Beef and beer stew – new recipe

Beef and beer stew Beef and beer. Beer and beef. Two of Andrew’s favourite things, apart from me and Ioan, obviously. I think … so what could be wrong with beef cooked in beer? Nothing, I don’t think. Especially when it is cooked low and slow into this delicious beef and beer stew. Tender beef […]

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 35 – lunch at Ottolenghi’s (review)

As I explained last week, due to travels to Paris for work I didn’t have much luck in the way of planning. I did indeed have pork chops, salmon and faggots, a tasty crab sandwich, plus a delicious Sunday lunch with local pals Isi and Michael earlier today. I made a speculoos cheesecake for pudding […]

Cookbook challenge – The Sopranos Family Cookbook: Braciole

Andrew and I have always loved cuddling up on the sofa to watch a tv show or film, usually with a cat or four on our laps demanding our attention. In the olden days when Netflix and Amazon Prime didn’t exist and we had to watch DVDs (yes, I do also remember VHS), Andrew and […]

Cookbook Challenge – John Torode: Aussie meat pies with pea soup

When Andrew picked the recipe meat pies with pea soup from John Torode’s ‘Beef’ cookbook, I must confess I was a bit dubious about it. The combination of pie swimming in soup sounded a bit odd, but I had committed to this Cookbook Challenge and Andrew was getting quite into it, so I thought I […]

Birthday dinner at The Berkeley by Marcus Wareing

Andrew and I went through a stage a few years ago where we went to a lot of Michelin-starred restaurants, but then we decided to buy a house and realised that going out to posh places wasn’t compatible with saving money for a house, and we pretty much stopped going out for dinner all together. […]