Claire's Cake Bake & Other Foodiness

Yesterday I started off by making Nigella’s Hot Cross Buns. The texture is actually more of a scone type bun than a shop bought one, but rather tasty and delicious when toasted.

Carry on reading & leave a comment…

What a mad few days! I really don’t know where to begin.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and Santa brought you some nice gifts. He certainly stopped here as I am now overwhelmed by lots of glorious & mostly foodie presents. To mention, but a few, I am now the proud owner of Simon Rimmers the accidental vegetarian which I cant wait to use. I also have (having arrived today!) the Best-kept Secrets of the Women’s Institute Jams, Pickles & Chutneys. I have a spoon rest, a new super-dooper set of scales, a years subscription to Delicous magazine, the very large & new Gordon Ramsay book and a beautiful Nigella cake stand in cream.

I also got my very own website which I will be moving to soon (I very much hope you’ll join me there). All I can say for now is Hubby is a lovely and very talented man – I have a new logo already – we just need to work on the website layout & content. So keep your eyes peeled for that!

Food-wise, we enjoyed a fantastic (as usual) Christmas day dinner at my mum & dads. We had smoked salmon blini with avocado, mango & chilli salsa. It was really really nice. Hubby had a sausage (its a long term joke in our family) as he doesn’t really like smoked salmon.

The main meal was Turkey with sausages, the-bestest-ever-stuffing (this is my favouritest part), roasted potatoes & roasted parsnips (in goose fat) so they were really crispy, carrots, sprouts (or for me, just one for tradition, I’m really not keen), bread sauce & cranberry sauce (i forgot to take mine, duh!).

Pudding was either Christmas pudding & brandy sauce or my mums triffle – loaded with sherry.

I will be making a smaller version of our feast, hopefully, at the weekend just for Hubby & I.

Oh, and our main present between ourselves was our lovely new digital SLR camera. My Gran was amused as I just took photos of anything that didn’t move all day long! So here are some of our snaps…

Yesterday we did our weekly shop & for the first time in a while, nothing on the menu is copied from the previous week/s (which happens quite frequently). This week we have a vegetable chilli (serves 4, so thats two sittings), a spicy lentil bake, gridled chicken salad & some Linda McCartney mince pies & sausages & chips! We haven’t bought chips for well over a year either.

Last night I made the chilli & I am not a big fan of the stuff but Hubby quite likes it so this was really for him.

Ingredients (From Delicious magazine May 07)

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 300g frozen quorn (Tescos didn’t have any so I used a 350g box from the refrigerator section but its £1 more expensive!!)
• 2 peppers, chopped fairly small
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 teaspoons of lightly crush cumin seeds
• 320g jar of tomato & chilli pasta sauce
• 1 tine of kidney beans

How to Do It

1. Heat oil & cook peppers for 5 minutes
2. Add garlic & cumin seeds & quorn – cook for for 3/4mins
3. Add kidney beans & sauce + a further 160g water – simmer for 20 mins
4. Serve with rice

We also had the suggested sour cream & guacamole.

It was very easy & the cumin really made it for me. For once, I am looking forward to the second serving of this which is sitting in the fridge.