Lily's Blog

I’ll post more frequently on this experiment. Last week I was away from home for a few days. Lovely break though.

The one huge advantage of this project is that dinner planning is much easier. Being a working mother, I usually try to think out the weeks dinners ahead. I hate coming in from work and having to think. Much too demanding!

Today we are having page 10 for lunch, followed by page 16 with chicken for dinner. Monday is page 9. Tuesday, Denis and I will both be away for dinner, so youngest mouse will be having pizza. (Yippee he’ll say!) Wednesday is page 15! And so it goes. You get the drift.

Fig, goat’s cheese and pine nuts

This is a great recipe, two minute assembly job, photo shows the ingredients with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Denis was the only one who had this since youngest mouse had cooked pancakes for himself and myself for his breakfast, which equalled my lunch. Denis rated it 4/5, he’s not a huge fan of balsamic vinegar and I may have tossed in too much, for his taste. I’ll store this recipe as a starter. I love simple recipes!

I used feta cheese which the recipe suggests as a variation, because I had it already.

Oriental bean sprout and egg noodle

The ingredients. (I’m giving these just to show the amounts of the different ingredients, which I’ll refer to briefly later.)

5 tablespoons sesame oil
3 garlic cloves
2cm piece of fresh ginger
6 tablespoons soy sauce
40g egg thread noodles
1 yellow and 2 red peppers
110g mangetout or brocoli
Bunch spring onions
700g bean sprouts

Basically the method is to lightly cook the finely chopped garlic and ginger,

Add in the soy sauce. Cool. Cook the noodles per package instructions, add to sauce.

Combine sliced peppers, blanched and refreshed mangetout (I used), sliced spring onions and bean sprouts.

Add to sauce/noodles when cool.

The packet of noodles I bought contained 375g, 6 sheets, therefore approximately 62g per sheet. The recipe called for only 40g noodles, less than one sheet. I felt that was a bit low, so put in 3 sheets. I may have overdone it a bit, but certainly preferred more than the 40g.

I put bean sprouts on the shopping list. I bought bean sprouts. I didn’t however note the precise quantity of bean sprouts. I bought a packet containing 280g,

The recipe called for 700g, two and a half times more precisely. However I preferred less bean sprouts.

We discussed the rating for this and agreed 3.5/5, comments were; Denis, too much soy sauce, not enough ginger. Tommy too much ginger. I thought it was good but wouldn’t be my favourite. We agreed that overall it was better because of the extra noodles and less bean sprouts.

Rules going forward.

a) Shopping list must contain weights of everything herbs, bean spouts etc.

b) Trust Avoca. Follow recipes faithfully. No adjusting by me allowed at this point.

c) Eat up. Each recipe is enough for about 8!

d) We agreed a fancy rating system, out of 5:
5 = The best of all the good ones
4.5 = Good one
4 = Very nice and would be happy to have again
3.5 = Would only make again with some changes
3 and below = Forget about

Today’s scores (out of 5):
Fig, goat’s cheese and pine nuts 4
Oriental bean sprout and egg noodle 3.5