Two Delicious Things

Not just one, but two delicious updates today! A successful recipe attempt, which I have to admit is unusual, and an exciting free sample of Angel Delight ice cream mix which arrived through the post whilst I was away.

In the Spotlight: Strawberries

Image by Digital Wallpapers, used under Creative Commons licence

It's strawberry time! Our strawberry patch is beginning to produce several ripe strawberries a day, which is great because we all love strawberries. At the height of strawberry season in previous years we've had too many to eat before they start to go off, so many are either frozen whole, or pureed and then frozen. It's a great way to make sure we've got fruit throughout the winter.

Chocolate Curd

Earlier today I was at a local garden centre, idly browsing the shelves, when I came across something so delicious that I almost couldn't believe it was real... chocolate curd.

You can buy this glory through Amazon

I'm a huge fan of lemon curd, and I'm a huge fan of chocolate, so the idea that I could get the two together was fabulous. It was quite expensive, though, so I thought I might try my hand at making my own first.

In the Spotlight... Carrots

The edible part of a carrot, like many other vegetables, is the root. It is possible to eat the leafy greens as well, but that's less common.

Image by Sunrise, used under Creative Commons licence

Bubble and Squeak Cakes

I tried this weeks ago, back in our cabbage glut before the excess made its inevitable trip to the freezer, and then forgot all about it until now. Loosely inspired by this recipe, here is how I made bubble & squeak cakes.

Red Bean Burritos

Yesterday afternoon I swung by a supermarket on the way home to pick up some tortilla wraps, some guacamole and some tomato salsa. I had asked my stepdad to get them for me when he went shopping, but he wasn't sure he'd even recognise them and had no idea where to look, so we figured it would be quicker for me to go.

Before it was wrapped - you can see the second tortilla underneath

Mexican food isn't popular in a big way here in the UK like it seems to be in the States. When I was visiting the Mid-West we went to Chipotle several times and there was a Mexican restaurant on almost every food court, but here choice is very limited. Some of the big cities have started to have Mexican places, but here in my little town we don't even have a McDonald's so I doubt we'll be getting Mexican any time soon.

Meal Planning

All the food blogs I read agree: meal planning is the way to go if you want to avoid food waste, daily shopping trips, lack of inspiration and general cooking malaise.

For the last few weeks I've been kicking around an idea for a meal planner that takes a list of possible meals, along with a points value based on healthiness, ease of cooking and opinion (so for example something that is complicated, unhealthy and not really popular would get three points, whilst something that is quick, healthy and delicious would get one) and then generates a weekly meal plan with a maximum of fifty points per week, ten per day.

That was the plan. When I sat down at my computer to create the spreadsheet I had envisaged, I hit a problem. I had absolutely no idea how to do it.

National Vegetarian Week: Sunday Lunch

Sunday lunch is such a traditional British meal: a roast joint of meat, roast potatoes, vegetables, gravy. But it isn't just meat eaters who can enjoy a traditional Sunday meal. My mum and I are both vegetarian, my stepdad a meat eater, and we eat a Sunday lunch every week.

A winter-time Sunday lunch (sprouts and parsnips)

National Vegetarian Week - Leek and Mushroom Pie

This pie is one of my mum's recipes, and I hadn't actually tried making it before, but it's so simple to do and you can change it to any other vegetable and it'd work fine! Sorry for the poor picture quality, this was taken after a night in the fridge and it looks a little sad.

National Vegetarian Week - Macaroni Cheese

I've been wanting to try this recipe since before I bought my rice cooker, but my family are not big pasta eaters apart from me, so it's taken until now to get round to it (and I'll probably end up eating it myself for the next four days).

Macaroni and cheese has become such an incredibly American food that I bet some people wouldn't even think of it as being Italian, but it is! It's thought to be medieval in origin, and was a very upper class dish! I wonder what Kraft Foods would make of that?

Anyway this meal didn't really bear much resemblance to the bright yellow powder of the instant packets or the cheese and pasta casserole of medieval Italy, but it was delicious nonetheless.

National Vegetarian Week - Home-made Pizza

Pizza is one of the country's favourite foods (I've got no statistics to back that up with, but I'm sure it's true) and it's one of my favourites too! When I go out to a restaurant I usually just order a margarita, or maybe a mushroom if I'm feeling particularly wild, but at home we like to pile our pizzas high.

My piece of the finished product - we bake square pizzas