• RaeCee on May 27, 2025

  Smoky fish pie with cauliflower & bacon Pg 127 This pie is perfect comfort food, and easy to put together. Family enjoyed and will certainly make again.

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Vintage cheddar & zucchini slice

  • e_ballad on December 05, 2018

    We found this quite wet, despite cooking longer than the time specified. No one in our household was especially excited by the overall flavour & texture either.

• Olive oil granola with rosemary & apricot jam

  • e_ballad on September 07, 2019

    Tasty, but remained quite tacky despite cooking to instructions. Cooking longer ran the risk of the granola scorching, so perhaps reducing the quantity of olive oil & rice bran syrup might rectify this.

• Banana, oat & buttermilk spice bread

  • e_ballad on June 11, 2019

    This is a delicious banana bread. Loved the textural element of the oats & the use of the spices. Can highly recommend.

• Baked gnocchi sugo finto (fake sauce)

  • e_ballad on May 07, 2020

    Delicious. Loved by the whole family.

• Smoky eggplant chilli beans

  • e_ballad on April 06, 2020

    Meh.

• 'French onion' & raclette tart

  • e_ballad on August 12, 2018

    Burnt to blazes. Pulled it out at 40 mins rather than 1 hour & it was already too late. The filling was also well-cooked by this time. I’d suggest reducing the oven temp to at least 180oC.

• Silverbeet, ricotta & pancetta pie

  • debkellie on December 22, 2021

    It's been silverbeet (chard) week this week as we deal with a glut of home grown silverbeet! Tonight we gave this one a try.. Well almost... subbed in 1/2 cup of home made basil pesto for parmesan cheese & parsley, and frozen puff pastry for frozen sour cream pastry, used all the silverbeet (stems as well), added 1 egg to mix to bind it a bit more (glut of home grown eggs). I also crisped up the pancetta before adding to the mix (as opposed to frying it off with onion as per recipe). Very tasty pie.. I halved the recipe and it was enough for 3-4, served with a salad. Would do it again...

• Chilli beef & sweet potato pie

  • e_ballad on May 15, 2018

    Stodge. Not pleasant at all.

• Spiced lamb mince pizzas

  • e_ballad on November 01, 2020

    A delicious pizza. The tahini sauce is a must, as the lemon in it cuts through the richness of the lamb.

• Speck, mushroom & Fontina pizzas

  • e_ballad on November 01, 2020

    The quantity of mushrooms means that when cooked from raw on the pizza, the release of liquid leads to a sodden pizza base. Terrible. Maybe precooking the mushrooms might prevent this, or even halving the quantity.

• Eggplant Parmigiana pizzas

  • e_ballad on November 01, 2020

    An excellent pizza base. One of the best vegetarian pizzas that I’ve had in a long time.

• Satay schnitzels with fried snake beans and pickled cucumber

  • e_ballad on August 18, 2020

    A resounding vote from everyone: the sauce is terrible. The crumbed chicken is fine, but really, it's just crumbed chicken. The pickled cucumber was ok, but there's plenty of other more flavoursome recipes out there.

• Roast chicken pasta with sage, oregano & almond pesto

  • e_ballad on April 09, 2020

    This pesto was horrible. There was no balance & the sage overwhelmed the entire dish... & it’s one of my favourite herbs, but definitely not suited to this.

• Miso spaghetti Bolognaise

  • e_ballad on October 02, 2019

    Excellent. A great umami hit from the miso, without being a dominant flavour.

• Pork, sage and white wine manicotti

  • e_ballad on May 31, 2020

    I’ve never had manicotti before, so I’m not sure if it’s how the dish is supposed to be, but this was like really soggy cannelloni. Great flavour, but texturally this was not for us.

• Charred T-bone with oyster sauce & mushroom butter

  • e_ballad on May 20, 2020

    This packs a lot of umami. Don’t season your steak & make sure you use unsalted butter as the oyster sauce is already very salty.

• Oven-roasted meatballs with kale pesto

  • lou_weez on January 09, 2019

    A nice enough weeknight meal which we served with a salad. Couldn't find kale pesto so used basil pesto.

• Six-spice chicken pilau

  • e_ballad on March 23, 2020

    Good flavours, but needs something as a side to brighten it up. Serves 6-8, rather than the 4 serves specified.

  • lou_weez on October 31, 2021

    Really nice meal. Rice works out perfectly. Would throw in something green next time.

• Herb-crusted salmon with sour cream tartare and sweet potato fries

  • e_ballad on July 30, 2020

    Excellent & easy enough for a midweek meal.

• Chicken & bay master stock

  • e_ballad on April 21, 2018

    Season much more aggressively than the recipe recommends, as it was a surprisingly bland stock despite its ingredients.

• Chickpea, bacon & chicken soup

  • e_ballad on April 21, 2018

    The bland stock was the likely culprit, but this soup was surprisingly lacklustre given its ingredients.

• Carrot soup with sage & walnut brown butter

  • e_ballad on April 10, 2020

    Ok, but nothing to make this stand out from other carrot soup recipes.

• Sage, thyme & garlic bread

  • e_ballad on August 03, 2019

    Good flavour, however, given the thin slices, oven temperature & cooking time, these were more like herby Melba toasts.

• Potato salad with macadamia & dill pesto

  • e_ballad on February 17, 2020

    An excellent potato salad.

• Carrot, parsnip & zucchini cake with pistachio praline

  • e_ballad on August 27, 2020

    I can’t comment on the icing or praline, but the cake is excellent. Perfect crumb & nicely spiced.