I can’t believe I’m writing this but I’m giving up meat for lent. Partly as a challenge from a colleague, partly as a challenge to myself to give up something I’ll actually find (very) hard and partly to challenge myself to cook with vegetables more. I’m going away next week so this was the last chance I had to cook meat. Time was scarce to I thought I’d go out with a huge half-pound bacon & cheese burger - a glorious celebration of meat.
Thought I’d give another Masterchef recipe a go tonight, although once again cutting out half of the work. This time it was Shelina’s yellowtail snapper in coconut curry and mango kutcha, but without the mango kutcha…or the yellowtail for that matter.
Inspired by a friend’s friend’s blog I thought it would be fun to make our own sausages. I’d recently bought a mincer from here to help with this project that came with everything you need to make sausages. It was possibly one of the strangest things I’ve ever done but also very satisfying!
My friend Alex came to visit for the weekend so I thought it’d be fun to try out the pizza oven I was given for my birthday. It’s not quite your authentic Italian brick affair, but rather an attachment that turns a kettle BBQ into the next-best-thing. We managed to get it up to an impressive 350°C despite it being about -3°C outside; so whilst we were freezing, the pizzas came out nice and hot!
I had a load of people over for dinner tonight and decided to do Heston’s chilli. Despite taking quite a few shortcuts it still took a ridiculously long time to make and involved lots of different processes. Not sure it tasted any better than the Nigella recipe I usually use which takes about half an hour!
The past couple of nights I’ve got a bit peckish late at night and rustled up one of these entirely unauthentic quesadillas with things I found in the fridge.
On second thoughts this really isn’t a salad so much as a big bit of steak with some rocket on top - but it’s progress! According to Heston the official name for it is tagliata - an Italian dish of seared steak, sliced and served with rocket and parmesan shavings.
Somewhere on this blog about a month ago I think I vowed to try and start making some healthier recipes. I thought I’d have a go at a couple of salads again from Heston’s cookbook. The first I did as a starter - peach, parma ham, Gruyere and rocket.
Inspired by last nights episode of Masterchef, I thought I’d try and recreate Emma’s slow-cooked beef - although I decided to leave out the onion ice-cream! I’ve amended it slightly to make it easier, (a bit) healthier and to avoid words like jus. The whole thing shouldn’t take much longer than an hour.
My sister bought me Heston Blumenthal’s latest cookbook for my birthday the other week entitled ‘Heston Blumenthal at Home’. The recipes, unlike in his previous books, are at least achievable; however most do require you to have a fair bit of time on your hands. I needed something quick to take to a dinner party and the simplest thing I could find were these crazy sounding cookies!
