After the bloody beautiful ceasar salad we had teriyaki beef with mushrooms and noodles yum. Here’s a picture for you delectation and the recipe will be in the pages section, give it a try…
For my Christmas my boss very kindly gave me the Leiths simple cookery book and although I have just quickly scanned all of the recipes I absolutely love it; so much so I have been cooking from it all day! To start I decided to do…a ceasar salad and make the garlic croutons and the ceasar dressing from scratch which did take some time but the outcome made it worth while! I like to cook things from scratch so I made my own mayonniase to form the creasar dressing; I just think it makes it taste that bit better when you know you have made it all yourself.
I’ve made mayo myself before from a different recipe and it’s tiring (!) and time consuming as you have to whisk 300ml of olive oil in basically a drop at a time so I was whisking from half an hour! The result was a lovely creamy luxurious mayonnaise which can be changed into lemon, herb mayo, tartar sauce or marie rose sauce as you will have just enough left to do one more dish. Or just have it on your sandwiches!
Here’s a picture of the final recipe and it was lovely. (try it with some flattened out grilled chicken.)
For the recipe head to the recipes page…
Finally I am getting the chance to catch up with my blogging, its Saturday I’m writing, the Hills is on and I have Diet Coke (I’m a Diet Coke freak, it’s bad for you, I know). As you know sometimes on this blog I do fancy things make up etc… sometimes I do food this post is food related we all like to eat yeah? We all like chocolate and cake and when they’re put together we like it even better? I don’t even have an exceptionally sweet tooth but I loved this it was gooeyily delightful.
For the past couple of weeks there has been a new cookery programme on channel four called River Cottage Every Day, I had become rather despondent with cookery programmes as there was nothing new I was particularly interested in or I had seen all of the ones I like multiple times; so this was a little bit of a find. I liked this series mainly because of the recipes in it surprising (eh?) I say this because I didn’t particularly like the format of the show I found it quite boring and just yes boring but the food was very inspiring and appetising. When the accompanying recipe book came out I bought it straight away, it was quite expensive comparing it to what I usually pay for my books on Amazon, £14 I think, here’s a picture.
So there’s little Hugh Fearnly Wearnly with his pancakes, this book is really lovely for the following reasons:
• The recipes are accessible and very appetising
• There are pictures for every recipe, I like this
• There is a whole section on veggies I like vegetable
• The graphics are lovely with little illustrations imposed over the pictures
• You get a lot of bang for your buck
• The recipes are well written and easy to follow
One Saturday I decided I was going to do some baking as I’m always cooking big roasts, casseroles and savoury things; I settled on the rich chocolate cake. Do you know what, I forgot to take a picture of the finished article, terrible blogger! Here’s a picture from the book…
So what can I say? It was easy to make and it didn’t involve buying any expensive or inaccessible kitchen equipment. It was absolutely lovely when it first came out the oven and it was warm , it was reminiscent of a chocolate fondant and you could eat it just like that or leave it to cool for a while and slice it like cake have it with cream, whipped, double or crème fraiche total yumsers.
I recommend this book and I recommend baking a chocolate cake whenever possible! For the recipe head to the recipe pages and happy baking!
Well it’s that time again the nights are drawing in, there’s a chill in the air and people are cringing at the thought of Christmas being just around the corner…again. More importantly for Food and Fancies today has been the day where I have torn myself away from the cosmetic side of life and dived backed into the culinary swing of things.
Not too long ago Jamie Oliver did a programme called Jamie’s America (I think), anyway I have a slight fascination in what Americans eat. Weird I know as most people would think yeah its just pizza and burgers and all things saturated but it’s really not; America has probably the most varied culinary culture in perhaps the whole world. And, from that variety comes the widest most interesting culinary influence and styles, I love it from Peruvian to Egyptian in down town New York to the native American influences it’s truly fascinating. To anyone remotely interested in food and cuisine the Americas are one culture which is worth some investigation. Read More
This weekend as I was in the midst of a culinary whirlwind, I decided to cook something I had never attempted before belly yes belly pork. Before you run away in horror trust me it was fantastic, juicy and flavoursome with super crunchy crackling. This recipe is not for those in a rush or on a diet for that matter as it takes three and a half hours to cook, but boy is it worth it.
For the recipe head over to the recipes section in the side bar.
As it is Sunday the day of rest and roasts I thought I would quickly post up a fool proof recipe that I have tried in the past. Roast pork loin with sage and fennel butter, I know pork isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but the butter stuffing in this recipe keeps the meat moist and succulent.
For the recipe look in the recipes section of the site…
Just thought I would update my Friday ‘tea’ of bangers and mash AND home made onion gravy. Said onion gravy has been cooking for over an hour in butter ready for the final touches in thirty minutes, it smells divine! Nothing better than the smell of onions slowly cooking in butter, ready for splash red wine, beef stock, mustard and worcestershire sauce; lovely. Picture and recipe to follow.
Well I did say I had been taking pictures on my culinary journey this afternoon, which I did up until it went into the oven. After the three hours we were just so excited to eat it, well that is just what we did and I forgot to take any pictures of the finished product! Oh and I bought the wrong type of potatoes for the fondant potatoes I had bought floury Maris Pipers when I should of bought a waxy Desiree, silly me! So we had mash with lots of butter and salt and pepper. All in all it was absolutely delightful and left us feeling that we had, taken a few of these:
This was a post from my weekend escapades.
