I love flicking through Bon Appetit magazine for its up-to-date food trends and inspiration, however they can be slightly unreachable due to the hard-to-find ingredients or time involved in making them. In an effort to get The Hubby to eat more veg - especially veg he doesn't like has been hard. I knew the cheese would be a major swaying factor, and even though I have cut out cheese from my diet, it would be worth it to convince him.
I chose Bon Appetit's Best Eggplant Parmesan recipe as on the surface it didn't require a gazillion ingredients and it seemed simple enough to follow. No fancy techniques or blowtorches needed - plus I've never made anything like this before. We usually go to his parents for Italian after all!
Yay or Nay: Yay on taste, Nay on workload!
This was delicious and was given a huge thumbs up from The Hubby. I just did not anticipate the amount of work required - it took two hours from start to finish! I mean, I had to make the marinara sauce from scratch, it was worth it for the taste and it was pretty easy, but it added to the washing up pile which I definitely did not enjoy! I guess you could use store bought marinara and do the rest of the recipe and it would still be tasty.
I ran out of flour so used cornmeal instead but it just added to the crispiness, also I didn't have enough basil from my now, dead, winter garden so just used parsley in the cheese mixture and it didn't take away from the recipe. In addition to these subs and changes, I couldn't be bothered to make three layers or properly encourage the water out of the eggplant but again, it was still delicious!
There's nothing better than a surprise right? By chance someone at work had left a pile of old Bon Appetit magazines on the communal table. Honestly I have never flicked through the magazine or considered reading it, but seeing as there was nothing else to do during lunch I figured it can't hurt. The surprise was, they were pretty informative and definitely inspiring for mid-week meals. Yes they probably require a little more work or ingredients you can't quite get your hands on but it's worth a try!
The recipe for Passport Pasta intrigued me as it sounded as delicious as a meaty pasta I usually make but switched up with harissa and Merguez sausage.
Yay or Nay: Yay
It was better than I expected, the chorizo gave it a kick and the feta added a nice salty element. I do have to say that actual merguez sausage probably would have elevated this but could not find it for the life of me! Next time I might make my own sausage based on Ottelenghi's recipe in this weekend's Guardian instead.
