Thursday, September 4, 2008

Culling the Collection


I have a box of recipes which I have collected over the years, cut from magazines, printed off the internet or given to me. I often go through the box, culling the ones I no longer think I will make or if I have found something similar in a new book or other magazine. If I make a recipe and love it, I glue it into a hard covered book that I keep specifically for this purpose. If I make it but don’t think I will try it again, it goes in the bin.



This chocolate swirled gingerbread is a Martha Stewart recipe which I printed off her web site years ago (possibly 8 or so years ago!). I am not sure what attracted me to the recipe or why I have kept it for so long, but I decided to make it in the weekend. After keeping the recipe all these years, it didn’t make the cut to be pasted into my book. The gingerbread was nice enough and fairly moist, but it wasn’t that “stick to the roof of your mouth” moistness which I like in a piece of gingerbread. I also don’t think that the chocolate swirled on the top actually added anything – it almost wasn’t enough chocolate to give a chocolatey taste. If you do want to try the recipe, you can find it here. I used golden syrup instead of molasses.

Last night for dinner we had lamb steaks, which I roasted in the oven for about 10 minutes at 200c. I pressed on a topping of chopped pistachio nuts, parsley, mint and garlic which was delicious. We had it with a barley and silverbeet pilaf from the latest Dish magazine and peas. This was delicious! It was basically barley slowly simmered in chicken stock for almost an hour until tender but still with a bite to it, then blanched and chopped silver beet, grated parmesan cheese and cherry tomatoes stirred through. I will be making this again!

4 comments:

Deb said...

Oh, glad I am not the only one that collects recipes lol. I need to be more ruthless with mine. The trouble is I have my favourites that I keep going back to time and time again and the pile of recipes just keeps getting higher! lol

Anonymous said...

We've had barley risotto several times this winter - we prefer the texture and taste to a classic risotto. And it's low G.I. and great comfort food. Yummy. Try it as the whole meal with chicken and a chorizo sausage...
Stephanie X

Cakelaw said...

LOL - at least you cull them. I have a whole kitchen drawer devoted to recipes, and I often never get back to them becase I forget that they are there.

Shari said...

I have a stack that keeps growing of collected recipes! Good on you to check one off the list, and this one sounds delicious!