daond Pasha (Meatballs with Pine Nuts and Tomatoes) from The Complete Meze Table

The meatballs were very tasty, but I did not really like putting all the pine nuts together - it made for fussy cooking and I think I would prefer finding a pine nut here and there instead of finding them... read more >

recipe reviews (741)
book reviews (74)
useful review votes (327)

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wester's Reviews

8 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 8Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

Cook This Now: 120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can't Wait to Make

By Melissa Clark
Hyperion - 2011

This may be "more restrained" than the salad it was based on, it is still about "flavorful excess". Big bold flavors, not for the garlic-shy.

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A good robust salad, with well-balanced flavors. I'm not that sure the walnut oil adds much, but all the other flavors complement each other very well.

With rice, tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs this made a nice vegetarian dinner.

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Not bad, but not brilliant either. The cumin was hardly noticable.

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This was a nice salad, fresh and summery (my husbands words) at a time of year when fresh produce is not that abundant yet while you do want it to be. The hazelnuts work really well with the celeriac. I used butter lettuce and a handful of parsley instead of the arugula, which worked fine. I do think I wouldn't mind some mustardy mayonnaise instead of the vinaigrette. I did not think the sausages had any special interaction with the salad, I think any meat would work as well. Or cheese or eggs.

I liked it very much that she said how large the celeriac should be. I had suspected for a while that Dutch celeriacs might be bigger than American ones, and now I'm sure. One Dutch celeriac should count as two or three foreign ones.

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Very easy, very tasty. The mayo really is the finishing touch (I used sambal instead of harissa).

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This was really good and quite simple. At first it looked like it was just going to be a curried chicken but the lemon made it special. I don't think the olives add much, I might leave them out next time.

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Quite basic, but good.

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I made the variation without the Parmesan, as my husband doesn't like cheese. Simple and good.

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