"If you come to think of it, what a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else..." – P.G. Wodehouse

A Dieting Don’t

Posted: January 29th, 2010 | Author: Clare Somerville | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: | 9 Comments »

I’m a huge fan of food photographer Matt Armendariz’ blog, MattBites. I’m not much of a foodie so I’ve been following Matt’s blog mostly because it’s a good read and I like the pretty pictures.

UNTIL NOW. Since the beginning of this diet I’ve been reading food blogs obsessively. Not the best dieting strategy ever! Thanks to my British heritage I’m genetically predisposed to be a culinary disaster. My skills in the kitchen are limited to boiling everything beyond recognition, and I’d guess that I pour most of the nutritional value of the food away with the water. But these blogs showcase the best of good cooking and I want to eat it all. It makes sticking to my diet feel like a Herculean effort!

So I bit the bullet and began on my challenge to try one new recipe a week. This week I decided on tandoori chicken. The prep time was mercifully short and uneventful, and I left it to marinate overnight. Never one to leave well enough alone, I began adding food colouring to it before I cooked it tonight because I figured it would photograph better in red. (In my defense, this step was included in the recipe!) Anyway, disaster ensued and my tandoori chicken took on the approximate hue of Pepto Bismol. Not exactly the desired effect. Needless to say, there will be no photograph to document my efforts this week.

9 Comments on “A Dieting Don’t”

  1. 1 anubha said at 11:25 on January 30th, 2010:

    Aw, that’s too bad, I would have liked to see the Pepto Bismol chicken! Even food-fails can make for good pictures, I think.

    Anyway, did it at least taste good?

  2. 2 Clare Somerville said at 11:50 on January 30th, 2010:

    Yeah, it was pretty good! Even though the first try wasn’t a brilliant success I think I’ll put it in regular rotation.

  3. 3 Sharmila said at 21:07 on January 30th, 2010:

    It is actually notoriously difficult to get a deep red with regular red food colouring. You need to buy special gel colours or mix in a little purple.

    –Gleaned from my own obsessive food-blog-reading.

  4. 4 Clare Somerville said at 00:06 on January 31st, 2010:

    I read (on another food blog) that Indian grocery stores sell tandoori colouring. Amazing!

  5. 5 Chris said at 00:40 on January 31st, 2010:

    I use Kissan Tandoori Masala – a pre-made tandoori spice that was recommended to me in an Indian cooking class. The colour turns out pretty good and it tastes great (to me anyway). It makes tandoori pretty easy.

  6. 6 Clare Somerville said at 00:48 on January 31st, 2010:

    Is that just for the colour? Or is it one of those premade marinades?

  7. 7 Chris said at 01:28 on January 31st, 2010:

    It is a premade powder that you mix with Yogurt for the marinade.

  8. 8 Clare Somerville said at 14:54 on January 31st, 2010:

    Cool, thanks for the recommendation.

  9. 9 Sup Princey » Blog Archive » Self Sabotage said at 21:12 on February 16th, 2010:

    [...] as I promised in my last post about dieting, I’ve been trying one new recipe per week in an attempt to broaden my repertoire. So far [...]

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