u/Maxinbxl

Beef biryani. Rice cooked with cloves, star anise and cardamom, saffron for a splash of color and extra taste, spiced beef mince through it, crispy fried shallots and coriander on top, minted yoghurt on the side.

This was by far the simplest Indian dish I have made (mind you I haven't made tons either).
As always with Nagi's recipes the rice comes out perfect, this was the star of the dish: SO flavorful!

Beef was spicy but balanced beautifully, kids didn't even need the mint yoghurt as a fire extinguisher :D

Difficulty: cant be more than a 3.5 / 10
Family rating: they gave this one a solid 9. Every plate was clean. Kids loaded their lunchboxes with the leftovers, always a sign of a big W.

Beef Biryani (p44), from Dinner by Nagi — the whole book's worth cooking, go buy it.
Dishes: 25 of 175.
Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

Not from the book, this one was from the RTE website:
https://www.recipetineats.com/raspberry-tartlets-recipe/

I made it as the dessert to go with the lasagne I posted a bit earlier. Sweet pastry, blind baked, almond filling, raspberries pressed in.

Difficulty: well it's baking so that's always a minimum 5 / 10 in my book as there are a number of processes all of which can and do go wrong in new and impressive ways. You also need the mini tartlet tins which is not super common.

I ended up also making a big one (same method) with all the dough cut-offs I had from the small ones.

It's a fairly simple tart, not a decadent mega elaborate in-your-face dessert. And that's a good thing. These were absolutely lovely and I'll make them again many times (works with just about any seasonal fruit too I think). Thanks JB for the recipe!

My daughter picked this one out. Fairly long to make (~4 hours) but most of that is waiting for the ragu to bubble away. This was my first attempt at a lasagne and I think I did OK.

Difficulty: I'll give this a 4-5 / 10 as there are a bunch of components and there is a bechamel to do and if you haven't done one before I guess it can be a bit daunting?

Some personal notes: that ragu was sent straight from the heavens. I wanted to ditch the recipe mid way and just eat that with a spoon for dinner.

Secondly: I made the salad mainly to tick off another salad dressing from the book. Being French I grew up with and made countless basic vinaigrettes (vinegar, oil, mustard, salt, pepper). That was the vinaigrette. The only vinaigrette. How could another dressing possibly exist? Well these Nagi dressings have opened my eyes to a whole new world of making salad taste awesome. Who knew you could put parmesan in a dressing???

Dishes 23 and 24 of 175. Likes from Nagi: 0 (still).

Saturdays I start my second and third jobs: Uber driver (kids' sport) and cook (I make Saturday's family dinner). This was tonight's desert. Pate sablee filled with frangipane filling and raspberries. Glaze and pistachios to make it look nice. Recipe by Nagi's recipetineats

After the technical stuffed pumpkin comes a classic: gyros! I don't even need to ask the kids if they think they'll like this one, they'll love it (they don't really get a say on menus anyway). I was stoked to see that I could make my own flatbreads too instead of going store-bought, thinking I'd tick off that as another recipe only to find out I'd done the flatbreads late July. Doesn't matter I did them again.

Highlights from the recipe:

• Chicken needs to be marinated at least 2 hours (I did overnight). I'm highlighting this as this is often THE step that trips me: "Hey let's cook this tonight! Looks easy and tasty! 15-min prep and 15-min cook: yup sounds great. Oh marinate 72 hours..."
• Salad: simple, no sauce but surprising hit with the kids.
• Tzatziki: This was THE highlight for me. Like in the movie ratatouille it just brought me straight back to my youth in Paris eating gyros. Honestly I described it to my wife as "it nearly tastes industrial"... like this is THE taste of Greece. Dead easy will do again
• Flatbreads: more like BALLOON BREADS! Those things puffed up I thought they were going to fly away, looked awesome. So much better than store-bought, made a difference. Oh and a 1/10 in terms of difficulty

Overall banging success. I was bowled over with pride when after dinner the kids rushed to cram the leftovers in their lunchboxes: always a sign of a successful cook.

Stay tuned for the next one!

Greek Chicken Gyros (p24), with Easy Flatbread (p342) — from Dinner by Magi. Every recipe's in the book, go get it.

Ok let's be real here, this is a dish that I would NEVER have done if I wasn't on this 'cook every dish journey'. And for many reasons:

1. I like meat
2. I'm a bit neutral about pumpkin
3. It's over like 4 pages in the book so looks hard to do
4. wait I have to use string in the recipe. STRING?
5. I need to use a cloth in the recipe???
6. This looks like a lot of cooking
7. Will the kids even try this?

And yet.... here we are.
So I made the stuffed gourd pumpkin. And honestly it was pretty fun. For one I feel like I've been promoted from home cook to amateur cook. Why? Because I used string in a recipe. STRING!! Can you believe it? Other than that I must admit it was pretty damn good. Kids loved it too. Should have done a side to go with it maybe? Doesn't matter, that's another 2 recipes down.

Had 8 guests for a total of 12ppl. needed something simple and quick to cook. This fit the bill perfectly and with 9x teenagers present was a super safe meal! Great taste and dead simple to make.

Served with her White Rice (p335).

I went off menu (i.e. off the Dinner book) for dessert: chocolate mousse from RTE website and a pavlova. Neither is out of Dinner so neither counts on my journey, but the kids didn't care.

Recipe's in the book, p63.

Dishes cooked: 19 of 175.

San Choy Bow always a crowd pleaser at home, and it went really well with Nagi's fried rice (had to make her white rice recipe first as the base — p335). Already looking forward to the leftovers at lunch tomorrow!

Dishes cooked: 18 of 175.

All recipes from her book Dinner.

Dish #19 scheduled for this Sunday

I dropped the ball on this one slightly.

The book says use foreshanks. Not hindshanks. "Too giant", apparently. Mine were hindshanks (on special at IGA). Six of them, in a pot built for four, stacked in two layers, with a bone sticking out so far the lid wouldn't shut.

The knock-on effect I didn't see coming: I was at capacity on liquid before I'd added anywhere near the stock the recipe calls for. Wine went in, one cup of stock went in, and that was the pot full. Sauce came out sharper than it should have and needed a lot more salt at the end to pull it back.

Didn't quite get the falling-off-the-bone texture either. More meat needs more time and I'd planned the afternoon around the book's 2 hours 20.

The surprise star was the Mediterranean Dressing on the side salad. Didn't think much of it while I was making it. Tasted it and was straight back in the south of France.

Not posting the recipes - they're in the book, p260, p338 and p333.

Next up: the kids have friends over on Sunday and I already have my menu sorted!

I dropped the ball on this one slightly.

The book says use foreshanks. Not hindshanks. "Too giant", apparently. Mine were hindshanks (on special at IGA). Six of them, in a pot built for four, stacked in two layers, with a bone sticking out so far the lid wouldn't shut.

The knock-on effect I didn't see coming: I was at capacity on liquid before I'd added anywhere near the stock the recipe calls for. Wine went in, one cup of stock went in, and that was the pot full. Sauce came out sharper than it should have and needed a lot more salt at the end to pull it back.

Didn't quite get the falling-off-the-bone texture either. More meat needs more time and I'd planned the afternoon around the book's 2 hours 20.

The surprise star was the Mediterranean Dressing on the side salad. Didn't think much of it while I was making it. Tasted it and was straight back in the south of France.

Not posting the recipes - they're in the book, p260, p338 and p333.

Next up: the kids have friends over on Sunday and I already have my menu sorted!

Number 11 and 12. Doubled the pasta, not for a crowd — just wanted leftovers for school and work lunches all week. I'm going to need a bigger pot for Xmas!

Second recipe alongside it: the Balsamic Dressing from p333, on a rocket salad. One of eight dressings on a single page, so I'll be back on that spread a few more times.

Not posting the recipes — they're in the book, p74 and p333.

This was easy, quick and exactly what you need to feed a hungry family!

Still on my mission to cook every dish from the cookbook Dinner.

Chipotle Salmon Tacos p201 in Dinner by Recipetineats. The main event from Saturday's dinner. Served with taco slaw and mango avocado salsa, both p222. Salmon cut into strips, twenty minutes in a chipotle marinade, one minute a side in a hot pan. That's it. The whole thing hangs on not overcooking it. Had lots of kids over for dinner too so this was a great success: who doesn't love tacos?? Difficulty 3 out of 10. Crowd pleaser 9 out of 10 (one of the teenagers doesn't like salmon... but I also made some beef so it all worked out).

Dish: 8, 9 and 10 of 175.