NIgella's Spanish Chicken with Chorizo

Totally simple one tray bake...thank you Nigella and all your domestic goddessness!

This takes like an hour and 15 mins to prepare and cook, and about a second to inhale! I totally over filled the pan with potatoes and chorizo...too much for just the two of us (don't worry we managed to eat it all!), but it was oh so good! We ate late last night and minutes after we had finished it was time to watch Nigella on tv... and guess what she made! Spanish Chicken with Potatoes and Chorizo!!! I actually squealed outloud!

Yin Yang cookies for Becky's Birthday

It is my friend Becky's birthday this weekend!! I couldn't wait to make something totally fantastic to take to her party...the problem?? We are taking the train...hardly the ideal environment for carting creamy cakes and delicate delecatables.  I was moaning about the totally obvious problem when David said "why don't you just buy something when we get there?" GAK! Stab me through the heart!!  Ignoring David I plowed though my recipe books and the internet to find something...anything...that would be perfect for Becky, and then...I happened upon this Martha Stewart recipe for two toned sugar cookies resembling the yin yang symbol...PERFECT! Becky is a total hippy child, and short of cookies in the shape of gerry bears or peace signs there is nothing I could think of that would be more fitting than ying yang cookies!!

Cue total un-hippy-like meltdown.  These are the flipping stupidest cookies in the whole wide world!!!  I was close to tears the dough was totally uncooperative and annoying!  I've only made these kind of slice and bake cookies once before, and NOW I do remember struggling last time too...what I will say is that they are delicious! BUT I will never make them again!

Nigella's Rapid Roastini with pork escalopes

I'm not one for cheats, cept the odd block of shop bought pastry (shhhh).  I enjoy mashing potatoes, I enjoy making gravy from drippings, I don't mind making a cheese sauce, I enjoy peeling and chopping and all that... but when I saw Nigella make her rapid roastini a couple of weeks ago I knew that I would put the "cheat" label aside and embrace this side dish. 

All you do is get a packet of store made gnocchi. heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a frying pan, plop in the gnocchi and lightly fry on both sides.  It takes like 10 mins, and they are perfectly crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside....mini roast potatoes! yum!! 

I served them with equally as speedy pork escalopes, bashed out thin and dredged in flour and then quickly fried on either side with a little sauce made out of the pan juices.....oh and a bagged salad (haha another cheat!). Rapid Tuesday night supper for two! YUM!

extra-sloppy sloppy joes

I can confidently claim to have read Nigella's new book word for word, page for page and picture for picture five times now.  I can tell you the appliances she has been guilted into buying and then has given away (or never used), those that she can't live without, and her inspirations for each meal.  This, I know, is sad...

One meal that I couldn't wait to try was her BBQ mince...know across the pond by its more accurately discriptive name...Sloppy Joes!! Cue line from Billy Madison...

Sloppy Joes hold a special place in my heart, and stomach! Waaaay back in the late 80s and early 90s my mum used to treat me and my bro to lunch at an old fashioned American-syle diner in the old new section of Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto.  I don't remember its name, I don't remember anything else from the menu other than...Sloppy Joes and fountain pop!!! 

I jump at any chance to make American-style food, especially something that doesn't appear on the menus here in the UK.  I love sharing the foods that my friends have seen or heard about on American tv shows and movies (don't get me started on what they thought Kraft Dinner was) and I don't know why sloppy joes are not a staple here in the UK...perhaps they are too sloppy, perhaps they are too bbq-ey, perhaps they are too...North American.  Regardless...they should be a staple here...i mean...gooey, sweet minced beef on buns...yum yum yum !

Chocolate Pots...to bake or not to bake?

On Friday I thought that I wouild do something special to celebrate the end of the week, and there is nothing better than a cool, creamy chocolate pot (oh ok....there is cake and cookies and custard and all sorts of yummy things, but a chocolate pot is pretty high up). 

I've attempted pots de creme before...way back in March I topped off a romantic meal with these delicious chocolate pots.  They were baked and then cooled, really tastey and totally romantic.  This week I just wasn't quite sure I wanted to turn the oven on to bake two small-ish pots...

Awhile ago I discovered a recipe for pots de creme on the outside wrapper of a bar of Green & Blacks chocolate, which called for cooking the custard over a simmering pot of water...so I thought I would give it a go, substituting milk chocolate for the dark chocolate since that's what David prefers...

I rarely share recipes, prefering to inspire, but for Dom over at Belleau Kitchen...I have included this one!

Two Chocolate Pots 

200ml single cream 

1 tsp vanilla 

50g milk chocolate broken into pieces 

3 egg yolks 

1 tbsp sugar 

1/4 tsp salt 

Melt chocolate in heat proof bowl suspended over a saucepan on barely simmering water

meanwhile gently heat cream with vanilla

let both cool slightly 

beat egg yolks into chocolate mixture until smooth 

stir in sugar and salt 

gently stir cream into chocolate mixture 

place bowl back over simmering water 

cook until mixture coats back of wooden spoon (stirring all the time) 

Friday night treat for my hubby

Milk chocolate pot, what a perfect way to end the week!

the return of the risotto

I am not sure why...but recently I have abandoned my old stand-by favourite, risotto, in favour of thai curries and stir frys.  I don't know why, I don't know how...but somehow it happened.  Well...yesterday I was craving the chopping and slow stirring relaxation I get out of  making a gorgeous (and simple) risotto.  Originally I was picturing creamy rice with some frutti di mare...a dream which was crushed to a pulp when there was none at the local supermarket...nothing....fresh, frozen, cooked, raw...nothing!!! Wandering aimlessly up and down the aisles, putting cookies and crackers and cereals and things I didn't need into my basket I began to dispair. 

But then...what is that I spy?? up on the top top shelf??  oyster mushrooms? crimini mushrooms? shitaki mushrooms? SAVED!

I've avoided mushroom risotto for a while now.  I was getting bored of it...it was same old same old...but not now!! The simple addition of different varieties of mushrooms makes this simple old stand-by new and special!  I tend to avoid "gourmet" mushrooms being on a budget, but, actually...these locally grown varieties weren't any more expensive than what I would have spent on the seafood. 

Buying them prepackaged wasn't anything like buying them fresh from the grower at my local market in London...but boy did it make my night!! 

And, I must have been onto something...Jamie made a mushroom risotto on his 30 minute meals last night!! Cept he managed to make the risotto, a salad, dessert and some crispy mushrooms as well...