This was pretty nice and tasted quite Indian. I think next time I'll add more tomatoes and just a bit more spices.

Not my favorite way of preparing zucchini. The addition of both butter and water, and the lack of herbs are the main culprits.
However, letting the children help with slicing (with a blunt knife) and with adding cheese were good ideas.

Fresh, summery, easy. Great when you have too many zucchini, and still worth making if you don't.

(Recipe in Dutch)

A good recipe if you have a glut of courgettes/zucchini. A good moist spicy cake.

Also known as ayran (or abdug, or laban, according to the book).
The amount of salt needed is not given. If you haven't had it before: you should just be able to taste the salt, it should not be really salty.

Colorful, aromatic, easy to make. A nice alternative to plain rice.

This tasted distinctly of peanut butter, which I hadn't expected. I didn't really mind either, but if I want my cabbage to taste of peanut butter another time I'll use peanut butter instead of sesame oil.

Recipe in Dutch.

This was a great combination of the grilled, slightly bitter chicory, the soft, almost bland, tofu, the slightly sweet crunch of the almonds and the fragrant curry-butter.
And both vegetarian and low-carb.

This was totally delicious, even with supermarket mackerel and sausages. The sausages, smoked fish, chicory and creamy dressing blended together to a total that was definitely more than the sum of its parts. Even the kids loved it - my five-year-old daughter actually asked it she could have more chicory!

I think keeping the leaves of the chicory whole makes them too big. Halving them (except the really small ones in the middle) works better.
I used balsamic vinegar instead of wine vinegar with sugar.

A good idea.

I used celeriac instead of potato and added a bit of walnut oil, to increase both main flavors, and I added a squeeze of lemon juice. The end result was very good.

The page number is from the Dutch version. The recipe is found in the "walnut" section of the book.

A lovely simple stew. I used chopped sage instead of whole leaves, and the taste of sage was quite subtle.

Simple and good.

This is quite a nice way to serve turnips.

If the turnips are older, the cooking time should be doubled.

Together with the Zuni Café's brine this made an amazing turkey - succulent meat, brown crispy skin, and very tasty.

We used a baby turkey (6 pounds) and roasted it for 1 hour, covering it with foil about halfway. We then rested it for about half an hour. It was well-cooked throughout, no pink bits anywhere.

This did nothing for me. It tasted well, but there was nothing special or even particular about the taste. Won't bother with this again.

Nice fruit cake.

Brilliant in its simplicity. Only 4 ingredients, hardly any work (except for waiting and checking there's still enough liquid), and it tastes totally lovely.

Officially this has to be done with veal shank, but I'm pretty sure most other types of braising meat will be fine: beef, lamb, even horse.

Not bad, not very good either.
I felt something was missing, but I couldn't decide whether it would improved most with lemon or with cream.

The toasting instructions were fine. I was afraid this would be very hot so I toned down the chile, but like that it was barely noticeable. Next time the full amount of chile, or possibly other spices instead.

A perfect store-cupboard snack, quick, easy and very tasty.

Great rice pudding, and easy. Except it's better if you cook it for 40 minutes, but then it wouldn't fit in this book.

For dessert, but also great as lunch (or breakfast, but then you have to get up really early or eat it cold).

See the suggestions for elaborations on this recipe as well. They add a lot of extra taste and hardly any extra work.

This was very good. Subtly but clearly spiced. Not really quick if you don't have a pressure cooker, but definitely easy.

I used goat meat for this, as it was said that was the original version, and it was available, and it worked very well. I am sure both beef and lamb would work perfectly too.

This one is quite hot, and the hotness is unevenly distributed: the mushrooms get very hot, but the chicken not so much. I'm not sure I like that. I would also only just wilt the basil, not cook it.
Apart from that, a good bastardization of Thai kitchen.
Don't reheat, the basil doesn't like that.

This is the kind of recipe you can never have too much of: simple and very tasty. It does use a lot of butter so it's a bit heavy, but apart from that: just lovely.

I used this as inspiration rather than following it to the letter.

I fried the eggplant like I usually do and added the vadouvan halfway and the sesame oil in the end. I halved the amount of vadouvan and sesame oil, and this was plenty. A nice change from other ways to flavor eggplant.

I used the vegetables I had: cucumber, celery and cauliflower. I did not use the bath of yogurt given in the recipe, two or three tablespoons was enough. This made a nice fresh summery salad.

There was not much synergy between the two components. Maybe this would have been better if I had used some of the sweeter vegetables in the recipe, the carrot and/or the squash.

Two good recipes that I will make again, but not necessarily together.

Recipe in Dutch.
Extremely simple, very good.

This does taste quite 'Chinese'. I wasn't very taken with boiling instead of frying the eggplant, but my husband was.

Next time I will egg-fry the rice going with this.

I made a deconstructed version of this, grilling the fennel and red pepper and using the rest as a dip/salad dressing. It was very good, the flavors really work well together.

I'm happy with any recipe that makes swede palatable, but it still doesn't make me smile to find one in my CSA box (groententas).

Be careful not to put too much yogurt in the mayonnaise and not to overmix, else the sauce gets very runny.

This looked spectacular, just like the picture in the book. It smelled very nice as well. However, the pumpkin didn't get really soft even after an hour in the oven, and after that it was a bit dry - I don't know if it was overcooked, undercooked or something else.

My husband thought this one should have been sweeter, I thought it was fine.

Fragrant but not sweet enough. Slightly disappointing.

Not really a recipe, but certainly a very good idea.

A good variation on scrambled eggs. Make sure the pan is really hot, the eggs stick less to the pan that way.

The sesame oil gives a nice accent.

I prefer to use less spring onions - unless he means a very small "bunch". 4 to 6 is enough for 6 eggs.

I added half a teaspoon of soy sauce, and a teaspoon of minced ginger is good too.

This was good, even though I forgot the fresh coriander (cilantro). The flavors combined well and the end result was quite subtle.

This was very tasty - basically a very refined cheeseburger.

I loved the leek mixture, the cheese/nut mixture, and the addition of walnuts to the burger itself. I could have done without the grilled tomatoes and the watercress - maybe I'll make a side salad of them next time.

I made quite a few ingredient substitutions: scallions for leeks, Danish blue for Stilton, balsamico for the port wine, hamburger buns instead of multigrain bread. I used a generic red wine. I don't have a clue what Paul Prudhomme's Vegetable Magic is, so I seasoned to taste. I added a bit of thyme to the cheese/nut mixture.

This was quite basic, but it worked fine.
My artichokes needed quite a bit longer, but then they were big ones.

Basic and good.

This is one of my favourite dishes, but I hadn't realized I actually have a recipe for it! Easy, tasty, and the kids love it too.

I use 100 g of cream cheese instead of the cream, and I often use frozen spinach. Possible additions (not all at the same time please): some thyme, some garlic, some white wine or a drop of vinegar, mushrooms. I usually serve it with a simple tomato salad.

Very nice, but not more than that.
I did not feel the mascarpone added much. Maybe I will try the tomato sauce next time.

Spinach and chickpeas? Doesn't sound exciting, does it? Well, it is, actually.

This is one of those dishes that is sure to become a staple. To start with, it tastes totally lovely. The slightly bitter silkenness of the spinach with the nutty firmness of the chickpeas, deepened by the richness of fried bread and the acidity of a touch of vinegar, finished with cumin and smoked paprika. Hearty, comforting, spicy, all of them. Hopelessly moreish.

It is also flexible - except for the spinach you might have all ingredients already. You can serve it as tapas, or cook some rice with it and have it for dinner. It is vegan. Oh, and have I told you yet that it tastes awesome?


Some notes on details: The fried bread should probably be either in or under this, not both. Unless you want it gluten-free, then I'm sure it will be fine without as well.
When I set out to cook this, I found I was all out of tomato sauce. I used an equivalent amount of mild Turkish red pepper paste instead. Great. Now I've tried both I can say I actually prefer to substitute the pepper paste.
It will probably work with frozen spinach as well, as long as it is whole-leaf or only roughly chopped. The feel of leaf should still be there, not the totally fine mush that cheap frozen spinach can be.

The combination is fine, but I want a lot more spinach. I could hardly taste it here.

If you've never roasted squash, this is a very good recipe to try. It's simple and it's very tasty.

Really good flavor, easy to make. Doubled the spices.

This was OK. The dressing was sweet, creamy and aromatic, but somehow it didn't really work with the greens.
It made a lot of dressing, about twice as much as I needed.

This is pretty much how I always make cauliflower - panfried with spices. The precooking of the cauliflower is not really necessary if the flowerets are small enough.

Sweet/spicy vegetable stew.

Makes a good soup as well, just add a bit more water and blend.

You don't have to include both carrots and sweet potatoes, either one will do. The cayenne is not needed. You can season with a stock cube (vegetable, or chicken if it doesn't have to be vegetarian) instead of tamari.

Vegan - just vegetarian if you choose to top with sour cream or yogurt.

Spicy and sweet, easy to make.

I will experiment a bit more with the spice mix, perhaps more black pepper and less cayenne.

A lovely frittata variation. It looked like the picture in the book, too.
I served this with a green salad with an olive oil vinaigrette. This was not a good idea - the olive flavors reinforced each other too much. Next time I want a salad with neutral oil in the dressing.

Very quick, very tasty. More robust than the recipe suggests - it was 10 minutes between tossing the pasta with the sauce and serving it, and it was still very good. I don't know why he suggests a green salad to go with it though, as that salad is already in the pasta sauce.