Nigella Makes Us All Look Bad

Nigella Lawson makes cooking look way too easy.  (Except the physical cooking aspect.  If you have ever seen her show she looks all spasy all the time and I'm pretty sure there is hair and boobs in every dish she makes.) So easy you just know you should have already been able to make that dish with no help...if you were better and more talented.  She even writes books on the subject making her argument all the more convincing.  It really does not help my ego to know that the recipes are in fact just that delicious and easy to create.

I digress.  Today I took a recipe from Nigella's Book, aptly (and quite frankly, a little egoistically) titled Nigella Express.  I love this book.  It's cute and pink with little 50s style cartoons to introduce each chapter and, dammit, all the food is good and simple.  I guess if you pretend you made the recipe yourself instead of borrowing it for a limited time from a cookbook, there is no way she can make you look bad.  Unfortunately for me I've always been a bad liar.  

I decided to make a potato gratin, a pretty healthy one, by gratin standards.  

Cut up a couple of potatoes and onions and bring to a boil them with 1 1/3 cup of milk, three tablespoons of alcohol, salt & pepper.  

(I used beer although the book says white wine.  But I didn't want to buy a bottle of wine and have it sit in the bottom of my fridge all lonely and unused save for three tablespoons.)

Cook up some mushrooms with olive oil and garlic while the potatoes simmer.  

Mix the two together and smell the magic happen!

I baked this a little longer than was probably necessary. (425 degrees) The recipe says 45 minutes but its really unnecessary if you didn't use the whole three potatoes it calls for in the book.  Just keep checking on it after 30 minutes.  It's supposed to be creamy inside and crispy on top.

The finished project.  I think this will be great with any kind of meat or an couple fried eggs.