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To conclude the month of January, we made Papa al Pomodoro [recipe]. This involved chopping two vegetables, cutting some stale bread, opening and emptying three tins, some stirring and seasoning and pouring of stock, all into just one pan. For that reason, this meal was fabulous, and just what the doctor ordered. It was also hot, as it was soup, which was perfect for the cold winter weather.

Taste wise, this was ok, nothing to write home about. It was predominantly a tomato soup, with some beans and bread thrown in for texture and variation. Tomorrow, this Master Recipe is reworked as Ribollita con Verdure. There will be pancetta and red wine and courgette and kale added to the bread soup. Sounds promising.

Well, we have survived the first month, without too much hardship. There have been some good meals- lamb chops and steak spring to mind, and some absolute humdingers; meatball pizza with popcorn, anyone? It is extremely strange to be able to look at pictures of the everyday meals that you have consumed. It is intriguing but also strangely repulsive. Somehow straight-forward photographs of food, rather than stylised food photographs, often have an unpleasant quality. I’m not sure if it is because of the nature of this particular project that the images are slightly disturbing to me, perhaps they are informative to others. Presumably the image of the food is intrinsically linked to the experience of cooking and eating it; the meal which we had no choice over, the meal we cooked because the book said so. Interestingly enough, although we are frequently exasperated by the recipes we have in store, there has been no discussion of abandoning the project. I think it is incomprehensible to some people that we are going to follow through on this and commit to it for a year. Maybe that says something about us. We’re certainly stubborn.

This meal was the most expensive, labour-intensive, dirty-dish generating, overindulgent, misnamed burger and fries that we have ever had. I went to the grocery store today to buy the jumbo shrimp and chorizo sausage for the Paella Burgers and Spanish Fries with Pimiento Mayonnaise [recipe]. I picked up a loop of the hard Spanish chorizo for $6.99, and went to the fish counter. It seemed a little stingy to request 2 jumbo shrimp, so I asked for 4: it was $9.00. I am still in shock 5 hours later, $16 for burger toppings. I reasoned that we could use the other shrimp in another meal, but after looking through the book there is no call for jumbo shrimp for the next 100 recipes at least. So we just ate all the shrimp, in possibly the most unimaginative way possible. Ok, moving on.

For the meal itself, we made yet more chicken burgers, and oven roasted some frozen fries. The fries were ultimately tossed in butter, garlic, parsley and salt, transforming them, like magic, into “Spanish Fries”. Under normal circumstances, I’d have no idea if we’d eaten something similar in the last month, however this month I have some unavoidable evidence. We had these exact same fries 20 days ago, only then they were “Funky Fries” and the butter was melted in the microwave, rather than in a saucepan. Other than that, it was the exact same dish.

The chicken burger became a “Paella Burger” because it sat on a piece of fried chorizo, and was topped with a butterflied, fried jumbo shrimp. In taste, however, this was still a chicken burger. In practice, the burger was too tall to even attempt to eat within the bun. Unfortunately, this was another case of too many elements combining for novelty recipe value, rather than being a good, solid recipe. With such expensive ingredients, why not just make paella?

To be fair, the Pimiento Mayonnaise was named correctly. It was mayonnaise blended in the food processor with pimiento peppers, parsley and hot sauce. It tasted reasonable, but the use of the food processor pushed the dirty dish tally into the “far too much trouble” category. One bowl, one skillet, two saucepans, one chopping board, various utensils, and the food processor bits are all piled up in kitchen sink, where they’ll have to stay till tomorrow.

The individual elements were all ok; some were better than others. The charred bun was tasty, the burger was like a chicken burger (just like yesterday), the fried chorizo was salty and entirely unnecessary, the shrimp was fine but totally out of place, and the mayonnaise was better than plain but not worth the effort. The fries were nice, but oven fries usually are, even without the “Spanish” garlic butter.

Tomorrow, Papa al Pomodoro which is a tomato-based soup with stale bread and beans. Sounds pretty good, if only because it is made in one saucepan, and not even in one of the ones waiting to be washed. Got to be grateful for the small things.

Meal 29, Beef and Chicken Fajita Burgers with Seared Peppers and Onions [recipe] resulted in a mountain of food. Two inch-thick burgers, one beef and one chicken, were topped with fried vegetables and served in buns, with a side of refried beans. This forces the “compare and contrast the following burgers” question, and the beef burger wins every time. It would be nice to be able to use the old essay-summary cop-out that they are both worthy, just different, but unfortunately that wasn’t really the case. The chicken burger was blander, drier and less succulent than its beef counterpart. It tasted like a low-fat alternative, which in itself would have been ok, but next to the beef burger it seemed like a second rate substitution.

The beef burger was good, as were the peppers and onions seared then mixed with tomatillo salsa. Refried beans taste marginally better than they look fortunately, but we have a huge amount left over for Baby A to get through (she gets all the highlights). We took the photograph, then divided the meal into two. We had half each of two burgers, and will have the rest for lunch tomorrow.

This meal led to a long discussion of our classification system. We are feeling the need for a 3 1/2 stars category. The truly awful meals get 1 star, the truly outstanding get 5 stars, and the rest somewhere in between. This is better than average (3 stars) but is it a good, solid 4 stars? Tricky decision. It was better than anticipated, but again we felt the gimmick factor of the two burgers detracted from what was a reasonable straightforward meal. Let’s give it a 3 and review again in a couple of days.

Today I stocked up on meat at Costco, then brought the enormous box full of animal produce home to divide into individual servings. We must have enough ground beef, chicken breasts, and sausages to get us through the next few months of Rachael Ray. There’s enough for a family of six to eat for a year with a normal rotation of meat meals. I had to clear out the fridge and freezer to make room. What should I find languishing in the back of the fridge but our trusty old jar of pesto? And it was full of mold. Neglected, that’s what the pesto has been. Poor thing.

Tomorrow, we have chicken burgers topped with prawns and chorizo sausage. The three meat medley is packaged under the name, Paella Burgers and Spanish Fries with Pimiento Mayonnaise. We’ll let you know.

Pasta with Spinach, Mushrooms, Pumpkin and Hazelnuts reworked the recipe from yesterday, minus the sausage. Predominantly, this meal tasted very green; it had that grassy taste that comes from cooking with a whole block of frozen spinach. Yesterday the pumpkin gave an orangey-brown tinge to the food. Today the orange of the pumpkin met the green of the spinach in a celebrity vegetable smackdown, and they both conceded early in proceedings. With a splash of cream, the pasta sauce looked exactly like sludge. The kind that is made out of some sort of algae. Nice.

However, this was a tasty offering enjoyed by all, despite appearances. The hazelnuts on top offered a nice crisp counterpart to the slime of the sauce, and the flavours were pretty subtle and harmonious. As an update to the musings from yesterday, Baby A loved loved loved the canned pumpkin. If only we’d started feeding her pumpkin sooner, maybe she wouldn’t be so pale and we wouldn’t be so strapped for cash.

Tomorrow, we are having Beef and Chicken Fajita Burgers with Seared Peppers and Onions. Don’t be fooled into thinking that we are making a burger made with both beef and chicken, or even a bun enclosing a beef burger topped with a chicken burger. No, tomorrow Rachael Ray instructs us to make two burgers per person; one chicken, one beef. I guess grocery shopping tomorrow will mainly consist of buying a pile of meat products for the week.

The Pumpkin Pasta with Sausage and Wild Mushrooms wasn’t tremendously photogenic, but it was tangy, creamy, spicy and Christmassy all at once. The seasonal element came from the cinnamon and nutmeg, rather than the pumpkin. The pumpkin blended with the sausage, mushrooms, white wine, stock and cream to create a great pasta sauce. Once the nutmeg and cinnamon were added, the balance of flavours became intriguing; complicated but well balanced. We had never considered using pureed vegetables to thicken a basic sauce before we embarked on this project. Between this and the butternut squash macaroni cheese, we may have adopted a whole new approach to wholesome sauce-making.

About 10 months ago, Baby A started to eat solid food. We’d either spend the time and cook and purée fruit and veg, or we’d just spend the money and buy the individual baby food servings. A few weeks in, I realised that little pots of unsweetened apple sauce were cheaper than baby apple purée, and much easier than making your own. If we ever have another baby, they will be fed on tins of pumpkin puree. It’s cheap, looks and tastes like all baby food, and one tin could feed a baby for a week. Tomorrow we’ll see if the 15 month old can be tempted to regress for the sake of cheap and cheery nutrition.

Speaking of tomorrow, this meal will be reworked into a vegetarian version, Pasta with Spinach, Mushrooms, Pumpkin and Hazelnuts. The following day we get a beef burger and a chicken burger. Obviously we need to compensate for the meat-free evening.

Tonight we thoroughly enjoyed Florentine Meatballs [recipe]; delicious large oven-baked balls of turkey with spinach, garlic and onion. (Lame ball jokes; they never get old). They were light and tasty, with a good creamy cheese sauce. Our only observation was that they’d have been even better made with pork, and not just so that we could make yet more double entendres.

This really was a meal that could be thrown together very easily if you had the ingredients on hand. The meatballs took about 10 minutes to assemble, including chopping time. They were put on a cookie sheet and baked in the oven for 20 minutes. We cooked them for a little longer to get some colour on the surface, so overall this meal took 35 minutes to complete. The sauce was a cheese sauce made from scratch. Maybe I am improving in sauce-making with the recent practice, but this took only a few minutes of attention. Served with a green salad, there was plenty of time to wander around waiting for the food to be cooked. Personally, I spent some of that time charging the battery for the camera. Evidently I am incapable of learning from mistakes.

All in all though, this seems like a great basic dish to be able to cook at short notice. This could easily be served with pasta, or in soup, or even as individual meatloaves. Had we not eaten every last bit, we could have tried it cold. It would probably be pretty good in sandwiches, I would imagine.

Tomorrow, we will debut Pumpkin Pasta with Sausage and Wild Mushrooms. This sounds like the perfect meal when it’s supposed to be 3?F/ -16?C outside. It’s the first time we’ve ever bought pumpkin in a tin, let’s see if we’ll do it again next year.

Tonight we remade dinner from last night, but this time we added ground beef and cooked pasta. This was surprisingly satisfying, like a spiced up chilli pasta sauce. Pasta and celery is always a bit of an odd thing, but this meal was tasty and good. I have to admit that minutes after the photo was taken, I added a handful of frozen peas to the meal, as I have been in withdrawal from their yummy green goodness. A great addition, maybe I should write in to Rachael Ray with my culinary insights!

A few minutes before the photo was taken, we realised that the camera battery needed to be charged. So dinner had to sit waiting while the battery charged enough to take some pictures. This happened yesterday and the day before. And no, the battery isn’t faulty, but we could well be.

Tomorrow, Florentine Meatballs. The instructions say form the mixture into large balls. I’ll say no more.

When we first moved from the UK to the US, we just missed the “fall leaves”. So many people that we spoke to mentioned what a shame it was that the weather had just turned, and that the best of the leaves were over. We were led to believe that it was an unbelievably spectacular sight, utterly, breathtakingly beautiful. Fast forward the best part of the year, and we saw the turning leaves. It was quite pretty, sometimes striking, but we didn’t find it show-stopping. I may have deeply offended someone by referring to the sight as “vomit-coloured clouds”, but in my defense I was probably drunk. Ahem. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is not that the foliage isn’t beautiful, but that it didn’t particularly appeal to us. It didn’t make any great impact on our internal aesthetic barometers, probably because we both grew up by the sea. The ocean will always be that special place where to us things register as profoundly beautiful. Even where other people see a run-down British seaside resort, to me it is something else entirely.

The place in which we grow up impacts us in so many ways, particularly when you move away from it. The role nostalgia plays is enormous. L eats pickled herring on rye bread for lunch on most days when he’s home. That makes me gag a little. I love beans on toast which makes L run from the kitchen. We both try and tempt Baby A over to our side, with equal lack of success to date. There are whole cuisines of the world that we grew up not knowing about, some of which we love as we try them, some of which not so much. Mexican food is one of those cuisines that we don’t eat very often, and certainly don’t crave. When it’s good it can be very good, but we don’t tend to cook it or go out to eat it at all.

The meal tonight, Salsa Stoup and Double-Decker Baked Quesadillas [recipe] seemed promising in that it was full of vegetables. It tasted very much like warm salsa, indeed that was pretty much it. The quesadillas were pretty blah, although we were out of scallions so maybe that was the missing element. Overall, we didn’t particularly enjoy the food tonight. It was decent, reasonably tasty, but not our cup of tea. L ate the soup but not the quesadilla, I ate the quesadillas but not much of the soup. Reviews of this meal on the Food Network website are consistently good, reinforcing the view that this is good tasty food, just not for us.

Still, at least this project is forcing us to attempt to open our minds a little and step out of our comfort zones. Tomorrow we have Taco Chili-Mac, which sounds like a return to macaroni cheese central. However, it is just a reworking of tonights soup, with ground beef and pasta. I don’t know which would be better…

Boo’s Smoky Chicken Patties on Buttered Toast [recipe] looks disturbingly like a tuna salad sandwich in the photo above. It didn’t taste that way, you’ll be pleased to hear; unfortunately it wasn’t that tasty. There was something about this burger that just didn’t quite hit the right spot. Despite the garlic, onion, parsley, paprika and grill seasoning, this was curiously bland and non-descript. Maybe it was the fact that it was served on toast with some spinach- it could certainly have benefited from a dollop of ketchup at least. This would be a reasonable addition to a fuller meal- either served with a plate of well-prepared vegetables or with something like the macaroni cheese from last night. As it stands, this is currently neither a good substitute for a burger, nor a great new sandwich.

Moving on, an additional recipe was provided for desert, which I had to say I was pretty excited about. The reasoning behind its inclusion was that it included three of Boo’s favourite foods (Boo being Rachael Ray’s dog); Boo’s Vanilla Ice Cream with Chunky Peanut Butter Sauce and Gingersnaps. Two of the elements were great, the ice-cream and the gingersnaps. The sauce was a disappointment, almost ruining the ice-cream, although I soldiered through for the sake of research. L did not even try the sauce, which was not a bad decision in hindsight. The sauce was made of peanut butter, honey, cinnamon and milk. I “eyeballed” the amounts, as instructed, so maybe I got the proportions wrong. It seemed far too sweet, sickly-sweet, yet also too runny. The chunks of peanuts didn’t add anything, they seemed out of place. I should say for the record that I am not a massive fan of peanut butter, in fact I just started eating it again recently. But, it is a very rare occurrence when I don’t enjoy a desert, of any kind, especially one with ice cream. There’s a reason that Baby A was called the Cake Baby for a long, long time.

Tomorrow, we move away from the food of Boo, and back into the world of “Stoup”. Salsa Stoup and Double-Decker Baked Quesadillas sounds pretty good. We’ll be back tomorrow with our opinions on that.

After our earlier brush with four consecutive editions of macaroni cheese, we were not particularly looking forward to the sequel; Boo’s Butternut Squash Mac-n-Cheese. However, despite our many preconceptions, this is a remarkably tasty dish that we all really enjoyed. I never would have thought of adding squash to a creamy pasta sauce, but it adds a delicate flavour, a good yellow colour and a richness which is just as satisfying as the heavier white-sauce based cheese sauces. We didn’t have frozen cooked butternut squash, only a fresh one left over from before we started this endeavour. (Wow, squash really does last a long time without going mouldy; a very economical vegetable it would seem.) Having only oven-baked squash into fake fries and made it into soup, I had no idea how to just cook it. According to the trusty internet, it can be steamed, boiled, microwaved or baked (recommended). I simmered it in a little water then squished it with a potato masher. Had we used frozen squash, we’d have fewer dirty dishes to wash, and this would have been even easier. I wouldn’t say that this was incredibly simple to make, but it was straightforward and the instructions were clear.

The dish is a little same-y, in that the flavour is even throughout. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing (see our love of pesto). It is suggested that this meal is a side dish for chicken sandwiches, or eaten with a green salad. We served it on a bed of spinach for a bit of contrast. All in all, we would highly recommend this method for making macaroni cheese. Winner!

This was apparently one of Boo’s (Rachael Ray’s dog) favourite meals. She liked onion and garlic, and would take butternut squash over steak. Tomorrow, when the bonus recipe is for an ice cream desert with a peanut sauce, we are told that Boo liked Skippy brand peanut butter. How do you find that out? Did she do taste trials? So far the dog seemed to have had good taste. Let’s see how Boo’s Smoky Chicken Patties on Buttered Toast, and Boo’s Vanilla Ice Cream with Chunky Peanut Butter Sauce and Gingersnaps, shape up.