A Guest Blog....

 The recipe below sounded so delicious I belive it deserved a first guest blog. As soon as I make it I shall post a photo but in the meantime here is a picture of a parsnip that has been on my desk for a week...

This is by a lovely and talented lady from London...

'As someone who thought they were an inadequate Jew because they couldn't cook a good chicken soup (and not because they've never been to church, I mean synagogue), I decided I must try harder, and am now keen to share my top chicken soup tips...

1. If you use 2 chicken skeletons the stock always tastes miles better - it can otherwise be a bit disappointingly watery after all that work. I was delighted when I discovered Nigella agreed with me on this one, as she also does on the need to cook green beans till they are floppy, not al dente. Her top tip is keep one skeleton (she calls it a carcass?!) in the freezer till you have another one to add. My top tip is invite lots of people to Sunday lunch and buy two chickens.

2. If you add a chicken stock cube it always tastes much more home made (Kalo organic are the best)

3. I get a bit fed up of tarragon as everyone always think you have to use it with chicken, but also as it tastes like aniseed which I don't actually like. So a twist on your chicken soup is my new 'oriental' themed chicken soup, which I love and will share with you...it's my favourite winter meal.

Stock-making is the same, though add as many veg as poss, and also a bay leaf can be nice.

Then thinly slice (not chop) and fry a load of onions v. slowly till they are lovely and mushy. Add stock and when boiling add some or all of the following:

fried mushrooms
raw sugar snap peas (at the end so they get hot but not soggy)
chicken bits left over from skeleton OR freshly cooked chicken breast (maybe in a ridged pan so it's nice and stripey and sliced in that smart diagonal way)
noodles (I like glass noodles in this)
Thai fish sauce (strange but true, makes it taste well oriental)
spirng onions also cut on the bias
and most importantly of all, TONS of chopped coriander at the end – if you love coriander as much as I do which is a lot.

Love your blog by the way. Maybe that's because I like cooking and talking and cycling too!

Px'

This week my flat has mainly smelt of burnt pan.

Chicken, Leek, Mushroom and Tarragon Soup

In this picture, I realise that the soup looks a little bit like something that might have come out the bottom of a lake but it really is delicious.

In order to make the soup you also get to eat a roast chicken the night before - bonus!







You will need...

Some chicken taken off the skeleton of a chicken.
Munchrooms
Leeks
Fresh or dried tarragon - fresh is better but I had to use dried.
Chicken's skeleton
Carrot
Onion
Celery
Leek
Bay Leaves

O.k Firstly you have to make some stock, it's good if you have a few hours to do this.

Into a pan put your carrot, onion, celery,leek, bay leaves and chicken skeleton. Pour on about 2 pints of boiling water, add salt and pepper bring to boil and then simmer for a few hours.

While I was making my stock this week, I toddled off to type something (about food) and left my stock unattended for a little too long. When I came back all the stock had boiled away and I was left with a black STINKING pan and all black disgusting vegetables in the bottom. The pan had truly met it's maker, so I put it in a bag and left it in the hall for a bit. Its o.k because it was only about £3 from IKEA 4  years ago and the handle didn't work. So now I have a nice new green pan (not because the pan turned green, but because I bought a new one). I will use it tonight to make hollandaise sauce with.

Anyway luckily I had extra veg and bitov chicken skeleton left so I did stock number two.

When you are finished it should look something like this..

(a little bit like someone has done a wee who hasn't drunk a lot of water for a few days).

To make the soup....

Fry your leeks first, then pour on the stock and simmer for a while, 

next add some chopped up mushrooms and a dash of cornflour and simmer for a bit longer. Next add chicken and tarragon, pop the lid back on a simmer for even longer. TA DA! That is it (I think) the end.

This week I have been a little ill. I have had a chest infection - cough cough cough and also

I have had an inflamed wisdom tooth. I have a very odd dentist who makes his sentences go down at the end so much that his voice is so low on the last word that you don't know what it is.

Anyway I knew my tooth was inflamed all I wanted was the drugs to fix it. So I went in and I said Hello Mr, I think I have an inflamed wisdom tooth again, he looked in my mouth (no gloves or anything) just had a little peek and said 'you have an inflamed wisdom tooth, that's £16.50 please' I think he said please I couldn't really hear. I could be a bloomin dentist - easy peasy.

I have also bought a winter knit and some lovely red shoes. 

Scallops are soooo 'on trend'.

Scallops and pancetta with a rocket salad (and optional pasta)

On the cooking programmes everyone cooks scallops. So I thought, I will also cook scallops.

I went to the fishmonger and asked him for some scallops and whilst I was there I said to him 'please may I ask you some other fish related questions?' He looked a bit unsure but then he said 'yes'. So I asked him..

'How do I fillet a fish?'

He said 'its difficult, shane's been working here for 6 months and he still can't do it!' and then he pointed and laughed at a boy behind him, who I assume was Shane. That was the end of my questions.

Anyway to make a scallop dish you will need (for two people)

4-6 scallops
pancetta (i was forced to use bacon bits from Aldi - its fine if you  cut the fat off)
lots of onion and garlic
about 4 tablespoons of butter (i used clover it was fine)
rocket
spaghetti

This is relatively easy to make but you have to do it all at once.

Ok, firstly put your pasta onto cook.

If you're having this as a starter you don't need pasta but if you live with a hungry boy then pasta is a good accompaniment.

For the sauce chop up lots of onion and garlic, about this amount...

Then slowly sweat the onions and garlic in two tablespoons of white wine. Once the wine has mostly evaporated gradually whisk in your butter, season with a bit of black pepper and I used a tiny bit of oregano. This is your sauce. If you can't be bothered to make a sauce, just pour over some olive oil at the end innit.





In another pan fry your pancetta and then in the bacony juices fry your scallops for about 1 minute on each side. Put your pasta and rocket on a plate or bowl its up to you and then place the scallops and pancetta atop. Pour over your sauce and that is the end!!!!!

On Friday night I made a 'speed crumble'. I sent out the hunter gatherer on Thursday night for some fruit for packed lunches and he returned holding proudly aloft a bag of 'Bramley cooking apples'. After trying to eat one raw, I made faces I didn't know I was capable of (like Ron Weasley in Harry P) so I gave up and make a crumble (in 12 minutes)

Peel and chop your apples, place in a bowl and sprinkle on cinnamon and brown sugar.

Then combine 2 cups of wholemeal flour (I used self raising it was lovely) with 1.2 cups of brown sugar and two tablespoons of cinnamon.
Then slowly mix in 1 cup of butter and make the international sign for money with your fingers around the mixture. Sprinkle on top of the apples and put in the oven for 30 mins. I also just speed typed that.

It's very cold in this room. Time for some soup.

Help Needed Please!!!

One of you lovely people has suggested I enter into a Tesco Healthy Eating Recipe competition which I think I just bloody well might do! I can win £5000 worth of Tesco vouchers so all the more ingredients to put in my blog and maybe a few treats as well.

What would be really useful for me is if you could tell me which recipe you've enjoyed reading about or making, as I'm only allowed to enter one recipe. Once I've entered it, the more people that click 'like' on it on the Tesco website means the more likely I am to win. So that would be jolly good guys, either tell me on twitter/facebook or do a comment!

I'm off to Sports Direct now to buy some new gym tops! Sports Direct is a cavern of lycra where none of the staff know where anything is or in fact where they are themselves. I reckon a 5 a side team wandered in in 2007 to buy a football and never left and are now doomed to a life of strip lighting and helping fat people buy pink trousers. 

Later I shall be making scallops with pancetta and optional pasta which I will post asap.

Anyway please tell me which recipe you reckon I should enter and I will be much obliged and maybe even give you a biscuit (or a sausage, I've still got 16).

It smells like a French man's rustic kitchen.

In my freezer I have 34 sausages. This is too many sausages to have in a freezer which is only the size of a large shoebox. Some of the sausages I bought in my online shop and clicked 2 instead of 1 on the quantity amount, as I was buying a 241 deal anyway it meant I actually ordered 4 for 2 and there were 6 sausages in each pack. The other sausages I was given in return for a bran cake. As these sausages were posh and organic and the bran cake was a couple of days old and on the small side I think I definitely got the better deal, plus it made me feel like I was living in the middle ages.

So with all theses sausages knocking about (or rather packed into fours and put in little freezer bags) I decided to make a sausage casserole.

Sausage casserole

You will need

4-6 sausages depending on how big the sausages are and how many people you are feeding. (If you don't have any sausages I can lend you some, I've got load)

Carrots (as many as you like)

Courgettes (I ate courgettes nearly every day of the week last week as I bought 3 not knowing that I already had 2 - warning - too many courgettes is not positive for your bottom noises)

Munchrooms

Garlic

2 small onions

Beef stock, Red Wine, Sage - fresh or dried.

It is really super doooper easy to make. Firstly in a frying pan brown your sausages then take them out of the frying pan and leave them on a plate or a chopping board anything you like, except for maybe a dirty floor because that's not very hygenic.

Then chop up your onion, munchrooms, courgette, garlic and carrot and brown in the frying pan. Add back in the sausages (clean, not dirty) and add beef stock and a slug of red wine. Season with herbs and black pepper.  Bring to the boil and then simmer. Then transfer into a casserole pot (I did this over the sink in case of spillage, which there was quite a lot of) and then put in the oven for half an hour to forty mins  - until the carrots are soft.

Serve with a large glass of good red wine and some crusty bread. SOOOO EASY PEASY. P.s if you are a vegeeeeetarian leave out the sausages innit.

Yesterday evening I went to the Didsbury Beer Festival. Even though I didn't like beer it was NOT a problem as they had a whole stall of cider. I had some little tokens and I spent them all on different ciders - Happy Daze I would recommend highly. I think I maybe had too many of them though as I told the man behind the cider counter that he looked beefy and did he go to the gym and he went all red. He was beefy though.

I'm also still thinking about that poor old pigeon, it's the anniversary of his death today. Poor old pidge.

You can have too many Babybels...

I am back in Manchester! I have returneth from Bristol - the coldest city in England - well it was last week.
I was on a course for a week and only had a little jacket with me. At the end of the course in the feedback form we had to give five words to describe the course. By that time my fingers had stopped working from the cold but I managed to write 'Chilly'.

I shall describe my week with food.

We had a free breakfast every day - which is what happens when you stay in a hotel.

Day 1 Delicious Bacon sandwich. For the remaining breakfasts I ate fruit and fibre (leaving the dried bananas in a secret stash on the table for the next guest), fruit salad and babybels.







At breakfast every morning I made up a little emergency rations package for the day, including.....

and...

.......and a napkin full of dried apricots. The apricots were in a bowl next to the cereal counter (as you were meant to sprinkle them on your museli) but I like apricots SOOO much I just eat them without cereal. On days 4 and 5 of the course there were no apricots by the cereal :( I think they had become wise to my apricot poaching.)

On the first evening we had a posh meal with all the course leaders and important people and for the starter we had....

This was chicken with pesto and bit of curry (I think). One boy was so hungry he put his in his bread roll and wolfed it down quick as a bee! I was also hungry because we didn't eat the evening meal until 8.30 and I had eaten my packed lunch on the train that morning at 10.30 because I got overexcited. I didn't put mine in a sandwich though. After I had taken a picture of it a few people stopped talking to me as much so I talked to the sandwich boy as a few people had stopped talking to him as well.

This meal was also delicious.

After a week of being freezing, and eating a lot of chicken based dishes,(here's another one that I ate...)

I wanted something that didn't have chicken or babybels in it and was fairly easy to make so on Friday I had....

Smoked Salmon Pasta with a Rocket Salad.

This meal is delicious, fairly healthy and can be enjoyed at any time (i.e lunch or dinner)

You will need...

Smoked salmon trimmings (from the fishmonger, or you can get it from Tescos, but its a bloody rip off)

Half an onion or a shallot (I always think of shallots as a vegetable that would be fairly high up in a court in Tudor times)

2 tablespoons of white wine

Some munchrooms (maybe 8-10?)

Pasta

Rocket

Creme Fraiche (the sauce base for Guardian readers)

Put pasta on to boil, while boiling...

Finely chop your onion and simmer it in the white wine until the wine has evaporated.

Add the creme fraiche and the munchrooms to the onions and when the munchrooms have softened add the smoked salmon trimmings. Add black pepper.

Drain pasta and pour sauce over the top, grate on parmesan and add some rocket.

I often have this meal without the pasta as the sauce is quite filling, just add some iceberg lettuce to the rocket. You can also have it as a starter if you are hosting a posh dinner party. 

All I can remember from the last week is being cold (I also couldn't work out how to put the heating on in my room so once or twice I turned the shower on in the bathroom and sat near it for the warmth of the steam).

So today by mistake I bought another fur coat!!!! (ooops). However it was a Primarni Cheapo one but is still beautiful and lovely. I can't decided if I'm a dalmation or a leopard though...

Today I saw a poor old pigeon get run over and all its insides fell out. So tonight I will not be having pigeon. 

Poor old pigeon.

It's 6.24 now which means Gin and Tonic time! Goody!

Some people say Tuna tastes like Cat Food.

My Lovely New Coat

A couple of weeks ago I was having a serious dilemma. Where was I going to get my faux fur coat from and what animal would it represent?!!!! Many of you may have been seriously concerned for me as 'tis a serious winter problem. 

Worry no longer!!!!!!

After visiting every shop in Manchester (except for one's like Currys or Carphone Warehouse because they don't sell coats) I managed to find one. Hurrah!!!!

I decided to go for a plain colour as I already own trousers, 3 dresses, 1 playsuit, a bag, a tshirt and a jumper in leopard print so I realised I wouldn't be able to wear any of those with the coat. It is the warmest thing ever to happen to me. This week I have done a bit of sitting in my flat in it but I got too hot and had to take it off so I hung it up so I could look at it. Lovely Coat.

Thats enough coat business for now. I shall move onto the cooking,

Tuna with a Bearnaise sauce

You will need (for two people)

2 Tuna Steaks

For the Sauce:
1 shallot finely chopped
2 tablespoons of white wine
1 bay leaf
Dried or Fresh tarragon (about a teaspoon of dried)
2 large tablespoons of butter
An egg yolk





A bearnaise or hollandaise sauce is not super easy to make. I felt like I had put my soul into this sauce by the time I served it up.

You will need time, patience and most importantly the ingredients. There seem to be very complicated recipes all over the internet involving things like muslin, the blood of a young carpenter, and a cooking process that needs moonlight. I am going to try and  be as simple as possible. i.e no blood.

Firstly put the shallot, tarragon, bay leaf and white wine in a pan and leave to reduce.This should take around 3-4 mins. Simples!

Next whisk up your egg yolk in a bowl and then place that bowl over a pan of SIMMERING water, make sure it's not boiling an add the reduced shallot and tarragon. At this point maybe take out the bayleaf as when you serve it up only one person would get the bayleaf which may cause a bayleaf barney!

Melt some butter (I do it in the microwave, you can do it wherever you want) and then slowly slowly bit by bit add the melted butter to the egg and reduction and keep whisking. If the sauce goes weird i.e curdles/splits/goes too thick then add in some cold water.

Cook the tuna on a griddle or frying pan for about 3-4 mins on each side so it is still a bit pink in the middle.

Serve with salad/mange tout/little potatoes.

You could also have it with rice or any other veg of your choice.

P.s to make a hollandaise sauce - follow the above directions but leave out the tarragon and bay leaf.

This week I saw a boy walking along the road eating a bowl of cereal like he was in his own home, but he was on the street!!!! Silly Boy.