Sometimes it seems a bit of a waste of time to plan an Easter menu around all that chocolate and hot cross buns, and as much as I like to gorge myself on chocolate eggs (this year’s Cocoa Loco mega-egg next to Alfie for scale), now’s the time where my pregnant tummy needs as wide […]
Breakfast
Week 5 – celebrating our 20th anniversary at The Hardwick in Abergavenny
Andrew and I met at the start of our second year at university, when we moved into the same house together. 3 months later we started seeing eachother, and that was 20 years ago on 25 January 2016. Sometimes I cannot believe we’ve been so happy together for so long, especially as we’ve lived with […]
Week 1 2016 – playing with my new toy: a KitchenAid Cook Processor
Andrew bought me a KitchenAid Cook Processor for Christmas, another almond cream beauty to add to my KitchenAid collection. I’d never heard of it before, but the Cook Processor is essentially an all in one preparation and cooking gadget with pre-programmed options to allow even a kitchen novice (ie Andrew) to cook a slap up […]
Week 52 – leftovers, leftovers and more leftovers
I love Christmas but I am not a massive fan of leftovers, as I don’t enjoy eating the same thing over and over again. However, it is impossible for me (regardless of Christmas) to under-cater, so I always end up with leftovers. As I hate wasting food, I have to eat everything, but it often means […]
Week 41 – South African and Irish goodies (an honorary Foodie Penpals post)
This last week has not been especially eventful in my kitchen, although the Great British Bake Off kitchen saw the final, with Nadiya being crowned a very worthy winner. I am so pleased she won: I thought she consistently produced great bakes throughout the series, and she seems like a genuinely lovely person as well. […]
Weeks 39 & 40 – recovering from Las Vegas
I didn’t get a chance to write my meal plan last week, as I was jetting back from Las Vegas, where Andrew and I (finally) finished celebrating his 40th birthday. There wasn’t much to the meal plan anyway, except lots of fruit and vegetables to try and counteract some of the damage caused by my […]
GBBO challenge week 3: bread – soda bread and home-churned butter
I cannot start this post without commenting on Paul’s amazing lion bread sculpture. How impressive was that? I did briefly entertain the idea of making a bread sculpture of my own (obviously in the shape of a cat), but sometimes life is too short eh? Baguettes are something I would like to make one day, […]
A birthday dinner at Morston Hall, Norfolk – review
As you might expect for a foodie like me, a birthday dinner is often a very celebratory occasion, and it gives me the opportunity to treat myself to a lovely dinner, although it doesn’t have to break the budget. Last year I went to Marcus at the Berkeley … the year before that was Joe […]
Weeks 24 & 25 – birthday binging in style
My few regular fans (hi Mum!) may have noticed that I missed last week’s meal plan. This is because I was in no position to type: I was either eating, in a stupor recovering from eating, or listening to live music (whilst eating). Annoyingly I also had to fit in the usual work-related tasks which […]
Poached eggs
Poaching is my default way of cooking eggs. I love a solid white and dippy yolk, whereas Andrew likes his yolks set like bullets, so with poaching I can leave his in the poaching water for a bit longer than mine. I’ve seen and heard lots of tips for poaching the perfect egg – here’s […]