A Taste of Italy

December 28th - I needed something light and tasty after all the rich food of Christmas. Meat-free. I was also still feeling inspired by my new cookbook and surprisingly had every ingredient (must be a first) for Parmesan, Ricotta, Spinach and Eggplant Involtini. And no, I had never heard of those either. First I made a basic tomato sauce. The aubergine were sliced thinly, brushed with olive oil and baked for just 15 minutes until golden. The filling was some frozen spinach, which I steamed to defrost and cook, mixed with 400g of ricotta and half a cup of grated Parmesan. I also grated in a bit of lemon zest. This mixture was rolled into the aubergine slices to make kind of vegetable cannelloni. They were covered in the tomato sauce and some more Parmesan and baked for 15 minutes. Just the job!

Thai Turkey

December 27th - Thankfully there was not too much turkey left and I'd planned a Leek and Turkey pie with a crunchy potato topping. However there were a couple of problems with my plan, namely there were no leeks or potatoes in the Coop. But I did have an aubergine and some green beans .... And a new recipe book; Easy Week Night Meals. Just my sort of book. So Thai Green Fish Curry with Beans, Capiscum and Eggplant it was. For fish read Turkey! I'd always used green Thai paste from a jar however I whizzed up onion, ground coriander, grated ginger, salt, fish sauce, garlic, coriander, green chillies, turmeric and some tomato paste to make my own curry paste. Then into the pan went sliced onion and garlic, followed by the curry paste and a tin of coconut milk. This was followed by the chopped aubergine and sliced red pepper, then a bit later the green beans and finally the turkey. A zap of lime juice finished it off.

Boiling Oranges

December 24th - By now I was on a mammoth cooking session. Pre-making gravy. Shortbread. Icing the Christmas cake. Florentines. Truffles. Well you do need a bit of a selection for the festive season. I'd been watching a Tom Kerridge Christmas cooking programme and seen what looked like a really easy gluten free cake - perfect for Mr Paleo. Spiced Orange Cake. The first part of this recipe was to boil 3 oranges for a couple of hours until they turned all squidgy. They were then put into the food processor and blitzed to make an orange pulp. To the processor you then add 300g each of ground almonds and caster sugar, 2 teaspoons of baking powder and a teaspoon each of ground ginger and cinnamon then finally 7 eggs. The cake took about an hour to cook in my oven and it was lush. On TV it was served with a Christmas pudding ice cream but it tasted great on it's own too.

The Final Straight

December 22nd - My mum was coming for Christmas and arriving off the late ferry. I'd just finished work, had had a couple of glasses of bubbly and a few nibbles so would have been quite happy with the usual bagel...but mum phoned to say she would wait and have something to eat with us when she arrived! Aah! Rushed off down to the Co-op and bought some chicken. Creamy Pot-Roast Chicken seemed ideal....apart from the slow cooker for 6-7 hours! A couple of finely sliced onions were gently fried and then garlic and some bacon pieces added. I browned the chicken pieces and added them to the onions with a glass of wine, some thyme from the garden and some chopped parsley.  I left that lot in the oven while I dashed off to pick mum off the ferry and then all I needed to do when I came back was added a bit of cream and cook some green beans. Not a bad dish for visiting mothers!

Ta Dah!

December 20th - As you have probably gathered by now,  I am an avid Masterchef watcher. I have often wondered about chocolate fondants. Warm. Pudding. Oozing with Chocolate. Smidge of cream to go with it. Pudding heaven if you ask me. And yet the words of Greg linger in my head about "the road to Masterchef being littered with failed chocolate fondants...." Well as the end of my year is drawing to a close I decided that I needed to push the boat out and give a chocolate fondant a bash. Last week when I was away Christmas shopping I bought myself some of those professional looking moulds to make them with. I used a recipe that my son had got from the kitchen of Bridgend Hotel....scaling it down from 15 eggs to 3!!  You need to whisk the eggs and sugar for 10 minutes until it is firm while melting the chocolate and butter together. Then the whole lot was folded together. My oven cooks things really quick so I put the temperature down and cooked for 6 minutes instead of  7. Just set....but no runny chocolate. Tasted great. But not quite right. Take 2. Five minutes in the oven. Fondant perfection. Nailed it! Felt very proud!

Noodly Soup Take 2

December 15th - I'm desperately trying to free up some space in my freezer by using up things that have been hanging around a while. I'd found a couple of steaks but really wanted something light and healthy. Another Jamie Oliver recipe for Rib Eye Stir Fry with Dan Dan Noodles looked like it could be adapted to suit making an Asian style broth type thing. I took some of the steak ingredients and noodle ingredients and combined them to make a broth - chilli, garlic, ginger, chilli oil, soy sauce, chicken stock, a squeeze of honey and lime juice. I flung in a bit of fish sauce and bit of sesame oil for good measure figuring that it would make things taste a bit authentic! Then noodles, mangetout, spring onion and coriander were added. The steak was rubbed with Chinese Five Spice and griddled. After it was cooked and rested I sliced it thinly and stuck it on top of the noodly broth. Tasted great.

Beyond the Call

December 9th - The pressure was on. I knew I needed to make a new recipe because I was going away for the weekend to get some Christmas shopping and I would be out at the panto for the next two nights. Having got to this stage in my resolution I was determined not to blow it now! But I was feeling awful and pretty much off food altogether. Decided on a soup. I'd been meaning to make a lakhsa for ages (had seen them on Masterchef!) so I found a recipe for Squash Laksa Soup by Jamie Oliver online. First I chopped up a butternut squash, drizzled it with olive oil and chilli flakes and put it in the oven. Then I whizzed a couple of red chillIt's, three cloves of garlic, some fresh ginger and a handful of coriander stalks in the food processor before adding some fish sauce, sesame oil, lime juice and zest. This paste was cooked in some oil in the pan before chicken stock and a tin of coconut milk was added, adjusting the seasoning to suit. The flavour was intense! Finally after 15-20 minutes of cooking I added some noodles and the cooked butternut squash. My other half was impressed...making new recipes while feeling poorly is definitely beyond the call. But I will try this again when I'm better.

Fudging the Results!

December 4th - I've been doing a topic on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with my class in school (note to self never to do that again....I am absolutely scunnered of sweets!) and we decided to sell homemade sweets at the Christmas Fair. I started to worry when I asked my colleague J, who is a fab cook, about recipes and she said that sweets are notoriously difficult to make!! I immediately rated my chances of success as pretty low. Anyway I got hold of a sweet recipe book for kids- all easy, no boiling required so decided to give that a go. Microwave fudge. Didn't set. Jazzies looked a bit like dogs dinners when the kids made them. Jellies looked lovely till we sprinkled them with sugar and they melted. Buying ingredients was costing me an arm and a leg and the Fair was looming. Eventually we ended up with some sellable sweets...but as yet no fudge or honeycomb. Needs must. Had to do it myself. After a great deal of sweat I ended up with some fudge and honeycomb to sell....it there were tears and tribulations along the way. Here are the final scores. Fudge attempts 3 Fudge success 1; Honeycomb attempts 3, Ruined baking trays 2, Edible honeycomb 1. However this tale has a silver lining- all this sweet making has quite put me off sweets.....very good for the diet!

Quick and Easy Treat

December 3rd - Mid week dinners have to be speedy, especially in the business of school life in December. I had been lucky enough to grab some duck breasts from the butcher at the weekend because I'd seen a recipe that I really wanted to try in a Delicious Magazine. Five-Spice Duck with Ginger, Onion and Orange Salad.  What's not to like about that combo of ingredients....and a bonus when you don't need many ingredients in a recipe. The skin on the duck was slashed and rubbed with Chinese five-spice powder then cooked skin side down for 10 minutes first, then drained of fat and drizzled with honey and put in the oven for another 10 minutes. Easy. The red onion was finely sliced and covered in boiling water for 5 minutes while 3 oranges were sliced (or segmented). The salad was dressed with 4 pieces of crystallised stem ginger, 4 tablespoons of ginger syrup, a tablespoon of white wine vinegar that had been heated through then the whole lot garnished with coriander. Gorgeous.