I had intended on following Bill Granger’s recipe for Lamingtons themselves but the sponge mix didn’t set and with 6 eggs in it I wasn’t overly surprised. So after a quick re-think I whizzed up a batch of Nigella’s trusty cupcakes and then topped each with lamington icing.

I wont bore you with the cupcake recipe now I’ll just tell you about the chocolatey topping…

Ingredients (to top 12 cupcakes)

• 50g dark chocolate
• 125g icing sugar
• 5g butter
• 30ml milk
• 60g desiccated coconut

Method

1. Put icing sugar, chocolate, milk and butter in a heatproof bowl & melt over a simmering pan of water
2. Put the coconut on a plate
3. Dip each cupcake into the melted icing mix, ensure each cake has a generous coating
4. Dip into the coconut
5. Leave to dry

Whilst this recipe isn’t a runny yolk one, it is another tasty way to start your day

Ingredients (for 2 people)

• 4 free range eggs, as fresh as you can lay your hands on ;0)
• 2 tortilla wraps, rolled & sliced into strips
• Tablespoon oil
• 1 tomato, de-seeded & chopped
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 1 green chilli – though I may swap for a red chilli or use 2 for more heat next time

Method

1. Heat oil in pan & then add tortilla wraps until crispy golden brown
2. Remove these strips to a plate & fry the tomato, onion & chilli for 4 minutes (no need to add more oil)
3. Whilst cooking whisk the eggs together with a pinch of salt & pepper
4. Add strips of tortilla back into the pan
5. Add eggs & mix gently
6. The eggs will set into an omelette style with the tortilla pieces
7. Serve

Recipe courtesey of Nigella, Express

After the buns were cooked I started on preparing a three course dinner as we had invited my parents around. Inspiration for the dinner came courtesy of Delicious Magazine.

For starters we had roasted parsnip and parmesan soup:

Followed by pancetta-wrapped salmon with saffron and herb rice, served with crushed new potatoes and purple sprouting broccoli:

The salmon was surprisingly easy to make despite having to skin the whole side of a fish! & it looked rather impressive before and after cooking:

Those sticking to Good Friday traditions didn’t eat the pancetta & I substituted all chicken stocks for vegetable stock.

And we finished with Nigella’s molten chocolate baby cakes:

On Friday evening a made a rather enjoyable dinner of sole goujons with dill mayonnaise and a buttery jacket potato. It was surprisinglyeasy to make – the sole goujon recipe is from Nigella Express.

On Saturday evening we ate out at Est Est Est at the Albert Dock. We had reasonably high expectations as we spent 06/07 New Year’s Eve there & it was really nice. Unfortunately last night the staff & food let the lovely surroundings down. My porcini risotto was a very small portion, in the largest ever bowl & Hubby’s pizza came covered in mushrooms – which it did not mention on the menu but we were out for a friends birthday & having everyone together was really nice. Afterwards we just about managed to grab a seat at the Pump House pub as we seemed to finish the meal at the same time as Ringo & Co. who had officially opened the Liverpool Echo Arena next door.

Tonight we ate at my parents again as its my brothers birthday tomorrow – but unfortunately he has been poorly so we ended up enjoying a creamy chicken & tarragon pie followed by marmalade pudding without him :( (Happy Birthday for tomorrow Michael xx)

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…

We* have been quite busy recently though so if you’ll allow me, I’m using that as my excuse. You see we moved into our two bedroom flat just over two and a half years ago. But until now it’s really been a one bedroom flat with a spare room so full of junk you couldn’t move in it. So we’ve emptied it, bought some carpet, have had a trip to Ikea, built some furniture, put pictures & blinds up and generally had a big clear out and have then (in a tidy manner, of course) have put back in what we need.

Its a really nice room now, even if I do say so myself. There is just one thing that’s missing and that’s a small 2 seater sofa. So another trip to Ikea is needed but we just need a vehicle bigger than out ickle C2.

(*I say we but I’m sure Hubby will disagree. But seriously, nothing ever gets done with out a project manager/supervisor/general all round bossy boots…)

Since making the Christmas cake I have cooked, I just haven’t had enough time to blog about it. So here is a little summary with pictures:

My first ever Toad In The Hole (Jamie recipe) – severed with the suggested red onion gravy it was delicious and I was very proud of my yorkshire pudding.

We followed this up with some Toffee Apple Crumble – in fact we’ve had this twice. Once made with normal eating apples and once with bramleys (rather than the 50/50 mix suggested by Simon Rimmer). We both much preferred the bramley only one as the sweet sauce is more than enough sugar to match the tangy bramleys.
I also turned this pile of chopped vegetables…

into one of our favourite soups – Lentil and Chestnut Soup

Ingredients

• 1 small onion
• half leek
• 1 carrot
• 1 stick celery
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 225g red lentils
• 1.5 litres vegetable stock
• 225g cooked chestnuts
• double cream to serve (optional & not really needed)

How To Do It

1. Finely chop the onion, leek, carrot and celery.
2. Heat the oil in the pan, add the chopped vegetables and let sweat until soft.
3. Add the lentils and stir, then add the stock.
4. Bring to the boil and simmer until the lentils are very soft (about 40 minutes).
5. Add the chestnuts and simmer for a further 20 minutes or so.
6. Liquidise (I used my hand blender) until smooth.
7. Sprinkle each full bowl of soup with parsley and lace with cream as required.
8. Consume with lots of crusty bread and butter.

Its truly delicious.

Whilst I’ve been AWOL we also had Children In Need day at work and that means one thing – cakes, cakes and more cakes. I made my cupcakes with pink & white icing with flowers and I also tried some vanilla shortbreads – they were ok but a little soft & not quite as nice as I’d expected. Here they are among some of the other cakes brought in by my colleagues…

And last, but not least. Here is a lovely sunrise we had the week before last.

Last weeks poached egg were two of the best poached eggs I’ve cooked. We invested in these contraptions a few weeks ago & they do help the egg stay together – but it confuses me just how you get the egg in the holder & then in the water without the whites running through the holes?!

Last week I kind of positioned the holder on the side of the pan, cracked the egg & in the midst of throwing the shell down, I gently maneuvered the holder to the bottom of the pan. Anyway, the result, as I say was not too bad. the only problem was we only had a white loaf (albeit organic) in the freezer…

Today I tried to make Oeufs en Cocotte from Nigella Express. Basically you butter a ramekin & crack your egg into it. Sprinkle with salt & add a tablespoon of double cream. You then pop the ramekins in a dish & top up half way with water – pop in the oven for 15 minutes at 190 °c and you get this (sorry the photo does it no justice at all and it’s blurry) -

Yes it was ok, too salty & next time I don’t think it needs the cream. Nigella suggest 1/4 teaspoon of truffle oil on top before cooking but she does serve hers for a starter!! However with a few soldiers dipped in it went down with a nice cup of Yorkshire tea.

We may try it again without the cream – but I’m still in search of the perfect way of cooking an egg to achieve a really dippy yolk but cooked white.

However next week we may just have to have a bacon buttie after reading Wendy’s post this morning!

This years rituals included eating dinner at our parents house, drinking wine from the home of the opposition and sitting in the same seat. My parents were away this weekend but that didn’t stop us all piling round there for food & drink before sitting down to enjoy the match.

I had offered to cook – but then I realised it would be for 6 people, including my brothers who prefer their meat. I don’t eat much meat & really cant bear the smell of red meat cooking so I opted for a cheeky Cornbread Topped Vegetarian Chilli served with homemade Guacamole, Sour Cream & Grated Cheese.

The recipe I took from Nigella’s book Feast.

Ingredients (Serves 10 – 0r 6 hungry peeps + leftovers for freezing)

For the Chilli:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 medium onions, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 red peppers, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons dried chilli flakes
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3 cardamon pods, crushed
• 300g red lentils
• 2 x 400g chopped tomatoes
• 750ml water
• 2 x 400g kidney beans
• 4 tablespoons tomato ketchup
• 4 tablespoons tomato puree
• 1 tablespoon cocoa

How to Do It

1. In a VERY large pan – heat oil & fry onion, garlic and pepper until soft
2. Throw in the spices – chilli, coriander, cumin and cardamon pods. Stir
3. Add lentils. Stir
4. Next, add the other ingredients – water, tomatoes, kidney beans, ketchup, tomato puree & cocoa.
5. Bring this mixture to the boil and simmer (with lid on) for 45 minutes – though check & stir regularly.
6. At this point you can proceed to cook or pop it in the fridge until your ready for the next stage (or cool it down and freeze it). It was at this point I packed everything up & took it to my parents house to finish.

For the Cornbread Topping:

• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 325g Cornmeal (I used ground corn as this was the nearest we could find – in Sainsburys)
• 3 tablespoons plain flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 375ml buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 75g cheese

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl – salt, cornmeal, plain flour, baking powder & cinnamon
2. In a jug, whisk the wet ingredients – milk, oil, eggs & honey
3. Throw the liquid into the dry mixture & whisk to a batter NB. mine was more like a thick dough, maybe caused by measuring problems, but it worked.
4. Put you chilli mixture in a large dish (Nigella suggests 23cm x 32cm with a 7.5cm height)
5. Pour (or scoop) the batter on top of the chilli
6. Top with grated cheese.
7. Cook for 25 minutes at 220°c
8. Serve with guacamole, grated cheese & sour cream.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo in the rush to get warm food on the table. I do have a photo of the left overs though!

For pudding a quickly made some Passion Fruit Creme Brulee’s – a recipe from Delias website which can be found by clicking here.

The before cooking stage:

And the readyto eat stage:

Unfortunately England played well but couldn’t manage a win against those pesky Sarf Africans – nevermind. Maybe in another 4 years ;)

For mains I cooked something that was on my To Do list – Spicy Chicken with Aubergine and Naans:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
• 1/2 lime, juice only
• salt and pepper
• 2 chicken breasts, boned, skinned, halved horizontally and flattened slightly
• 1 small aubergine, sliced horizontally into eight
• Natural low fat yoghurt (we used a small pot)
• 1in piece cucumber, diced
• 1/2 tsp mint, chopped
• 4 mini naan breads (or 2 normal sized)
• fresh coriander
• lime wedges to garnish

Method

1. To make the marinade, combine the oil, cumin, ground coriander, ginger, chopped coriander, lime juice, salt and pepper.
2. Pour the marinade over the chicken and chill for 15 minutes (though I left for about an hour)
3. Brush the aubergine with oil, season and grill on both sides until golden.
4. Grill the chicken for about 12 minutes until golden. Slice into pieces.
5. Make the dressing by mixing the yoghurt, cucumber, mint and seasoning.
6. Warm the naan and layer the aubergine, chicken pieces and yoghurt dressing on top.
7. Garnish with coriander and lime wedges (if you remember before you eat!!)

It really was very tasty and something we’ll have again.

To serve 5 (or 2 hungry mains & 2 lunches):

• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon garlic oil (or normal oil + 1 smushed up garlic piece to remove before eating)
• 1 x 410g chopped tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon of double cream
• 500g penne pasta
• 65ml vodka
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Parmesan for serving

How to Do It

1. Heat oil & gently cook onion until soft (with a good sprinkling of salt) – about 15 mins
2. Tip in the tomatoes & simmer for 15-20 minutes nb. 10 mins before your ready put your pasta on.
3. Take sauce off heat & stir in cream.
4. Drain pasta & put back in pan with butter & vodka
5. Mix pasta in with sauce and serve with parmesan and some black pepper

Its so simple but deliciously moreish

Nigella says she thinks the pasta is especially good cold – I don’t agree, its much better warm but by making this much we have plenty for an easy lunch the next day and with a nice side salad it fills me up for the afternoon.