What Katie Ate Next's Shepherd's Pie

Growing up in England, Shepherd's Pie is ingrained in you - that and cottage pie. There's the confusion to which one is which, and the only difference is the meat. Shepherd's tend to sheep so it is made with lamb mince rather than beef. 

For me, shepherd's/cottage pie is ultimate comfort food and especially as the weather gets colder. This meal is a real comfort as I think it was one of the first meals my mum allowed my sister and I to make on our own - so it conjures up happy memories of being in the kitchen together!

What Katie Ate Next's recipe is called shepherd's pie but gives you the option to choose lamb or beef for the meat filling. I went with beef as I'm not really a lamb fan. I found a similar recipe here.

Yay or Nay: Yay

A little more effort than my version but tastier! I can't say that I tasted the garlic and cheese in the mash, but sprinkled on top was a nice addition. The recipe for the filling was lengthy but the filling had a rich, ragu-like taste that was definitely moreish! 

Daphne Oz's Outlaw Carrot Cake (Good Housekeeping October 2016)

While flicking through this month's Good Housekeeping magazine I was instantly inspired by this recipe for Best Outlaw Carrot Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream by Daphne Oz. It conjured up memories of my friend's mum's version, plus I had a few leftover carrots which I would happily sacrifice!

If you don't know already, Daphne is Dr. Oz's daughter and is on the lineup for TV's The Chew. I have watched the show before but her recipes never really stuck out to me. Apparently this is from her book The Happy Chef which I have no real desire to get but worth looking at if this recipe is any good. Now, I'm not usually a fan of celebrity/TV chef meals as I feel like they're not that original and never end up being that tasty either but you can't go wrong with carrot cake right? 

Yay or Nay: Nay

I deliberately did not make the frosting as I am not a fan of it. There were a few ingredients missing such as the molasses and I subbed whole wheat flour for all plain flour, and dark brown sugar for light brown sugar which could have affected the final result. It didn't have a whole lot of carroty/cinnamon flavour, the cake was moist when it came out but dried up pretty quick. This recipe required quite a lot of ingredients and steps to it, I'm sure there are simpler recipes that are much tastier in my opinion!

Wegman's Pork Chops with Sauerkraut and Apples

It's officially Autumn! The tress are turning in colour, the temperature has dropped, the mornings are dark again and the rain hasn't stopped - even though this is more of a Spring feature! All the cookery shows are making apples the highlight of their recipes so when I saw this in the Wegmans (grocery food chain here in NY, not disimilar to Tesco or Sainsburys) I knew I wanted to try Pork Chops with Sauerkraut and Apples.

If you've ever had a rueben or tasted sauerkraut, you know that its sour, fermented taste is delicious. The recipe also included pork chops and we hadn't had those in a while so it made sense for a weekday dinner. 

Yay or Nay: Yay

I thought I would like this, then while making it I didn't think I would, and then once I sat down with the finished meal I swayed back to liking this. The apples and sourness of the sauerkraut complement the meaty pork. A quick and easy mid-week dinner (that ended up being pushed to the weekend!).

Tip: I would rinse the sauerkraut before cooking next time to take away some of the tang!

Wasabi's Spicy Chirashi

Whenever I was ever looking for a fast, tasty, healthy thing to eat, Wasabi, a fast-food sushi chain restaurant in the UK was the place to go. My go-to was the Spicy Chirashi with a side of sashimi. Now I've looked far and wide (only as far as the internet) for the recipe but have had to rely on my memory. Recently I had the chance to go to NYC to meet a friend and I knew I had to hit Wasabi there as it is the only way I can get my fix!

As I was eating, I tried my best to remember the flavours I tasted, but when you're hungry and wolfing it down you can't really remember it that well!! This is based on the Wasabi version but isn't really so don't think that it is!!! 

  

 Yay or Nay: Yay

You pretty much mix it all together with some cooked rice and bob's your uncle! This always gets chowed pretty much straightaway as its delicious fresh as opposed to making it ahead - hence no end picture. Add more sriracha if you want more spice, more vinegar for a tangier taste, edamame or alfalfa sprouts for a bit of greenery - so it's really up to you.

BBC Good Food's Raspberry Bakewell Cake / Tart

Last week was a bit of a dud week in terms of new recipes. I had a whole stack of new recipe books but being snowed under by work I had to resort to fail proof dinners. This coming week there will be a new and interesting recipe that I haven't ever made before so I'll be leaving my comfort zone on that one.

Meanwhile, I love The Great British Bake Off (TGGBO) and the colder nights mean catching up on the latest series and being inspired by some delicious baked goods. One of the most recent technical challenges is one of my favourites, the Bakewell tart. I love the almondy taste of frangipane and a crispy, buttery base all tied together with fruity raspberries. I have cake slash tart as I don't really like icing so with the cake recipe I get to have the bakewell flavours without all that excess sugar. I could have made it without the base but it wouldn't be a tart without one! So I combined the two together; the tart base was from here and the cake from here!

Yay or Nay: mid-Yay to the cake, Nay to the base

The base was more crispy and flaky as opposed to buttery and crumbly for me so I had to give it a Nay. For a savory pie this recipe would have worked better, I admit that I did add more water and less butter than the recipe but I think I was expecting more of a shortcrust. The cake however was good, held together although hard to spread when wet. There wasn't a huge almond taste to it (I didn't have any almond extract) so was mild but worked as a vanilla-like sponge. I would however, put waaaay more raspberries in it as I thought I covered the middle but once it was baked they disappeared a little.

Bowl's Summer Ramen

I spotted cookbook Bowl at my local library and the premise is, pretty much meals in one bowl. Written by Lukas Volger, a veggie expert (as it states in the blurb) it was worth a flip through.

As the Hubby was out fishing for most of the day I wanted something fresh, healthy and most importantly made up of ingredients that he refuses to eat. I was planning to make something else from the book but I figured this would be easy and quick enough to whip up for lunch!

Yay or Nay: Yay

This was light, refreshing and smugly healthy! I didn't have some of the ingredients on the list so I omitted them or replaced them with similar items. Instead of buying 5 ears of fresh corn I subbed with canned corn, of which I used the liquid in the can as part of the broth as I couldn't get the corn milk that you would get from fresh corn. I'm assuming you'd get more corn-like flavour. I didn't add onion (none at home), togarashi, scallions or egg as I didn't think it would take away too much from the flavour profile - though I'd rethink the onion (for sweetness). I didn't have kombu (which I can't get my hands on here) so I subbed with some Korean seaweed/kelp.

Not Posh Food's Nandos Spicy Rice

We wanted to make the most of the last good days of sunshine/summer, before the snowy, cold upstate winter settled in. Naturally, throwing some chicken on the grill/bbq was an easy decision for dinner this week. I had brought back from the UK some Nando's spicy rub and started thinking of some side options. Obviously, the Fino Sides are a complimentary accompaniment to the chicken and I love me some Spicy Rice so after some research on Pinterest I found Not Posh Food's recipe for Nandos Spicy Rice.

   
Yay or Nay: Undecided

It really should be either yay or nay but there were several reasons why this was a maybe. The taste was good, not dissimilar to jambalaya it was just the texture that wasn't right. Maybe it was because I used brown rice instead of white long grain/basmati or that I cooked the rice with the veggies but it was just too smushy compared to Not Poshs'. I would try this again but would cook the rice first and then add to the veggies.