Easy, quick and delicious for a hot summer's day. You might want to add some extra spices or vegetables for extra flavour - we tried lemon juice and pepper (don't ask me, pepper wasn't my choice), which was good, yet simple.

Hey there, this is Friederike's husband, also known around these pages as 'DH'. I have decided to try my hand at bread baking and I used this recipe to get started.

Since I was just getting started, this bread did not turn out great. Lots of that is due to me not having acquired the proper techniques. However, I have some gripes about the recipe as well: it, or the book for that matter, does not tell you how important kneading is for breads, the amount of water specified was not sufficient at all, and more salt and some sugar is also needed.

Consequently, this bread did not rise very well the first time, and tasted quite flat. The second time I added more salt and some sugar and kneaded better, and the bread turned out better as well. Even then, a yeast bread from white flour has a slightly boring taste. All in all, the recipe works, but the result won't be something to write home about.

Very delicious, and a great idea for barbecueing. We really enjoyed how the different flavours of apple, pork and sage came together. It had some shortcomings, though; mainly, that the pork wasn't distinct enough and was somewhat overpowered by the cider. Marinating for one hour only might help, as might buying good quality meat. We added pieces of sweet onions to the second skewers, a good addition, though I would have wished that they could grill slightly longer than the rest. We also served the skewers with rocket salad, new potatoes and Dijonnaise, and I could imagine adding some dijonnaise (or normal mustard) to the pork-marinade as well.
Definitely worth a repetion!

Very simple and delicious skewers! The smoked paprika added an extra smokey flavour that complemented the barbecue feel very well. Recommended for family use!

We served the Exotic Rice Salad from the same book as a side, and while the salad wasn't particularly caribbean (nor exotic) it was a very nice combination.

I made this with selfmade gnocchi today, and it was perfect - even BF, who isn't really wild on squash, enjoyed it a lot. The combination of flavours was great, the timing was just right, only the proportions were a little off - I'd suggest more goat's cheese and perhaps more squash. Furthermore, it were rather 3 servings than 4 so remember to add a little more of everything.

A really nice salad! I omitted the garlic, because I just didn't see raw garlic work in this salad.

It had a distinct Far-East-Asian flavour. We had it with Roast Chicken with Harissa, and the combination of the two, Middle Eastern and Far Eastern didn't work well together - something too keep in mind, and entirely my own fault I guess.

Edited to add:
I made the very similar Cucumber Salad from the Time-Life book Chinese Cooking (I added my review to the German version I own), and that version is a lot better than this one!

Really, really good! Comparable to Nigel Slater's Pork with Pears, but much better! It had pork, it had apple, it had plenty of that sweet, savoury and sticky sauce, it was just really good. And it was quick, too!

The biggest problem here was getting the timing right. I had cooked the pork a bit too long, making it slightly dry and tough. My suggestion would be to keep the pork rather undercooked because you can still correct that at the end when you add the pork to the apples. Also, make sure the apples are still on the crunchy side when you add the pork (see above).

I was afraid that 2 tablespoons would be too much mustard, but it wasn't, it was just right. Serve with potatoes and a salad.

Edited 30 August 2011:
Turns out my suggestion doesn't really work, because by the time you return the pork to the pan you will already have added a lot of liquid, and thus you would cook instead of fry the meat. So that means that there is little more you can do than cook the pork well, keep it warm and only return it to the pan at the very last minute, serving immedeately.

Nice but not particularly mind-blowing. It needs a lot more spices than specified (try using the double amount), and I felt that the sauce was too much liquid too - either cut back on the amount of liquid added, or try to make the sauce thicker one way or other.

Edited to add:
It also tastes nice cold, especially on such hot days as these. Definitely double the amount of spices and add some salt.

I’m not yet really sure whether I should award this recipe a three or four star rating – I guess the problem is mainly that it tastes too much like typical kids’ food. Don’t shy away from this dish because of this comment, the food is tasty, and anyway, it’s ideal for kids…(*)

It will be crucial for this recipe that you end up having nicely boiled potatoes without having flabby overcooked carrots. Try not to chop too fine chunks of carrots but make an effort with the potatoes.

(*) I actually meant kids' food in the sense that if I had to cook for a kid I didn't know, I might choose this dish as it's slightly sweet, and resembles Spaghetti Bolognese. Then again, I once cooked Spaghetti Bolognese for my then 7 year old niece and her friend, and guess what happened...

Smoked paprika sounds like an excellent idea!

This dish was perfectly okay, just not very exciting. It did bother me a little that they cheated: anyone can make a one-pot pasta-dish with pre-cooked penne (especially if you assume, like they did, that the pasta won't need reheating)!

Crosspost. I found out that this recipe was published online. I crossposted my review here.

Just okay. It was quite bland, so the following day we doubled up the amount of ginger and garlic and marinated the tofu a little longer and yet it was somewhat bland. Roasting the sesames probably would have helped, too.

Crosspost. I found out that this recipe was published online. I crossposted my review here.

DB prepared and ate it while I only managed to get hold of the leftovers the next day (and believe me, reheated pasta with a cream sauce suffers enormously), so I'll have rely a bit on his judgement.

He liked it a lot, but he thought that it was just a little too creamy and not really moist enough; it's probably a good idea to save some pasta water next time, just in case. He also regretted that he couldn't do anything with the prawn shells, but then again most frozen prawns come without shells anyway. It definitely wasn't enough for 4 servings, it was rather 3 very light servings, or just a main dish for 2 (either that or he must have had a huge portion yesterday...).

Crosspost. This recipe also appears on the BBC Good Food website.

Well, it was okay, not really very delicious. I guess pumpkin and coconut just don't make such an exciting mix. It also tasted slightly, uhm, dusty? floury?, which I put down to the pumpkin - I guess I should have used my favourite butternut squash instead.

I must admit that we subsituted/ignored quite a few ingredients, namely one red chilli for the red curry paste, this Peach Chutney, which I guess counts as much as a pickle as a chutney, for both the hot green mango chutney and the hot lime pickle (where do you buy that stuff anyway?).

It's a really quick and very delicious dessert - but only if you get the proportions right. We didn't have any marsala, so I used cognac. I also used cantuccini, as I thought they would retain some extra crunch, and I served only one scoop of ice cream - I don't know how much coffee I used, it might have been less than required.

This resulted in a dessert that definitely had too much alcohol for too little ice cream, and possibly also just a bit too much coffee. Once I added another scoop of ice cream and a tiny bit extra coffee, it was much better!

I could also see this work if you use orange or tropical fruit juice instead both the coffee and the alcohol to make a non-alcoholic version.

Edited a few days later:
Nope, it's just definitely too much alcohol. The problem is also that because you soak the biscuits in the alcohol and pour the coffee over the ice cream, the alcohol doesn't blend that well. Maybe you need to turn it around, soak the biscuits in coffee and pour (a slightly reduced amount of) alcohol over the ice cream? Or just mix the coffee and alcohol before pouring?

5 minutes later:
I sacrificed myself. I had another one. I just had to try. Soaking the biscuits in coffee and pouring the alcohol has the disadvantage that the ice cream doesn't melt as easily - unless you're in Texas in summer. And the sting of alcohol still is there. Perhaps you need to briefly heat the alcohol, e.g. pour it into your espresso maker while it's still on the stove? Or even flambé as you pour it over the ice cream for a dramatic effect?

They look cute served in Bonne Maman jam jars, especially if you tie a bow around them..

Basically I liked the flavour of these, although it might have been a lot stronger. I didn't have any preserved or cured lemons so I used the zest of a fresh lemon plus a few tiny cubes of flesh. Perhaps I should have used more, as well as all the other ingredients.
Unfortunately, though, the meat turned out quite dry which made the whole idea fall flat. Perhaps they were too small, or in the oven for too long? Perhaps we should fry them instead of baking them?

Difficult to rate this one - while the quails and the pomegranate molasses combined extremely well, the preparation just didn't work. He instructs you to grill the quails, first 3 minutes on one side, then 2 on the other. However, within 2 minutes on the one side and 2 on the other, the quails were burnt on the outside, but still raw on the inside, and we had to put them in the oven for another 20 minutes (at 180-200ºC).

A really nice chicken soup! At first I thought it was just a bit too fat, but then I realized it was actually really velvety, which is due to the addition of the roux. We didn't cook it that much after adding the roux - it was thick enough as it was, and otherwise would have turned into a sauce rather than a soup.

DH thought that in making the broth, too much celery was used which gave the soup a slightly metallic taste; I didn't even notice. He also thought that the dumplings (which were really delicious, by the way), were too salty, as a result of which he added a lot less salt to the broth. I was actually quite happy with that outcome as I really enjoyed the contrast between the broth and the salty dumplings. I easily could have done without the pieces of chicken - just double the amount of dumplings, and you'll have less work, too!

It is a lot of soup - we made only half of the recipe, and it's enough for a midweek meal for four persons. If you served this as a starter, one whole recipe would serve 16 persons - seems to be restaurant quantity rather than for at home. It was nice enough for guests, though it lacked depth of flavour to make it perfect (or good enough for a 5 star rating in any case), and seems to be something you can comfortably prepare while you are actually busy with a different dish (i.e. a main course).

Quite a nice dish. You can eat these as a dessert, preferably with some vanilla ice cream on the side, or as a side dish for a main course - it goes particularly well with strong flavoured meat, braised beef, mutton or game, or something like that.

We used all the spices (lemon zest and cinnamon, as well as cloves and bay leaf - the latter two were optional); for a dessert you could indeed omit the cloves and bay leaf (though it's by no means necessary), but for a side dish I would definitely add them. The recipe also uses 250 ml red wine, and then requires you to add water until the pears are covered. As we're used to recipes that exclusively use red wine, we used 500 ml red wine which we filled up with water (another 250 ml).

One thing I would want to add to the recipe is that they are even nicer if you take them out the sauce after they have cooked, keep them warm, and reduce the sauce to a syrup, about 20 min. You can serve them either warm or cold.

Edited one day later:
I upgraded this dessert to a crumble using this recipe - the idea was good, the execution wasn't. Still, something to keep in mind for the next time.

I also found that I liked how the pears had soaked in the red wine syrup over night; also, the syrup with all it's spices turned out to taste like mulled wine - not really surprisingly, if you think about it. We finished the pears but still have some red wine syrp left over - I wonder if that would still go with something else - chocolate mousse, perhaps?

The chicken breasts were a little dry, but I suspect that was my fault (I possibly fried them for too long and/or the lid didn’t fit properly and/or the pan was too large and I forgot to reduce the space with parchment paper). Otherwise the flavour was nice. I would have preferred it to be a little creamier, and I might replace the yoghurt (I used thick unstrained Greek yoghurt, by the way) with coconut cream next time. Oh, and add some extra spices! We served this with rice and Carrot Salad with Cumin.

Very nice! I found it a little complicated to prepare, but it probably didn’t help that I had time pressure, only two stove tops instead of the four I needed, very little space, and I was babbling on the telephone for quite a while!

We had too much sauce, although I blame myself for adding too much water in a rush. Also, the fish fell apart, but I suppose that would have been due to the fact that it was cod and not monkfish (Alan Davidson describes monkfish as being 'firm, white and lobster-like' in Mediterranean Seafood, and cod as 'falling into large flakes' in The Oxford Companion to Food); nevertheless, cod was the more environmentally-friendly choice so I'm happy with that.

I cannot support Molly Stevens' suggestion to cook the pasta first and then add the pasta water to the sauce, as your pasta will dry out and cool in the meantime, and by the time the fish is done it won't soak up any sauce any more. I would have expected her to know.

You’ll have half a fennel bulb left, which you can slice and then fry/cook with some rosemary and lemon juice to serve it as a very small side dish (add another fennel bulb for a proper 4-6 person side dish).

I can only agree with everything the two previous reviewers posted. And cadfaels menu suggestion sounds really good!
There was just one issue we had: she didn't write anything about how the ribs were cut. In the section about buying short ribs she presents the two different kinds of short ribs available, both of which are bought in one large piece. Later on in the recipe she gives hints that the ribs have been cut into pieces as she mentions that the rib pieces should be arranged into a single layer, etc. Can anyone enlighten me about what she means?

Very delicious! I used four large onions (about 600g total), cut into rings, instead of the shallots. After the cooking time given in the recipe, they weren't cooked through yet, so I added a little extra wine and cooked them another half hour or so.

We filled three tartlets made with Ottolenghi's shortcrust pastry with the onions to serve as an appetizer; this was nice but not terribly exciting. The remainder (just enough to fill a fourth tartlet, if we had wanted that) we served with the West Country Pot-roast Chicken with Apples and Cider.

BF’s comment: “Mmh, very interes – WHOA, this is HOT!” He continued to compare it to a piece of modern art: it’s easy to shock people, but is there any substance (or taste) below? I couldn’t have expressed it better. That said, I’ll award 3 stars for now, with the option to upgrade to a 4 star rating if it becomes better with less curry.

For the record: I used Vindaloo Curry Paste and 200 ml coconut milk instead of cubed coconut cream and chicken stock.

Serves 6 rather than 4.

Very nice. We actually left out the salsa and only made the grilled pork, and made tacos with the pork, guacamole and fresh vegetables (tomatoes, corn and cucumber). Very delicious! More specifically, the pork had a great smoky flavour and just the right amount of spicyness. Recommended.

Edited 17 April 2013:
We made this again and kept strictly to the recipe - actually, it was too little, especially too little vegetables. Next time, we'll either make the double amount of salsa, or just add a few extra vegetables.

Edited 26 May 2014:
I must have made the salsa last time as well, without reviewing it here! I really enjoyed the salsa as well, it's nice and fresh, and love the radish in there (though it's a pain to grate or chop).

Served as a vegetarian dish this time with corn, salsa fresca, guacamole and sour cream.

Very delicious, moist, nice in flavour. A bit on the fluffy side, while I would have preferred a dense cake, but I won't complain, finally a banana bread recipe that works (somehow I've never been that lucky until now).

Next time I might add in the spices Deb from Smitten Kitchen uses in her recipe.

Quite nice, though in my mind they don't quite compare to the ones I made many years ago. I do realize, though, that memories can be deceiving - I'll have to make that other recipe soon again!

We did the oven variant, and I was curious if it would work - 1/2 hour braised, then 2 hours roasted, covered, and another 1/2 hour roasted and basted? It actually worked very well! The meat really fell of the bone and tasted really nice. Unfortunately, we left our second helping in the turned off oven while eating, and it got just a tad dry during that time.

I was also worried about the amount of soy sauce, which is why I didn't add the salt. I thought the spareribs turned out just fine, while DH probably would have added a tiny bit of salt.

I actually made this recipe around Christmas, when we were on a vacation for a week with the whole family. It worked very well, and was really easy to do even in a minimalistically equipped kitchen, and with very few ingredients (ie no need to buy lots of spices etc).

Works for baby led weaning, if your kid is able to eat from a spoon; if it's a young one, go easy on the rice, though, or use brown rice.

It was quite nice in taste, but the cooking time is totally off (it might have been right if the recipe hadn't specified that you need to cut the celeriac and potatoes in 1/2 inch cubes). Also, our mash turned out pretty liquid - maybe I haven't dried the celeriac and potatoes long enough, but even if I had, I think adding a 1/3 cup of cream kind of defeats the purpose of that (and then let's not even talk about if that's such a healthy choice).

So, cut back on the cooking time, dry well and just add a little butter and cream, and you should have a really nice celeriac mash.

Edited 19 October 2017:
Steamed cubed celeriac and potatoes for four minutes on high pressure and added just a dollop of butter and a shot of cream - much better. Be generous with the salt and do add spices - something like nutmeg or mace. Celeriac appears to have a very watery flavour by nature; I wonder if it needs to be roasted instead of cooked.

Very nice. The only problem was that after 30 min of pressure cooking, the beans (we used dried red kidney beans) were still undercooked, and we don't know why. According to the handbook they should even be done within 15-20 min, and they weren't even old. We pressure cooked them for another 10 min and they were fine.

Re: the beans. Apparently this seems to be a topic of some dispute. Most swear by 'small red beans', which in some cases turn out to be aduki beans, and in others as 'from the mexican market' and definitely not aduki. Some (fewer) go with red kidney beans. Because my only options were aduki and red kidney beans, I chose the latter as it felt more authentic; I might go for aduki beans next time.

Made with this Cajun Spice Mix.

A brilliant idea for its simplicity (it took just 5 minutes preparation time!), but the taste might be improved.

After 40 min at 180ºC, the onions were done but still crunchy - nothing wrong with that, just that I had hoped that they would be soft and caramelised. I would guess that you need to bake them for anything in between 1-3 hours to achieve this (possibly at a lower temperature, but not necessarily), and perhaps cheat by adding a little (brown) sugar.

Then, I had hoped that they tasted stronger. You might try normal onions instead of red ones, but I would definitley also chop a few of the added garlic cloves and scatter them over the onions. Maybe thyme is also just too weak; I could imagine that spices work better - what about allspice, or cardamom and cinnamon?

Last, 100g butter looked like far too much for just a few onions - trust me, it's not.

It was quick, easy, delicious, BUT... the cheese was burnt. And actually, it's not that it was delicious, but that it would have been so if the latter hadn't happened. Of course I could have known, any grated old Gouda will burn if placed in the oven for 25 minutes. So next time, add the cheese (or perhaps the whole mixture) appr 10 minutes before the pumpkin is done. Or, at DB's suggestion, place everything in an ovenproof bowl and add some butter, treating it like a gratin.

We served this with Pan-fried Mackerel with Red Wine Vinegar, Horseradish and Crème Fraîche - a bit of a mismatch, but less so than I had expected.

I liked this topping a lot, but DH complained that it wasn't enough. I suspect that it was meant for a smaller pizza, so that might have been the real reason. DH also thought it was slightly bitter (perhaps a burnt onion?) and a bit heavy/greasy, and with the latter, I have to agree. Perhaps we could use less oil for pre-cooking next time?. Also, he said he missed some cheese, but that really wouldn't have worked for this pizza.

The recipe didn't say anything about using a tomato sauce; but as it uses an instant pizza dough which usually comes with a jar of tomato sauce, and the pizza in the picture clearly had tomato sauce on it, we used a jar of tomato sauce we still had left over.

You can also find this recipe online here.

Very simple, very delicious. Makes a soft chocolate glazing. Also usable as cake filling.

A lot of work for something that tasted much like frozen cream, with bits of caramel in it. We didn't make the sauce and the cookies that were supposed to go with it as we had planned to have this together with the Spice Cake with Gianduja and Nuts, so it's hard to judge if the overall dish would have received a different rating; but the parfait in itself wasn't convincing.

Similar to the crumble cake recipes I reviewed a while ago (I wrote this review, the rest were family recipes). What was different about this cake is that all the recipes back then used a one batter for the base and a another one for the crumble. This recipe tries to use a single batter for both... and fails. The base is very wet, and I can't tell if that is liquid from the blueberries or if the cake hasn't cooked through properly, while the crumble isn't crisp at all.

I had a look at the ratio of ingredients. Compared to other base batters (it's neither a pound nor a sponge nor a butter cake - in German you'd call all of these batters rather generically 'Rührteig', batter that is stirred), it contains very few eggs - other recipes contain up to 6 eggs for roughly the same amounts of flour, butter and sugar while this one uses only one. For the crumble, it just the other way around, none of my crumble recipes uses an egg, while this one does.

My guess is that the author tried to make this recipe easy, but sometimes, it's just worth it to walk the extra mile.

Why is caramel always so difficult?

Let me start with saying that this tarte tatin was really, really delicious. Not as brilliant as the this tarte tatin the first time around, not as bad as the second time, and quite a bit better than this one. It could have used a bit more caramel (= more sugar!), but that was about it.

That said, I'm not entirely happy with the recipe instructions, but maybe that's just because it's just so hard.

The biggest problem was the caramel. At first I melted the butter and then only added the sugar, fearing the sugar would burn otherwise. Well, no, the butter browned before the sugar even made a move. I continued until the mass had caramelised, but I thought it was too dark, and decided to start again, starting out with butter and sugar at the same time. The same thing threatened to happen. It really reminded me of this Caramelised Chicory and Onion Tarte Tatin. In the end, I decided thar caramel would have enough chance to caramelise in the oven, and decided to proceed with the mixture of molten butter and not yet melted sugar. This was probably a good idea, as it made it fairly easy to spread the caramel evenly.

Also, in the beginning, I was wary of the dough, it reminded me a lot of the failed Individual Apple Pies, but after I checked and compared with my favourite tarte tatin recipe (see above), I was less worried.

It was fairly sticky, though, but then I had a brilliant idea: when I wasn't able to get it off the baking parchment, I stuck it in the freezer for five minutes - so much better! The only problem was that I then tried to slide it on top of the baking tin that I had placed on low heat to keep the caramel soft, and the butter in the dough instantly melted... Aaah!

Last, small stuff: remember to keep more than three apples at hand, just in case. I needed five, and I'm glad I used them. And the tarte needed 20 extra minutes in the oven, while we only gave it minutes to cool.

We served this with Fior di Latte Vanilla Ice Cream - while the ice cream was very nice, I had expected something heavier, creamier to go with the tarte tatin.

A few things were vague about the recipe, such as when to add the salt, or if you had to point the dough in a specific direction when rolling it out for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th time, but all in all, it worked! And it tasted quite nice. We had our pasta with the Classic Bolognese Sauce and were very happy with it.

It's very delicious, it's beautiful (though not as brilliant as theirs is - see photo, mine left, theirs right), but make sure you start early enough with preparations!

I was a bit worried that if I'd follow the instructions and peel and cut the beetroot into cubes, the beetroot would bleed and loose all colour - but then again, cooking them whole would mean at least an hour cooking time, and given the time and the temperatures, I wasn't too keen on that. Turns out I shouldn't have bothered, I had to cook them for 50 minutes anyway to get them reasonably soft. I mashed them with a potato masher, and puréed them with a hand blender because they wouldn't mash well enough.

We also wondered about the pasta dough, as no explanation is given why he uses a different recipe for this dish and not for any of the others. We had the idea that it tore easily, but once we rolled out the dough that wasn't a problem.

We used a circle shape with a 7cm diameter as we thought 5cm would be far too small to actually add any filling. 7cm was just big enough for 1 teaspoon of filling (as opposed to 2 tsp), but once we cooked the pasta we had the idea that the ravioli became larger and flatter, and that we could have added more filling. I guess one way to achieve this would be to make a 5cm base and a 6 or 7cm top, as the top needs to be slightly larger to cover everything.

We also had a small problem with the ravioli sticking to the baking parchment after the resting period. I'm not sure using a dish cloth as instructed would have entirely prevented this, I would recommend adding some extra flour and turning them halfway during the resting period (the top layer will dry out slightly, while the bottom layer will not, and will therefore stick...). This made two of our 16 ravioli tear (we made only half the recipe today, with the rest of the filling and the dough waiting in the fridge for Monday - my guess is that we'll have too much filling left over)

Regarding the flavours, I loved the butter with the poppy seed. I could definitely see me using this for cooked or roasted vegetables too, eg. cauliflower. Be careful with the nutmeg, it will be stronger in the ravioli than you'll expect it to be.

This is definitely something you would serve guests as an appetizer during a fancy meal. In this case, the resting period is actually in your favour as it gives you time for other dishes or entertaining. I wouldn't prepare it for the two of us again, it's just too much work.

A perfectly fine casserole with an unorthodox combination of flavours (cabbage, mince meat and blue cheese, anyone?).

In the beginning I was a little sceptical about how the blue cheese would blend in, but I was pleasantly surprised. Nonetheless, the taste of the blue cheese was quite strong; I suppose it might not have turned out that way if we really had used a Roquefort and not a stronger (and cheaper) Danica Blue, so it’s definitely worth it to either choose a milder blue cheese, or mix the blue cheese with another mild and creamy cheese (BF’s suggestion is a goat’s cheese, but somehow that doesn’t really fit my definition of creamy mild cheese…)

Nice but nothing special; slightly watery due to the spinach. We slightly tweaked the recipe, substituting two egg yolks with one whole egg and reducing the amount of curd cheese. We also didn't blanch the spinach, something I later read would have reduced the level of nitrat and the bitter-metallic taste; but I don't think it's really that much of an issue.

PS: I actually thought that it contained cheese. Turns out it doesn't. I think it could definitely use some, or possibly a few cubes of bacon.

I actually quite enjoyed it but DB didn't, probably because I like pumpkin and he doesn't. So that brings you back to nowhere.

I liked that it was something different than the usual pumpkin soup (which is write in every other pumpkin recipe review), and I though the chili was a good idea, though we only used one instead of three chilis - I believe they meant different ones. The rosemary (one teaspoon dried rosemary instead of one tablespoon fresh) was a good contrast to the chili's hotness and paired well with the sweet soft texture of the pumpkin. On the other side I found it difficult to really taste all of the ingredients because especially the chili and the rosemary were slightly dominant. The mozzarella in any case was a complete waste, of course it couldn't hold up against chili.

One point that annoyed both of us is that according to the recipe, 20 min in the oven is supposed to be enough. Of course it isn't. In our case the pumpkin was done only after about 50 min.

So, would I make it again? I don't know, I'm on the fence. It looked good and makes a nice looking vegetarian appetizer, and it was definitely interesting but maybe just not 100% convincing.

Very delicious! I was afraid the dough would go wrong, as it was far too dry at a certain moment - it was supposed to be a sticky dough, but with 5 parts flour to 1 part water (plus a little fresh yeast), it wasn't sticky at all. I just added the water that was supposed to be added in the next step, and the dough turned out very nicely. I did let it rise a several times, more than was instructed.

The other small point of criticism is that there is too little tomato sauce - you need about 1.5 times of what is given. I also only added the basil at the very end - I would never cook it in a sauce, as it would then get bitter (I think). And the pizzas definitely needed extra salt, although that is part of the recipe - just be warned that you really need to add enough salt, especially to the dough.

We just made a plain margherita today; we'll probably add ham, rocket and truffle oil tomorrow, and will use another cheese next time.

Edited 7 April 2013:
Mmh, pizza with ham, tomato, mozzarella, rocket, sour cream and truffle oil - delish!

Edited 30 April 2013:
DH made the dough this time, and I don't know what happened, but his dough was too wet! He added a lot of flour and was back on track, the dough rose beautifully and made a great pizza. I've decided I wouldn't try other pizza recipes (as hard as that may be) unless we get fed up with this as it's just so good, and I think that warrants an upgrade from 4 to 5 stars!

Topped the pizza with the tomato sauce from this recipe, mozzarella and grilled courgettes, a leftover from this Zucchini, Tomato and Pesto Pizza - very nice! It was still slightly salty - you can probably skip the salt in the tomato sauce altogether. Chargrilling the courgette emphasized its flavour and worked very well, though I'd make the strips short next time, just for ease of eating. DH commented that next time we should set the oven at a higher temperature and bake shorter (it was 20-25 min now).

Edited 8 June 2014:
When I made the dough again yesterday, I was astonished at how oily it gets - don't worry about that, once you have kneaded the dough properly it will feel way less oily. Also, in the beginning it was incredibly dry again, but once I added the rest of the water it was fine. It's enough dough for two baking trays / four servings, and it really rolls out very, very easily.

We topped it with tomato sauce (this recipe, sans basil), grilled veggies (aubergine, zucchini, red pepper), mozzarella and crème fraîche.

Edited 12 September 2014:
Remember that the tomato sauce shouldn't be too liquid, or else your pizza will get soggy everywhere except for the edges.

I made this more than a year ago, and to be honest, I don’t remember much, which, in a way, is a good sign: it must mean that it was nice, not excessively delicious, but nothing wrong with it either. It nearly exclusively uses store-cupboard staples and looks quite inexpensive, too. I’ll try it again soon.

We actually just made Spaghetti Bolognese this weekend without know that this book also contained a recipe. We didn't follow any specific recipe (by now we should be able to wing a basic bolognese sauce), but what we made is pretty much exactly this recipe in double the quantity, but then without bacon and mushrooms. And herbs, but only because we forgot them.

And kiddo really enjoyed it! He gave me some problems last week as he refused most dinners I had cooked for him (mainly simple cooked/steamed or fried veggies), so I was really happy to see him enjoy his meal. We gave him the sauce-covered pasta to eat with his has, and the sauce on preloaded spoons - allowing him to grab the meat/sauce with his bare fingers would have made a much bigger mess than it already was, and probably only would have resulted in frustration.

As the Baba Ganoush already contained too much garlic and lemon juice, I was careful with both, using only one garlic clove and 2 tbsp of lemon juice. Still, that was too much, especially too much garlic, as the raw garlic has a tendency to intensify over time - it was okayish on the first day, but already overpowering on the second. Otherwise a nice idea. Don't use canned chickpeas, they're very likely to be too salty, and if you cook them, make sure you cook them long enough and don't let them dry out afterwards.

I love this dish! One garlic clove is probably too much, as is the juice of a whole lemon, but other than that I really liked it, even without salt. Next time though I would probably make at least triple the quantity - one for kiddo, one to freeze, and one for me.

I thought we were trying to make eating solids enticing?

The chicken was severely overcooked (I was actually tempted to turn off the heat after just six minutes instead of ten, but I - naively! - thought that the recipe probably wouldn't be wrong by such a large margin), the sauce was way too liquid, and a bit too sour.

Actually I was quite sceptic in the beginning if this would work at all, because you're basically cooking/boiling 2-3 chicken filets in a mere two tablespoons of lemon juice. Turns out that that is more than enough, and that the chicken filets might release quite a bit of liquid as well. Here comes the problem, though: you need to keep the pan covered, as otherwise the chicken not covered with liquid won't cook - but because you're keeping the pan covered, the liquids released by the chicken cannot evaporate. Hmm, actually I'm wondering whether the liquids were released the moment the chicken began to overcook - that at least sounds logical given that the chicken was so dry (as overcooked chicken usually is). It would also mean that there's a really simple solution - stop cooking the chicken the moment it begins to relase liquids!

I would probably also use less lemon juice. One tablespoon lemon juice, and perhaps, possibly, one tablespoon water?

No, I won't write a review of a recipe for basic French Toast - it's just too easy! Just popped in to note that kiddo loved eating French Toast at 7 mths old, so I can definitely recommend this.

Very easy, and okay in taste, although for grownups you should definitely add some salt and/or tomato concentrate. The quantities are a little off - I think it serves about 3 or even 4 adults and a baby (or maybe 3 adults and two kids), and I would probably use only one courgette (zucchini) instead of two next time. Also, don't keep it covered while cooking, lest you end up with way too much liquid.

As for the kiddo - he loved eating this, and it's really healthy, so I guess it's a good choice.

Edited 26 December 2015:
I'm a bit divided - on the one hand, this dish is a good choice as it's chokeful of veggies, easy to prepare, and doesn't contain anything that might be controversial - think dairy, wheat/gluten, or even meat (not that I'd have a problem with the latter). On the other: nevermind how I cut the peppers, he isn't able to eat them because they're too hard and the skin is in the way - roast them in the oven, skin them and you'll be fine. The courgettes (zucchinis) have a problem - the skin is too hard to eat, but if you skin them (or only use the bits from the middle, they'll end up being too soft so he can't eat them with his hands. Basically, if you want him to feed himself exclusively (without spoons, although I know you can use spoons in BLW), you end up with aubergines in tomato sauce. The tomatoes, on the other hand, don't need to be skinned, it's good enough to just roughly chop them.

This was the first 'real' dish we made from this cookbook, and it was quite nice! I made a few fish finger-shaped cakes for the kiddo, then added salt and made patties for us - be careful, you won't need a lot of salt!