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Showing posts from April, 2015

Meat Feast Week 2

It's possible a week of eating home made Egg McMuffins every day for breakfast is not healthiest way forward, but it was enjoyable. I've mixed it up this week with some slightly mutant ' Breakfast Burrito Bites ' - Mine were tasty, but not as pretty, although I might try a different muffin pan or invest in a silicone one (and when I mean invest, they'll be in Home Bargain / Poundland next time I'm that way) - I almost made them in silicone cup cake cases and decided at the last minuet not to, and since they got stuck on the muffin tin they don't look as pretty as they could do. Anyway, reheated in work's microwave they were super tasty - even if some of the lurid green salsa I brought back from Mexico looked a little unappealing in the morning light. It seems everyone's getting into the make ahead vibe, The Guardian has a  new series of ' get ahead ' articles. I tried a different tact with my shopping this week - not planning quite so much an...

Meat Feast planning ahead and left overs

Since meat is expensive, even buying it in small quantities because I'm on my own, I'm trying my hardest to make sure I use any left overs. I had left over beef curry for lunch today, the second chicken breast - this time cooked in a creamy mushroom sauce - for dinner tonight (Monday) ). Tomorrow night (Tuesday) is spaghetti carbonara, Wednesday is a sausage casserole, which will also do for Thursday lunch time. I'll use the left over roast chicken ear marked for a chow mein later in the week. (Thursday) I'll try another pinterest recipe of mini baked omelettes with the chorizo, they'll do for lunch for work and that will also use up some of the eggs. I've got lunch at a friends house on Saturday so if I make something meringue based for pudding that will help on the egg front too. I'll get a new veg box on Wednesday too, and I've surprised myself at getting through the stocks of veg we had in, but that also means another box of eggs because messing w...

Meat Fest Continued...

 I've realised now why I was so keen to cook meat while Pete was away, it's less to do with the meat, and more to do with reinvigorating my cooking. The busier we've got, the more in a rutt it's become. Bar the roast chicken, everything I've done so far I'm trying to work out how I could adapt for a vegetarian diet. I think I've tried to do the cannellini beans and chorizo with cod (Nigella suggests this as an alternative) and fake chorizo but as so often with meat substitutes, they don't have the fat to carry it off. But I've got some nice ideas about replacing the chorizo with slow cooked peppers in smoked paprika, or maybe chargrilled sweet ones - they would work too. What I have made are  copy cat egg McMuffins  to take to work - my bowl of cereal didn't quite cut it for me this morning - now I love McDonald's breakfast sausage, and I've never understood why you can only really get it in Scotland (ironically where Pete is on tour) - s...

Meat Feast Weekend - Sunday Lunch

So, my forays into cooking meat have covered ambition and nostalgia, but that leaves the social aspect. It's been a long time since I've lived with my parents, or anyone's parents (I'm only really getting used to the idea of being a parent myself) but I love having people round for dinner. Last time Pete went away for a gig I invited everyone around and I did Nigella's sage and onion sausage casserole, with bread sauce. It was good if I remember correctly. It's not that I mind cooking veggie food for all of my friends, it's just nice to branch out sometimes. This time I wanted to test myself a little, and cook something I've been longing to have for ages, a roast chicken Sunday lunch. it's more about the act of sharing a meal then it is the chicken, but to me there's something significant about cooking a bird and it has been a long time since I have, nearing a decade I'd have thought. We did have a turkey crown when we hosted Christmas a few ...

Meat Feast Weekend - Saturday Night

So, if last night was about something I'd been meaning to cook for ages, tonight is about nostalgia - a beef curry casserole I half remember from my childhood - which means I probably haven't had it properly in 20 years. I thought I had it scribbed down in our notebook of recipes but I didn't - however unlike me, my mum was not a massive collector of cookbooks.  She did however have this 80's gem (which I picked up in a charity shop in another fit of nostalgia - her copy moved to Barcelona with her) One day I'll poach pears in grenadine and it will be the talk of the town I was pretty sure the recipe would have originated from this book and I was spot on (my mum confirmed it, and explained it had gone through some changes over the years, which is why I remember sultanas in it). What I had forgotten from my childhood was that butchers in markets don't keep the same hours as shops, so by the time I swung by at 3pm ish, on my way home through town the markets were ...

Meat Feast Weekend - Friday night

So, my first night of being allowed to cook what I want means I spent most of the day racking my brains on what I could cook (the burden of freedom). With a veg box coming on Wednesday I decided not to plan ahead too far but it's Friday night so I thought I'd give a recipe I've been meaning to try since I brought my first ever proper cookbook in the first year of uni. Nigella Bites is easily my number 1, favourite cookbook, of the hundreds that I own. It's not the most comprehensive, it's not even the one I use most, but it was the first cookbook had that gave me an idea of the kind of cook I wanted to be, while actually being achievable. You can tell by the splattered pages and the singed corners it's been well used and almost every photo in it is emblazoned in my mind. Which meant I knew exactly what I wanted to cook tonight.  Nigella's Chicken with Chorizo and Cannellini Beans   - It's also super quick to make and scoped for one, which is handy.  I...