Best of the Blog - Chorizo and Butter Bean Stew

There was me thinking it would be easy giving up this blog.  But here I am, posting again.  If you've read some of the posts on here, you'll know that day #366 was on September 25th this year.  I promised a last ever post to answer some of the many questions I've been asked about the blog and wrote a penultimate post celebrating a year since starting the blog.

Perfect winter fodder

The Last Post is actually sat in my drafts folder.  Its publication was hampered by an issue with my phone meaning I couldn't get the pictures I wanted for the post off.  It was then further delayed by an unexpected email and even more delayed as I sit and gaze at my navel and ponder exactly when to start my new blog.

Tonight, one thing lead to another and I had to come up with an impromptu meal for me.  Whilst it's been great to have the liberation of being able to just eat cereal or cheese and crackers for tea, I'd planned on something warming tonight (my mum's cauliflower soup) and when that got cancelled, I had to scour the fridge for something else equally 'hug-in-a-bowlish'.

Step forward Mr Bridestock's Chorizo and Butter Bean stew.  It was one of my early makes on this blog and I came about the recipe because my lovely cousin who was partly the inspiration for this blog posted about it on her own blog.  The recipe has particular nostalgia for Laura as it's the first meal that David ever cooked for her.

A little bit of Bridestock

They also got hitched during the course of this blog at an amazing wedding festival where they had a tea tent rammed full of baked goodies - including a Neopolitan Bundt Cake which was another new recipe for me, but I never blogged about it.

I'd forgotten just how amazingly tasty this dish is and it's so simple.  It's definitely going to become a staple store cupboard tea for me throughout this winter.  You can find the recipe here on Laura's blog and my original post on it, complete with rubbish picture here.  The picture above is from when I made it again tonight.  Not much better, but Instagram definitely helped a bit!

Having cooked the recipe again, I decided that I could celebrate 'The Best of the 366 Recipe Challenge' by revisiting some recipes that I really enjoyed and cooking them all over again now the pressure to do different things is off.

So keep your eyes peeled.  The posts will be sporadic but just like with everything else in life - I'm a bit rubbish at letting go of something good!

The aforementioned Neopolitan bundt

A small selection of the cakes in the tea tent

One Year On - Chicken and Chorizo Pasta

Well it all began a year ago today and because I a) can't let go just yet and b) still feel guilty that I didn't manage a picture of the very first recipe I tried, I decided to make it again to bring my year full circle.  In fact, I've just realised that if I was to re-cook every recipe that I did over the last year on the same date for the next 12 months, I could avoid the cleaning until 2013.  Now there's a plan....

Actually, it's been quite refreshing today to not have to worry about finding the time to cook something new and photograph and write about it.  When the food plan for today got de-railed by the weather, it didn't matter that what I'd planned for tea was in jeopardy.  Nobody would've cared if I'd not made and blogged about the recipe other than me.

I kept pondering if anyone would care if I skipped a day throughout the last year.  I managed not to with some careful planning and creative thinking at times.  And I've been touched by the number of tweets and emails I've had from people asking if it's really all over.  Although 48,000 page views in just 366 days shows that people are reading the blog, the messages really mean something because it makes me know there are some people out there who actually take the time to read what I write and don't just click a link from Google and then wander off elsewhere when faced by the waffle.

I also spend a lot of time if people are more interested in what I've cooked or what I'm waffling/whining on about on any given day.  Today, the husband gave me perfect blog fodder - which I'll save for the next instalment of my blogging voyage.  I often get asked about if he minds me writing about him.  In truth he does, but he also knows that it's my way of working out my issues with him and laughing at stuff that would otherwise have me down at the doctors looking for narcotics.

366 days on, still need to work on presentation!

What surprised me most was yesterday when I said I'd completed the last of the 366 recipes and posts and there was no more blog and he looked me incredulously and said 'what never ever?  Aren't you going to at least do one a week or something?'  After his comment when I watched Julie and Julia the other day, I was floored that he was happy for me to continue in some way.

Whatever, thank you to everyone who has been with me on this journey.  From the tweets of support, to the bloggers who have let me try and blog about their recipes (in no particular order Sadia, Mike, the two Jules', Dan, Rachel, Fi, Cathryn, Paul and Jaim); Dan Lepard for being the nicest cookbook writer ever and for making my day and following me on Twitter; my Twitter 'Family' (Paul, Kate, Dicky and Maria), Sarah-Jane for letting me coerce her into starting Cake Club; Ewan for letting me join the Olympic Food Challenge; my gorgeous cousin Laura who inspired the blog in the first place; Miss A for keeping me in cracked eggs when it's been a baking day; my second-chief cake tester* who was the best mentor ever; and all other those poor souls who've taken one for the blog and had cake foisted on them (it's a tough job, but someone had to do it).  There's no way I could've made it without you all.

And the biggest thanks of all to my long-suffering husband.  Thank you for betting me that I wouldn't make it - I don't think there's anyone else on this planet that would have made me stick to this challenge so stubbornly as you did.  Thank you for attempting to eat some of the 366 recipes.  I don't thank you for your non-constructive feedback - saying 'I don't like it because I don't like it' is not particularly helpful!  Thank you for putting up with all the washing up - especially when the dishwasher broke right on top of Christmas.  Thank you for moving my cookbooks to the most prominent bookshelf in the house at the weekend and for not burning them as promised.  And thank you for giving me the opportunity to carry on experimenting and writing - even if it is less frequently than before.

So on to the recipe.  Well I enjoyed it just as much as I think I did a year ago when I first tried it.  This time I put creme fraiche in it which made it quite rich.  I also seemed to have masses of pasta - which wasn't bad because I'd not had a proper lunch today (Vanilla Coconut PowerBars do not a good lunch make) but if I make it again, I'd probably drop the pasta to 60g per head - especially as the husband insists on garlic bread with his.  And it definitely needs some green stuff on the side.  I couldn't be faffed to buy rocket which I won't use the rest of this week so salvaged the last tiny bit of my dying basil plant to perch on the top for the picture.

Here's the link to the original recipe which I also neglected to post a year ago.

*Miss A was obviously the first!

Silvana Franco's Patatas Bravas

I think I should have been born Spanish.  Tapas definitely appeals to my inability to make a decision.  I hate going to a restaurant where I want to try just about everything on the menu and have to commit to one dish per course.  If I luck out on what I choose, then fantastic.  But if I pick something and it's below the par of my expectation then I spend the rest of the evening (or if you ask my husband, the rest of the week) mithering on about how I wish I'd chosen something else.  Give me a restaurant where you have three choices per course and only one of those is chicken or vegetarian and I'm happy.

I did manage to save a bit for a picture

On the other hand, I love tapas. Because you can order lots of little portions of different things without feeling terribly greedy and if I don't like one thing, there's always something else I'll like.  Plus I can order something I'm not quite so sure about and if I like it, then happy days; if I don't then I can just compensate myself with an extra spoonful of something else.

When we first moved to the sticks, there were only Chinese or Indian restaurants in town.  Italian was limited to Pizza Express - and at a push you could just about say that Pizza Hut was the alternative.  Or fish and chips (which Buckles do very well thank you).  Anything else and you had to travel.  We now have a lovely tapas restaurant, which I'm dying to try.  But I just know it's not the husband's type of place and being a full time working mother, there's just been no time to cultivate relationships with other women* in order for me to suggest it as a venue.

So today, given that it was meant to be sunny and I had the house to myself for a whole hour and a half (the child was having her nap, the husband was out) I decided to make myself patatas bravas to go with the six grain loaf** I'd knocked up earlier.

The recipe was simple enough - a bit of chopping; pop the stuff in the pan; wait impatiently for it to cook; get disturbed by husband coming home early; don't eat as planned due to domestic issues; stand in the kitchen later on eating cold patatas bravas straight from the pan and consequently feel sick from overeating.

Really really liked it and it's a great way to use up leftover new potatoes.  We rarely use them and I normally end up letting half the bag go rotten.  So now, I will be really good and use them up making patatas bravas instead.  The only thing missing was the sunshine and a glass of chilled white or Rijoa.  There's always a next time.

You can find the recipe here.

*I do know other mothers but most of them either make me feel totally inadequate for working full time or just make me want to stab myself in the eyeball with a fork with their competitive mothering antics.  And if any of them read this blog, I'm sure they'll dislike me even more!
**Flour purchased from Wessex Mill.  First time I've made a brown loaf that the husband has liked.  Result!

Olympic Food Challenge: Hoppin' John - Bermuda

Ask anyone what they know about Bermuda and they will tell you about one of two things.  The Triangle or shorts.  In honour of this post, I'm writing it whilst listening to Barry Manilow singing Bermuda Triangle.  Yes, it's in my iTunes collection.  Hell, if you've read any other posts on this blog, I've probably told you worse things about me than that I have Bazza's Greatest Hits.  It's all because I love Copacabana.

In fact, I could tell you something worse about my husband.  Some of you may know that we disagree about most things.  It drives me potty when we go out in the same car that he'll change whatever I'm listening to.  I started listening to Radio 5 Live because of him but this summer I've not been allowed to listen to it because he only likes listening to the football commentary and not the news.  He grew up in the eighties, and being a massive eighties fan, I like most of his CD collection - but he won't let me listen to them in the car.  When we went to Scotland in the summer, I swear he chose eight hours of music he knew I'd hate on purpose.  Anyhow, recently, I got into the car with him and pre-emptively switched from the CD and he actually changed it back.  Because the CD had Copacabana on it and apparently he loves it.

Maybe we'll be like the Ballad of Tom Jones, but rather than being saved by Tom, we'll eventually stop fighting like cat and dog and be saved by Bazza's Greatest Hits.

I digress. Bermuda.  I'm supposed to be talking about food and the Olympics.  Right.  Okay.  Well the first thing that surprised me was to find that one of the most popular dishes in Bermuda is fish and chips.  But not a fancy foreign version.  Good old English fish and chips.  I never realised that Bermuda is British territory.  Or that it was quite so far away from the Caribbean - I'd been expecting the cuisine to be more akin to West Indian food.  Every day is a school day.

So after discounting the majority of the dishes listed on Wikipedia, I settled on Hop n' John which is apparently the national dish.  Wikipedia states that it's a dish of rice and peas which I know is common in the West Indies - if you were to ask my half sister what's for tea, she'll tell you she's having 'rice and peas and ding' every day.  But like most simple 'ethnic' dishes, there were a zillion and one recipes for Hoppin' John out there.  Mostly with a creole bent.

In the end, I just made up my own recipe.  About the only thing all the recipes agree on is that you need white rice and black eyed beans.  Or peas.  But I believe the beans and peas to be the same thing.  Then you can add any of the following - red and/or green bell peppers, dried or fresh chilli, herbs (commonly coriander, parsley or thyme), onions - regular and/or spring, tomatoes, bacon, ham, sausage - frequently chorizo, chicken and so on.  I didn't come across a dish that specifically used seafood in it but you never know.  This is definitely my kind of dish and it's now my new favourite storecupboard tea.

Before I give you my version of the recipe, a little about the Olympics.  Despite sending eight competitors to London 2012 to contest in five different disciplines, Bermuda left empty-handed.  They have just one athlete competing in the Paralympics in the 100m, 200m and 400m.  I wish her the best of luck.

Recipe - Serves 4

• 1 medium onion, finely sliced
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 rashers smoked back bacon, snipped into small pieces
• 75g chorizo, cubed
• 1 small red or green bell pepper, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 400g tin black eyed beans, drained
• 200ml fresh chicken stock
• Handful of fresh parsley or coriander, chopped
• 2 tomatoes, deseeded and diced
• 2 spring onions, finely sliced
• salt, freshly ground black pepper and garlic granules to season
• 300g basmati rice (dry weight), cooked according to package instructions

1. Heat the olive oil over a medium flame in a large frying pan.  Gently fry for 5-10 minutes until caramelised.  Remove from the pan and place to one side.
2. Fry the bacon and chorizo in the pan for 3 minutes until starting to colour.  Add the celery and pepper and cook for another two minutes.
3. Pour in the chicken stock and beans and cook for a further five minutes until the beans are tender. and the stock has mostly evaporated.  Return the onion to the pan and heat through.
4. Season to taste with the salt, pepper and garlic granules then stir through the parsley or coriander.
5. Divide the rice between four plates, top with the Hoppin' John and garnish with  the spring onion and tomatoes.

Lil Ms Squirrel's Cheese, Chive and Chorizo Scones

Firstly, I'd like to clarify that this post has absolutely nothing to do with Sconegate.  No, really, it hasn't.  I am SO over it.  It's so last week.  Well okay, when I've finally had the chance to whine about it to my favourite whining buddy, then I'll get over it.  But he's recently had an earful of me whining about a wide variety of other subjects and so I'll save it up for a day when the whining potential over other annoyances is low.

Pretty colours

Actually, the purpose of tonight's recipe was a test run for a little idea that's been bubbling away at the back of my brain for a few days so I decided to give this one element of it a whirl.  I'm not sure why, but I've become obsessed with the idea of adding chorizo to scones.  Given that it's the most commonly used meat-related product so far on this blog, I'm not surprised.  And the recipe encompasses baking and cheese which also feature at the top of the tag cloud, so what's not to like?

Of course me being me, I have this thing about sharing my own recipes in public. When it comes to food, I'm a follower.  I'm not very good on the ideation* front.  I'd much rather take a recipe and tweak it than invent something from scratch.  Then again, as I've said before, do any of us really make a completely new recipe from scratch?  There are certain rules of science in cooking that mean deviation from them just leads to disaster.  Many people try to tinker with cake, but most cakes are based on the pound cake principle.  Or very slight variations of that basic rule of thumb.  

Five and one for the dog as my Grandma would say

Take my scones.  You can't fiddle around too much with the basic recipe because either they don't bake properly or the end result isn't actually a scone.  So although I say it's my recipe, it's really someone else's cheese scone recipe which I found many moons ago that I've now tinkered with to get to this point.

But chorizo was a bit of a revelation for me.  I not only like the flavour in this recipe, I love the way the paprika leaches into the dough and gives you pretty orange streaks.  Thyme seems to be the classic herb to go with chorizo, but I decided to buck that trend, both for the contrast between the orange and green; and moreso because it gave a lovely alliteration to the title.  Cheese, Chive and Chorizo.  

In the tin, ready for later consumption (I ate the dog's one)

So here is a recipe from me to you.  Give it a go.  Tweak it if you like with different varieties of cheese or herbs.  They're great fresh from the oven and I think they're better warmed back up than eaten cold.  If you give it a go, let me know what you think.  All natural and home made.  With nary a jot of wallpaper paste in site.

Makes five large scones and one for the dog

• 225g self raising flour plus extra for dusting.
• 150g cheese, grated (I used 100g double Gloucester and 50g Parmesan)
• 55g butter
• 55g chorizo, diced
• 75ml milk
• pinch of Cayenne pepper
• handful of chives, finely snipped
• milk or a lightly beaten egg for brushing

1. Preheat the oven to 220c/200c fan/gas 5.  Place a baking sheet in the oven to warm.
2. Put the flour and butter into a bowl and rub together until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the cheese, chorizo, cayenne and chives and mix thoroughly.
4. Gradually pour in the milk to form a soft but not sticky dough.  You may need slightly more or less depending on how 'thirsty' your flour is
5. Place the dough onto a floured board and pat to about 2cm thick.  Cut into rounds using a 5cm cutter.  Use all the dough up by forming back gently into a mound and patting and cutting again.
6. Remove the baking tray from the oven and place the scones on the tray.  Brush the tops with egg or milk (I forgot this bit) and bake for 15-20 minutes until risen and golden.
7. Serve warm with lashings of butter.

*I recently had to take my mentor to task over his excessive use of management buzzwords.  He's got this nasty habit of slipping them into a meeting when we're trying to be deadly serious and distracting me from the very important task in hand because I have to stifle a giggle or several.  Take the word 'mandrolic'.  He said it once and suddenly the entire company seemed to be saying it.  It means a long-winded, tedious, manual task.   Just the use of it makes me cringe and the whining factor ramps right up whenever I hear it.  What's wrong with 'manual'?

He has now made it his mission to track down the most ridiculous and random use of words and emails me from whatever presentation he's in with his latest find.  'Ideation' is apparently short-hand for 'Idea Generation'.  Or just people getting sloppy with their speaking if you ask me.

Lorraine Pascale's Paprika Baked Fish with Lemon, Chorizo and Thyme

Now that the weather is warmer and evenings lighter, I felt it was time I went for a nice summery fish dish as it's been a while.  Pascale's recipe seemed perfect as it combines the fish with chorizo - the top savoury ingredient in my tag cloud (make that the current total plus another one!)  So far, I've loved the way she uses so many different flavours in her recipes but they all come together to make a really tasty dish.

This recipe wasn't shy in its ingredient list.  Fish, chorizo, lemon, cherry tomatoes, thyme and paprika all jostled for attention.  Sadly, in my case, the fish lost out and was just a random, tasteless piece of protein to bulk out the dish.  Maybe it was because I used frozen fish that it was so tasteless and perhaps the luxury of being able to nip to a local fishmongers would significantly improve the fish in the recipe.

I had seasoned it to what I thought was within an inch of its life and had been a bit heavy-handed with the paprika.  But on eating, there was this tiny layer of tastiness followed by the overwhelming blandness of the fish.  And it wasn't even a welcome blandness that some heavily flavoured dishes need as contrast.  It was just 'blah'.

Spot the fish

To be fair, you can get similar with chicken.  One day you'll cook a recipe and the chicken will be beautifully moist, with just a hint of its own flavour to work against the intensity of whatever the rest of the dish is spiced with.  Another day, chicken bought from the same location (but obviously has come from a different bird) can ruin a dish with its complete lack of subtle flavour.  And before I get any veggies (lovely as they are) jumping up and down telling me that it's wrong to eat meat, I have the same complaint about carrots and tomatoes too :)

It's a recipe I'll try again but I would definitely make an effort to buy my fish fresh and eat it on the day.  Probably one to try when I'm on holiday and I can go buy fish from the quayside and whack it straight into the pan.  Or maybe not because I wouldn't have a clue how to fillet it.  *Note to self, Google fishmongers in Scotland*

I made a small addition to the recipe.  Pascale suggests serving it with saute potatoes or crunchy chips.  Because I am time poor, I cooked my potatoes alongside the dish - halving baby new potatoes, frying them cut side down in the pan with the chorizo and baking them in with the fish to finish off.  This worked really well as they picked up some of the flavour from the chorizo when frying.  Definitely a good twist to the recipe in my humble opinion.

This is my adaptation:


Serves 4

• 175g chorizo, cut into chunks
• Handful of chopped fresh thyme
• 4 white fish fillets, such as haddock, cod or pollack (preferably sustainably caught), skinned
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 pinches of smoked paprika, or to taste
• Grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 10–12 cherry tomatoes
• 5–10 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 450g baby new potatoes - halved lengthways

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6. 
2. Put a frying pan over a high heat, add the potatoes (with the cut side down), the chorizo and the thyme and cook for five minutes.
3. Put the fish in a roasting tin, season with salt, pepper and paprika and sprinkle over some of the lemon zest. Drizzle over the olive oil and sprinkle the tomatoes and the garlic around. 
4. Scatter the chorizo and potatoes around the fish and bake in the oven for 12–15 minutes until the fish is opaque and shiny inside. Serve with a crunchy green salad.

Thomasina Miers Chorizo, Potato and Thyme Quesadillas

I saved a life today.  Okay so not a human life, but the life of a sheep that had become stuck in a lake.  I just hope the sheep has gotten over the trauma.  Do sheep become traumatised?  I'm not sure.  She didn't look too stressed, and just spent most of the time bleating pitifully but I hope she's now back grazing happily with her fellow sheep.  I will think of her while I try to fall asleep tonight.

So how did I find myself in this situation?  Well every time it's sunny, this is how the day will go in our house.  I get up early.  I always do.  Despite moaning that I never get a lie in any more, I used to really have to battle with myself to stay in bed past 7am pre-child.  So this scenario has played out many a time over the past seven years, just with slightly different variants.  Anyhow, I got up.  The child got up.  We went to Sainsburys to buy almond essence (Ocado no longer sell this which is REALLY annoying).  We get home.  The husband is still in bed.

At 11.23am, he finally surfaces, forages and slopes back upstairs to surf the interweb.  Miss A has her lunch served on the dot of midday.  The husband appears at 12:02 and demands to know what we're doing for the rest of the day.  A discussion ensues about how it's now too late to go on a long distance trip to the coast; we couldn't do it anyway as we can neither leave the dogs or take them with us (two high octane dogs and a toddler outside of the house is just plain stressful); and a reminder from me to him that no matter what I suggest, he won't want to do it anyway.

He slopes back upstairs.  I email a list of suggestions.  He appears thirty minutes later and announces that we'll be doing none of the above and that we'll go to our usual pub for lunch and then to the local lake for a walk.  An hour later, we finally get out of the door, lunch and then go for a walk.

Sheep don't swim...do they?

Getting to the edge of the lake, we notice a sheep wading about three feet from the bank.  She's bleating pitifully and you can quite clearly see where she's tried to get out but failed as the bank is just to steep for a sheep in a sodden fleece.  Passersby stop and tell us she's been here for a while.  I ask what anyone's done about it.  Nothing comes the reply.  They all stand around staring whilst I try to keep Miss A from jumping in because she has a new obsession about wanting to kiss sheep.  This is bad enough with the sheep in the field, but she is particularly hung up on this wet sheep.

Still nobody volunteers to dive in and help her out (the sheep, not Miss A!).  She won't come close enough to the bank for anyone to try pulling her out now she has an audience.  People start to drift away muttering that she'll get out in her own time.  I wasn't convinced.  So being a good citizen, I whipped out my phone, found the number of the stately home the lake belongs too and put in a call to the Lord of the Manor who promptly dispatched the shepherds to rescue her.

What bothered me about this was that most people have internet enabled phones these days and nobody else cared enough to hasten the sheep's rescue.  Years ago, on an early morning drive through the New Forest with a friend, we happened across a foal racing around in the road as it had become separated from its mother (she was stuck behind a fence) and it didn't know how to get back to her.  My phone was a primitive Nokia.  Yet a couple of calls and we managed to get in touch with some Forest Rangers who came and helped us to capture the foal.

Hasty picture of tasty quesadilla

It may only be just a sheep and people may think 'Oh well someone else will do it' but seriously, in a world of instant communication, it takes just a few minutes to help these hapless animals.  At least I can go to bed with a clear conscience and not worry that if we go back tomorrow, there will be a carcass in the lake having its eyes pecked out by crows (this was the husband's suggestion - he has a thing about crows).

Anyway, all this drama meant that my plan for Melanzana all Parmiagana went south so I needed a quick storecupboard recipe to knock up for tea.  I made the aforementioned quesadillas which I've been meaning to make for ages but have never gotten round to doing so.  They were pleasant enough and would make a great snack.  You definitely need to use old potatoes for this.  I had new ones to hand, but they were more greasy rather than crisp.  I served the quesadilla with some tomato sauce that was left over from last night's pizza with some chilli thrown in to give it the necessary kick to go with the Mexican theme.

Really quick, really easy and a great way to get through a pack of flour tortillas.  I always end up throwing some away (I know, I should always make my own!).  Before my toaster blew up the other day, I'd often stick folded wraps in my toaster and stuff them with salad and cheese or hummous but I'd never thought of dry frying them with the filling inside.  Opened up lots of potential.

The recipe is on the Guardian website and comes from Mexican Food Made Easy.

Prawn and Chorizo Skewers

What makes you choose to cook someone else's recipe? Is it the glossy, photography in the beautifully bound book?  Or if you're a blog fiend, would you choose a recipe where the person has had the time and patience to photograph every step and then spend endless amounts of time photographing the final product (unlike me who will take a quick picture before diving in face first).  Or do you pore over the index wondering what recipe will fit the ingredients that you have to hand or fancy?  And if you find what you're looking for, turn to the page and find it pictureless, would you still make it?

I ask because tonight's recipe test came from a book called 4 Ingredients (sic) - Special Garden Gourmet Edition.  It came free from Ocado when I purchased two tubes of Garden Gourmet herbs.  The book states it's value to be £9.99, yet if I'm honest, I wouldn't give it a second look unless it was free (as it was) or if it was on sale in my local discount book store for a couple of pounds.  Why?  Because it's all text and no pictures.  Call me fussy, but I generally like to see what I'm going to make before I make it.  And I honestly only picked this recipe in sheer desperation because I had all the ingredients, having earlier consumed the greek yogurt that I had forgotten I needed for tea tonight.

Take my plan to bake cake to ply my project manager with this week.  I've been flicking through Cake Days from the Hummingbird Bakery this evening.  Every recipe I've looked at has been accompanied by an arty picture of the product.  There are plenty of pictureless recipes in the book, but they've not garnered a second glance.  If, however, I ever find myself with five spare green eating apples and in need of cake, I might give their Apple Crumble Cupcakes a go - but only because I'd've looked through the index for an apple recipe.  I only looked at this recipe because I needed an example to support my current train of thought.

I realise that my blog is more a 'I tried this recipe, and this is what I thought' than me selling you my own creative talent so I'm not really sure if my photos matter or not.  I have tried to take a picture of the product of every recipe.  Some posts have several pictures (not always of the cooking process!) but none of them will make the average person go 'Wow, I really really want to make that'.  I would imagine (maybe I'm wrong here) that when reading my blog, people look for the thumbs up or down with the picture as secondary information.  Plus my pictures are more how the average cook who doesn't have several hours to artfully photograph their creations can achieve.  Don't get me wrong - I love food photography porn as much as the next person (especially that posted by @HarbourHussy on Twitter - seriously her posts should come with a warning message first) but I have neither the time nor the artistic bent to take great food photos.  Maybe that should be next year's challenge?

Anyway, back to today's recipe.  Such a simple recipe probably doesn't deserve such a lot of pontification, but I love to waffle so waffle is what you now have.  As I said, I lacked the greek yogurt to try the tandoori prawn skewers from the March edition of Good Food (and my cucumber had gone mouldy too) so instead I went with this prawn and chorizo option.

Just a quick camera phone picture - better than nothing!

It sounds pretty straight forward.  Slice the chorizo into rounds, fry for a minute on either side then thread onto skewers, wrapping a prawn around each chorizo slice.  But a lack of picture left me wondering do I thread the stick straight through the centre of the chorizo round so it's flat or do I thread the stick from one edge to the other so the chorizo is upright?  I went for the flat option, but when I then came to cooking the skewers, the prawns were lifted up off of the heat from the pan so didn't cook properly.  It would've worked well on a barbecue as the chorizo would've been partially below the bars, but in a flat pan, it just didn't work.

The trouble is, threading hot chorizo onto skewers was hard enough when poking the sick straight through the flat face, but as my slices were quite thin, to do edge to edge would've been even more fiddly and this was supposed to be a simple recipe.   A picture definitely would have helped solve this dilemma, but alas, free books are usually made on the cheap.  It was a good recipe for something that only had four ingredients - you make a dressing out of olive oil and some Garden Gourmet Italian Herbs - and it tasted appropriately summery to match the lovely sunset that happened this evening.

Will I make it again?  Yes.  Will I make anything else from the book?  Only in sheer desperation for this blog.  I doubt I will ever pick the book up again once this year is over.  Which might be a shame and it might be sacrilege but when time's tight, I want minimal effort to be put into seducing me into choosing a recipe.  Maybe I'm missing out...?

Gordon Ramsay's Chorizo, butter bean and red onion soup

There are some meals that are best eaten with your eyes shut.  Or at least while reading your Twitter timeline on your phone.  Or if you have decent company at the dinner table, then maybe flattering lighting will be enough to distract you from what's on your plate.  Whatever works for you, I suggest you do it if you try this recipe.

With a flattering Flickr filter it doesn't look so bad

Don't get me wrong, it's very tasty.  It does get boring after about half a bowlful (or maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it) but you just don't really want to look at it while you're eating it.

Although my photography skills leave a lot to be desired (hey, it's not easy finding time to artfully photograph with a rubbish cameraphone when you have to blog every single day), I do appreciate the benefit of flattering lighting and Photoshop.  It's great for hiding things like crows feet and dark circles and grey hairs.  And that the beautifully red chorizo that you lovingly chopped up has now gone all grey and insipid thanks to the paprika leaching out into the broth.  Or that the vibrant red onions, are now equally monochrome and unappealing after being simmered for ten minutes.

My once red chorizo turning grey

The rubbish picture really belies the true mess that was left in my bowl.  Honestly it just looked like nasty grey lumps of insipid gristle.  Kind of how I imagine school dinners to have been before they were Jamie Olivered (although I probably qualified for free school meals, I used to have a packed lunch).

I don't know if it's something I did wrong with the cooking - it's hardly a taxing recipe - or if the picture in Gordon's Fast Food also benefited from flattering lighting and Photoshop.  But honestly, I can't express how manky it looked when I was done with it.  I was hoping for something more warm and red and comforting along the lines of the recipe by the lovely Mr Bridestock that partly inspired this blog.  As I said the other day, if you find a good recipe, stick with it and move on.  There's a lot to be said for not chasing perfection.  Either that or you have to be prepared to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince.  How many time did Edison fail in his efforts to make a lightbulb?

Anyway I'll stop before I enter into another stream of conscious rambling.  Final thought for the day.  My spaniel really appreciated the leftovers.  Then again, he'll eat anything bar leeks.

Recipe from Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food

• 225g chorizo, skin removed
• 3 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to drizzle
• 2 red onions, peeled & finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled & very finely sliced
• few thyme sprigs
• 2 x 420g cans butter beans, drained & rinsed
• sea salt & black pepper 
• squeeze lemon juice
• large handful flat parsley, roughly chopped

1. Chop chorizo into small bite size pieces. Put kettle on to boil.
2. Heat olive oil, in heavy based saucepan & add onions, garlic & thyme. Cook, stirring, for 2 mins, then add chorizo. Stir over high heat for a few mins until oil has taken on reddish-golden hue from chorizo.
3. Tip in beans and pour in just enough boiling water to cover. Bring to a simmer and cook gently for about 10 mins.
4. Season generously and add squeeze of lemon. Scatter over parsley and ladle into warm bowls to serve.

Thomasina Miers' Queso Fundido

I really wanted to go to the Love Food Festival in Bath this morning.  Unfortunately, being a mum of a small toddler doesn't make trips like this easy.  I know there are plenty of parents who manage all kinds of extreme activities with their under two offspring, but I have a feeling that they have placid children like the 'immaculate ladies' (more on them another day) rather than a tearaway like Miss A.

She's at that awkward age where she doesn't like to be in her buggy but she doesn't want to walk either.  And when she does walk, she generally wants to go in the opposite direction and once she exceeds the length of the reins on her Little Life Backpack, she will throw herself to the floor and have the mother of all tantrums unless you pick her up and carry her.  She's really tall (and consequently heavy) for her age and it's not easy juggling a three foot toddler and trying to shop at the same time.

'But you have a husband!' I hear you cry.  Yes, I do.  But as he does two days childcare in the week to generously(!) allow me to work full time, he sees weekends as his own time and will only join us on a day out if it's something that interests him.  Food, as you may know if you've read other post, does not interest him in the slightest.

I even tried subtly asking him to come:
'Miss A and I are going out tomorrow.'
'Where?'
'Love Food Festival.'
'Oh - that won't interest me will it?'
'It's in Bath for a change...'
'I hate Bath.'
End of conversation.

In the end, it took three hours to get Miss A dressed and out of the door by which time we were heading into that dangerous territory of her needing lunch at midday and a nap at 1.30pm.  I had things to do during her nap this afternoon so didn't want to risk her sleeping in the car on the way home, leaving me with no free time to iron in peace.

Melted cheese and chorizo. Top nosh!

So my plans to buy something interesting to cook with today went south.  Having got into a bit of a 'Life's unfair jag' this morning (it's a bit whiney, I won't take you there), I needed something to cheer me up for lunch so I thumbed through Mexican Food Made Easy and happened across Queso Fundido.  Spanish for melted cheese.  Miers says it's a bit like Welsh Rarebit.  I would liken it more to the tastiest ever pizza topping, without all that horrible stodgy bread base (I don't like pizza - unless it's that gorgeous thin and crispy base you get from a wood-fired oven).

Really simple, really tasty.  What more could you want?  I didn't have any salad to hand (save for some insipid iceberg) so I just put a sprinkling of fresh coriander on the top.

I really *love* this book.  It's in my top three favourites along with Dan Lepard and Lorraine Pascale.


Queso fundido – serves 4-5 as a starter

• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 120g chorizo cooking sausage, casings removed
• 1/2 a white onion, finely diced
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 150g mozzarella, grated
• 150g mature cheddar, grated

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Cover the tomatoes with boiling water and leave for 20 seconds. Drain and pierce them with a knife so you can peel them easily. Scoop out the seeds and dice the flesh into small cubes.
2. Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and brown the chorizo over a medium heat, breaking it up with a spoon as you go. Add the onion and cumin and cook for 5-10 minutes or until the onion is translucent. Add the tomatoes and cook until most of the moisture has evaporated from the pan and you have a mince-like texture. Season.
3. Spread the mixture on to the bottom of a gratin dish so that is just covers the bottom. Cover with the grated cheeses and put in the oven for about 10 minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbling. Or you can stick it under the grill.
4. Warm your tortillas in a hot dry frying pan for a few seconds on each side. Spoon some Queso fundido and salad on your tortilla and roll them up to eat.

Spaghetti with 'Spanish' flavours

This oddly named recipe is courtesy of BBC Good Food.  I don't really understand what's wrong with calling it Spaghetti with Chorizo and Peppers?  Because that's all it is in essence.

Life is busy with the candle being fully burnt at both ends.  I feel I barely have time to breathe some days with juggling a full time job, motherhood, wifehood, running and this cooking blog nonsense.  Tomorrow I'm having to get up at 4am to fit in a five mile run so I can still be at work by 7am, work til 5pm then home for another round of bedtime, dinner and blogging.  And they call this Women's Lib?  I guess thirty years ago (excluding the technological advantages) I wouldn't have been able to have the satisfaction of gradually trying a new recipe every day as the resources just wouldn't have been there.  I'm only in the privileged position to do this because I work full time.

Anyway, enough with the self pity.  To me, spaghetti should always be served alla ragu (or with a bit of Bol) or with rather tasty meatballs.  Failing that, it makes an excellent snack simply buttered with lashings of black pepper and parmesan.  You can keep your carbonara.  It just doesn't do it for me.

But as I'm running tomorrow, I wanted a quicky, tasty pasta dish to sustain me as I won't eat when I get up in the morning.  Or at least that's my excuse.  It's carb-loading, okay?

So I turned to BBC Good Food to help me make something out of the limited contents of my fridge and larder (two days to Ocado arrive and counting!).  And this was what I got.  A tasty pasta dish that was quick to make (and sadly even quicker to eat).  I used dried pasta.  I didn't have fresh parsley so used Garden Gourmet.  I think this is the one bit that could be improved on by using real herbs as you just didn't get those little parsley flavour spikes like you would with the real thing.

This will now be my new quick pasta dish of choice for evenings when I want to pack in the carbs but don't have hours to cook - and can't convince the hubby that it's good to have Spag Bol for the third time in under a week.  As for the flavours being Spanish?  Well it tasted of smoked paprika from the chorizo so I guess it can just about get away under the trades description act.  But only just.

You can find the recipe here

Chorizo and Chickpea Soup

Today was one of *those* days.  I've had worse.  I'm sure I'll have far worse in the future.  So perhaps disappointing is the best way to describe it.

I had intended to make cauliflower biryani tonight.  Before the cauliflower I bought the other day finally goes off.  But what with the pants day and the cold weather, as I drove home, all I could think about was a lovely warming bowl of something red that would give me the equivalent of a food hug and make the end of my day a little better.

Think dishwater with beans and chorizo in it...

This could have been something like gumbo or jambalaya; cream of tomato soup or chilli con carne; my staple larder vegetable sauce over pasta; Mr Bridestock's Chorizo and Butterbean Stew or even the Mixed Bean Chilli I tried back in November.  But no. I stupidly decided several months ago that it might be fun/interesting/challenging/educational/... to try a new recipe every day so bound by my own stupidity, I gave the Chorizo and Chickpea soup from BBC Good Food a whirl.

Nothing doing.  Despite it having a five-star rating after 60 reviews (my one star couldn't tip the balance), I have to say that this was another disappointing waste of ingredients.  The soup was watery and bland.  I should've figured this when the instructions amounted to 'Boil a tin of tomatoes with a tin of water and a stock cube'   I'm not a food snob, but having spent some time learning from all these recipes how to spice a dish like this, the appeal of tinned tomatoes and Knorr's finest is wearing off.

I even threw in some spices and a little touch of sugar to take away the nasty metallic tang of the tomatoes.  But nothing could save it.  It wasn't helped that I had Tiger Bread to eat it with.  Watery, metallic soup or a big doorstop of bread?  It's no wonder the scales resolutely refused to shift in a downwards direction over the past week, despite lots of running.

So to cheer myself up, I will not be cooking the biryani tomorrow.  Instead, I will be participating in the Weekly Bake Off and making Mary Berry's Farmhouse Victoria Sponge for my esteemed colleagues at my new work location.  Not that I'm trying to score brownie points with them or anything :)

If you want to see if this recipe does it for you, you can find it here.

Chorizo Hash

As an analyst, the six P's are part of my mantra.  Piss Poor Planning Prevents Poor Performance.  Unfortunately, I fell foul of this yesterday when I realised too late that Chinese New Year was today and not next Monday.  Ooops!

With a busy day on the first day of a new secondment, there was no time to stop by the supermarket to pick up the veg I needed to make the dumplings I'd hastily researched last night so I had to abandon the plan and went with the Chorizo Hash I'd previously planned instead.

I feel a little guilty about this recipe.  Yesterday I was looking for a recipe for chocolate and beetroot cake and happened across a blog by a food writer who openly derided people like me who regularly turn to the internet for recipes.  He believes that the only recipes worth making are those that have been tried and tweaked and enhanced and tested and tweaked again to perfect them.  He finds things like the quick and easy recipes peddled by certain websites anathema.

Posh sausage, egg and chips

Well lucky him.  I'd love to live a life where I had nothing better to do all day than sit around perfecting recipes.  Instead, like so many other people, I juggle life's responsibilities and still take pride in the fact that I cook (nearly) from scratch every night - save for the odd night when the husband yanks my chain and dispatches me off to buy him a takeaway.  Even if it is a quick and easy recipe.

So tonight's effort was a variation on the husband's dinner.  He had sausage, egg and chips.  I had chorizo hash with poached eggs.  I originally happened across the recipe in Olive Magazine but this is a hybrid of several I've found - mostly based on the ingredients I had to hand.

Simple and tasty - although I'm sure it would've tasted even better if I'd fried the potatoes in oil rather than low fat spray and had fried eggs instead of poached - which I managed to drop whilst trying to balance on the top of the mound of potato and sausage, hence the rubbish picture.

On the subject of poached eggs, check out the fab Kitchen Bitching blog for advice on how to poach the perfect egg.

Recipe - Serves 2

• 300g baby new potatoes -  halved (or quartered depending on size)
• 150g cooking chorizo - diced
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 2 eggs

1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender.  Drain.
2. Saute the potatoes in a little oil until browned and crispy.  Remove and set to one side.
3. Saute the red onion in a little oil until soft and lightly browned.  Add the chorizo and fry for a couple of minutes.  Return the potatoes to the pan to warm through.
4. Meanwhile, poach the eggs.
5. Divide the hash between two plates and top each with a poached egg.

Chicken and Chorizo Jambalaya

*Sigh*

As Gregg would say "Cooking doesn't get tougher than this."  These people have obviously never had to cook for my husband.  Seriously, he is the fussiest person on this planet.  His motto is "I know what I like and I like what I know" and I should have realised at the start of this blog, the chances of changing much in the way of his eating habits.

Wednesday night is traditionally Chicken and Rice night.  It has been for the eight years I've known my husband.  Religiously.  Save for the very rare holidays abroad, I never have a problem with what to cook the husband for tea on Wednesdays.  One baked chicken breast, sprinkled with Schwarz Chargrilled Chicken spice; a packet of Uncle Ben's Express Mushroom or Tomato Rice; Bisto Instant Gravy; two slices of wholemeal bread with Flora.

Very red dinner.  Real, warming food for winter.

So once this was underway, I started my own dinner of Chicken and Chorizo Jambalaya.  This was the most popular recipe on BBC Good Food last year.  I wanted something simple and quick, yet tasty and filling.  Big flavour, no fuss.  I tried something similar from BBC Good Food last year - a Spanish Rice and Chicken One Pot - but that lacked seasoning so I was interested to see if this had the big flavours the other one was lacking.

I was surprised that this recipe didn't use the third item in the Holy Trinity of Southern cooking - celery.  Luckily I didn't have any in the fridge so I didn't have to worry that that was what would cause the dish to be lacking - if it was;  I also would've used green peppers to give a bit of a contrast to all the redness.  But the flavouring in this case was great.  I think using the pre-bought spice mix probably helped this one along.  All in all, a really simple, tasty dish.  Once the chicken and veggies were fried, I was able to wander off and leave it to cook rather than watching it like a hawk.  The only difference to the actual recipe was that I used Basmati rice which cooked in fifteen minutes, whereas the recipe used long grain and suggested it would take 25 minutes.

For once, I managed to serve both meals at the same time.  The husband doesn't like spicy and every time I sneak chorizo into something he picks it up and examines it like it's some kind of foreign body that's fallen into his dinner accidentally.  He questions what it is and then eats it, looking like a child being forced to eat greens.  So this one was just a meal for me; not one I ever planned to share with him.  I sit down and the conversation went something a bit like this:

Husband "What's that?"
Me "Jambalaya"
Husband "It's chicken and rice.  Why haven't I got that? It looks really nice"
Me "Because you wouldn't like it"
Husband "I think I'd like it"
Me "I'll cook it for you tomorrow"
Husband "But I might not feel like it tomorrow.  What do I normally have on Thursdays?"

At this point, I lost the will to live.  The answer is "something non-chicken; usually sausages"  What to do?  Test this dish on him?  Leave it til next Wednesday and risk upsetting the boat by cooking something different on Chicken and Rice night?  Or hope against hope, we might extend his list of meals he'll eat from eleven to twelve?  Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Quick Chicken with Garlic Beans and Chorizo

Given the number of times I've mocked the husband for eating baked beans with just about everything (and worse than that he eats COLD baked beans with just about everything), I thought he might have had a dig at me tonight when I sat down to a pile of 'baked beans' with a chicken breast jauntily perched on the top.  Thankfully Mike Dilger was on the telly (the wildlife bloke from the One Show) so I managed to get away without comment.

But these were no ordinary baked beans.  Nor were they Branston Beans which I insist we have instead of those insipid Heinz things.  These were James Martin's posh beans.

I love this recipe as it is full of simple ingredients, it was really easy to cook - save for the fiddly chopping of shallots - and it was bloody tasty.  It's the kind of thing that I can imagine French peasants sitting down to with a huge crusty loaf, slathered in unsalted butter and plenty of wine to wash it all down with.

Posh beans under chicken

Of course, I'm still trying to be good so this treat came at the expense of having anything on the side.  It's something I will make time and again now for a quick lunch (without the chicken).  I'm now planning it as the side to whatever crusty loaves I get round to baking when time permits and I've put in enough miles to justify such an indulgence.  I do have some leftover beans in the fridge which I'll probably have for lunch with a jacket potato tomorrow.  Sadly the 'freshly baked' bread they serve at work is generally stale after it's been sliced and left sitting out for hours on end so that's not an option.

Anyhow the blog is supposed to be short this week as I'm back at work which is why I love that this recipe was so quick.  I managed to cook two separate dinners and do lunches in about 25 minutes (the husband had ham, egg and chips).

The recipe is from James Martin's Masterclass.

Recipe - Serves 4

• 25ml extra-virgin olive oil
• 4x175g boneless chicken breasts with the skin on (I only had skinless)
• 1 bulb of garlic, cut in half cross ways
• 250g raw chorizo, diced
• 2 shallots, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 sprigs of rosemary (don't like it, didn't use it)
• 1x300g can haricot beans, drained and rinsed
• 150ml chicken stock
• 25g butter
• 25g flat leaf parsley, chopped (I used Garden Gourmet)
• Salt and black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6.
2. Place a large frying pan over a high heat and pour in half the olive oil.  Season the chicken breasts well with salt and pepper, add to the pan and fry on each side for 2-3 minutes or until golden brown.  Place on a baking tray, add the halves of garlic bulb and drizzle with the pan juices, then bake in the oven for 12 minutes or until cooked through.
3. While the chicken is cooking, place the pan back over the heat, add the remaining oil and the chorizo and fry for 2-3 minutes.  Add the shallots, rosemary, beans and stock and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.
4. Remove the chicken from the oven and allow to rest, then remove the garlic and squeeze out the flesh from the inside.  Chop the flesh well with a knife and add to the beans.  Stir in the butter an dparsley and season well with salt and pepper.
5. Spoon the beans on to individual plates with the chicken sliced on the top (you can see from the pic I was too lazy for this bit), drizzle with the pan juices and serve.

Quick Bean and Chorizo Chilli

The Crowdey household is currently drowning in snot.  No, honestly, it's really that bad.  The toddler has toddler-flu, the husband has man-flu and I have a cold with an impending bought of sinusitus.

We're surviving on Strepsils (other throat medication is available) and unbranded painkillers and copious amounts of honey, lemon and pepperment tea.  As an aside, that was recommended to me by the little Peruvian guy who used to make me lovely toasted Fiorentina sandwiches when I worked in Exmouth Market.  Sounds like weird flavours but it tastes good and does actually stop me from losing my voice - something that's paramount when you have a toddler.

Anyhow, the last thing I felt like doing today was cooking.  Having had two sleepless nights due to my poorly girl and being riddled with lurgies myself, I struggled to know what to cook.  And my fridge, like old Mother Hubbard's cupboard is pretty bare.

Quick, warming and pretty healthy!

At the moment, the office I work in is colder than a snowman's proverbials and I'm spending far too much at the Costa bar on Creme Brulee lattes to ward off the cold (other coffee chains are available - just not at Super Spy HQ).  So I figured I could make a storecupboard recipe for tea tonight and use it for tomorrows lunch.  Red things are always warming so the Quick bean and chorizo chilli that's been lurking in my BBC Good Food binder for aeons was perfect.

It's a bit cheaty in that it uses a jar of ready made sauce, but it's supposed to be quick so I can forgive them for that.  In reality, I don't have cheaty jars of ready made sauce so I fried some onions, cumin and garlic and then added half a jar of passata.  Worked out well.  Filling, warming and pretty healthy too if you discount the huge bit of baguette on the side and the rather large dollop of creme fraiche - it is half fat though.

Speedy but nothing special.  Would make it again as it's the kind of thing I always have the ingredients for somewhere about the house.

Fingers x'd for a better night's sleep for all tonight!

Breakfast Burrito

I'm not normally one for a huge breakfast.  I fluctuate between porridge or toast and for work I now take Bircher muesli or my homemade granola and yogurt.

Back in the day, we always used to have a big fat cooked breakfast on a Sunday morning - my favourite being the fried bread.  Oh how I long for those days.  But it's no wonder why I have a larger than average family.

This morning, however, we had an electrician coming to fix the plug socket for our fridge freezer.  The fridge freezer is a recent purchase and although not capacious by American standards, for us, it is bigger than the last one.

Mmmm....cheese....

This means that even though it has lots of food in it, it often looks empty.  So I've started hoarding jars of things.  And losing things at the back of the fridge for all eternity.  Having to empty it this morning, I turned up two 9 packs of eggs I bought for extra baking last weekend that I never did, a half eaten tin of refried beans and more chorizo than it is sensible to have in a house where only one person eats it.


Hmmm...breakfast....

Today also involves decamping to stay with the Mothership for a couple of nights after I finish work at midday.  This always raises my blood pressure - not least with all the complexity of getting out of the door in the first place.  I have to pack enough clothes just in case the child has multiple accidents - she hasn't yet touch plastic-covered MDF, but I just know if I pack light disaster will ensue.  Then there's all her attendant paraphernalia.  The lullaby light show.  Baby monitor.  Her pillow.  A selection of stuffed animals.  Her drawing stuff.  Her breakfast cereal as she will not eat cornflakes and that is all my mother will ever buy.  Her milk because she has special Lactose free milk.  Enough snacks to last until doomsday to avoid afternoon melt-down in case we drop in on friends before arriving at mothers.  And a million other things that I race around the house stuffing into carrier bags at the last minute.

Look...there are healthy green bits.

I know all my mummy friends are nodding in sympathy at this.  It's something the childless just-don't-get.

Anyhow this means that I'll miss lunch and as I'm out with the girls tonight (hurrah!) I won't eat until late. So a big breakfast was the order of the day.

And very satisfying it was too.  It's the kind of thing I'd expect to get if I ever went to Me-hi-co but in reality it's probably the thing served in McDonalds on CopaCabana beach and no self-respecting Mexican would ever go near it.

Also not something to eat if you're on a lose-weight diet like what I should be doing.

Check out the recipe here

I added some chives to the eggs and used the half tin of refried beans - I buy the little tins from Discovery as they're nice and spicy and don't look like cat food like the Old El Paso ones do.

Spanish Rice and Chicken One Pot

This should've been Spanish Rice and Prawn One Pot from my favourite website - BBCGoodFood.com - but thanks to Ocado not bringing my prawns, I ended up using chicken instead.

It even has a few green bits in it!

Internet shopping is supposed to be easy but anyone who's used it more than once will have tales of things missing, ridiculous substitutions (a jar of capers instead of shelled pistachios??), surly drivers (that's one thing Ocado do have in plentiful stock - lovely drivers), and shopping just not being delivered full stop due to 'operational issues' (several times Ocado - sort it out).

But my alternative after a long working week is battling round Sainsburys with a fractious toddler is quite unappealing so week after week, I accept my internet shopping then head off to Tescos on a Sunday to buy all the stuff that I couldn't get or was too expensive.

Anyhow, although I was disappointed by the lack of prawns, at least I won't have the dilemma of what to do with the rest of them.  Chicken was an okay alternative and I think on a good day, the husband might even eat this dish.

Like many of the commenters though, it lacked seasoning so I used some Knorr liquid chicken stock and a touch of smoked paprika and the dish was transformed.  Definitely a keeper and will look forward to making it with prawns one day.

Next on the Spanish list of things to master (after Churros - but not sure if they're Spanish or Me-hi-can) is Paella or Pie-ay-ya if you prefer.

Torta - Mexican Club Sandwich

Add caption

I have to confess I am just a little bit in love with Thomasina Miers' Mexican Food Made Simple.  There are so many simple and tasty recipes, I just have to try them all.  In fact I'm now guilty of behaving like the husband and saying 'I don't want that for tea' (or lunch in this case) just so that I can have something really lovely instead.

Today's lunch was Torta - the Mexican club sandwich and a fab way to use up some more of those lovely Unearthed Mini Cooking Chorizos.  I'm in love with them too.  Apparently Torta is 'not for the faint-hearted'.  I consider myself made of hardy stuff.  And it's far nicer than the traditional club sandwich - I'm sure it's all to do with the gorgeous salt-spicy taste of the chorizo and the buttery avocado which compliments it so beautifully.

The only point of note is to make sure you have really big rolls otherwise everything just falls out!


Recipe:

Serves 4

Preparation time 20 minutes

• 2 large, ripe tomatoes or fresh tomato salsa 
• sea salt and black pepper
• 1 red chilli, finely chopped
• a drizzle of olive oil
• 300g cooking chorizo
• 4 ciabatta buns
• 1 tbsp lard or olive oil (optional)
• 8 large tbsp refried beans 
• 1 avocado, mashed with the juice of half a lime
• half a red onion, sliced very thinly
• 1-2 baby gem lettuces
• 4 very generous tbsp chipotle mayonnaise or ordinary mayonnaise

1. Slice the tomatoes and dress them in salt and pepper, the chilli and a drizzle of olive oil.
2. Slice the chorizo up into bite-size pieces that can easily be grilled, unless you are cooking them outside on the barbecue, in which case grill the sausages first and then slice them so you don't lose precious pieces in the fire. Heat a griddle or frying pan until smoking, add the chorizo and cook for a few minutes a side until it is looking good and crispy.
3. Remove to a plate and cut the buns in half. Brush both sides of the buns with the chorizo fat and a little extra lard or oil if you think they need it. Toast on the grill pan on both sides. Smear one half of the buns with refried beans and top with the avocado, red onion, tomato, chorizo and lettuce.
4. Smear the other half in the mayonnaise and press down firmly. Eat at once, preferably doused with healthy amounts of salsa.

Chorizo and Edamame Risotto

Apologies for 'Yet Another Chorizo Recipe' but the trouble with cooking for one is that you buy a something and then you have to cook with it day after day after day.  Thankfully I'm still in love with the Unearthed Mini Cooking Chorizos and tonight's recipe is well worth the effort.

After cooking for the child, and then the husband, I wasn't sure if I could be bothered to labour over a risotto, but the mindless stirring gave me ample opportunity to catch up with an old friend for twenty minutes - and at the end, I had a really gorgeous tea, all to myself.

It definitely needs a glass of crisp, dry white wine to accompany it.  And I would definitely recommend watching how strong the stock is as it was quite salty - in fact the nutritional information on the recipe (which I checked AFTER I'd made it) says there's a whopping 5.06g of salt per serving!  BBC Good Food, that is shocking.  Even though it was ever-so tasty.

The recipe is from this month's magazine and hasn't been published online yet.

Serves 4

• 1tbsp olive oil
• 100g smoked bacon, diced (I used pancetta)
• 2 shallots, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 350g small cooking chorizo
• 300g risotto rice
• 1 litre hot chicken stock
• 300g frozen broad beans (I used fresh edamame beans and cooked them first)

1. Heat the oil in a medium pan, then add the bacon, shallots, garlic and chorizo.
2. Cook gently for 8 mins, stirring occasionally so everything cooks evenly.
3. Stir in the rice, coating all over with the cooking juices in the pan.
4. Add enough stock to cover the rice, bring to a simmer and gently cook until all the liquid is absorbed.
5. Continue adding the stock a ladleful at a time, and gently cook.
6. Just before the final ladleful of stock, add the broad beans and stir through, cooking for 304 minutes until tender.
7. Remove the chorizo, slice thinly, return to the pan and mix through before serving.