Hairy Bikers Chilli Salad Bowls

Whilst idling away my lie in this morning, I happened across an article by Janet Street-Porter which included a part on the subject of this country's fascination with cookery books.  She likened the collecting of cookbooks to an obsession with handbags or shoes.  Expensive, and after the first few, probably unnecessary.  Despite generally finding JS-P a bit irritating, I have to agree with her on this particular point.

It was my collection of cookbooks that set me off on this mission last year.  I had around twenty which I would leaf through, imagining myself lovingly making some of the recipes for my nearest and dearest.  Then reality would surface and I'd just cook whatever made people happy.  And so I promised myself I'd spend a year using the books I had and cooking something new every day.  Did I stick to it?  Nope.

Yes, this is 'diet' food - about 450cal for the plateful

Well I stuck to the new recipe bit and the blogging bit.  What I didn't stick to was using the recipe books that I had.  I was seduced into buying some new ones that were heavily discounted 'because I need them for my challenge'.  I used recipes from my Good Food Mag subscription.  And I discovered the joys of finding recipes on the internet.  So at the end of this year, I have at least eight more cookery books* than 365 days ago, despite having enough recipe books that if I cooked one new recipe from one of them every day, I'd probably not cook the same thing twice before I die**

At the weekend, when I was out with the girls, one of them mentioned the Hairy Dieters book by the Hairy Bikers.  I'm not a fan of Si and Dave, but having flicked through some of their books at my mum's, I thought that maybe I should add their dieters book to my armoury.  I then wandered off into iPad-land and discovered that some of the recipes were published online anyway.  So did I really need to buy the book?  Probably not.  At least trying some of the online ones might sway me one way or another.  So I settled on trying their chilli bowls recipe tonight.

And this just goes to prove JS-Ps point (you can read the article here***).  I used to make something very similar many moons ago.  Except I served it in a soft tortilla rather than a baked one.  It was a staple diet meal until the husband decided he didn't want it again, and I forgot all about it.  In some respects, it was nice to be reminded of yet another option to add to our weekly repertoire that's family friendly.  But if I'd stirred the old grey matter a little more, I could've thought this one up myself.

Chilli is something I normally batch cook (the husband doesn't like kidney beans) and so I freeze portions so that I can have something different to him for dinners when I'm not a slave to the 366 Recipe Challenge.  Of course, there are plenty of people out there who've never cooked chilli before and would probably appreciate the friendly Bikers' guidance.  But once you've bought a few cook books, you should probably spend your pennies on something else.

The Wahaca book has recipes re-hashed from Mexican Cooking Made Easy.  My two Gordon Ramsay books contain around 30% of the same recipes.  The Hummingbird Bakery are guilty of recycling into the follow up Cake Days.  Even Dan Lepard is guilty, with a significant number of recipes from Short and Sweet also being available online from on the Guardian website****.  And once you own a few baking books, you notice that they all peddle slight variations on the theme of chocolate, coffee, carrot, lemon cake.  There are only so many recipes to go around.  And unless you want to eat Heston-food every night for dinner, it all starts to get a bit samey.

Nevertheless, a year on, I still love my cookery books.  They've fed my imagination since I was a child and used to make up stories in my head that involved intricate scenes of cooking lavish meals and extravagant cakes*****.

So does this mean I'll never buy another cookery book again?  Of course it doesn't.  I am as much as a sucker for cookery books as I am for high heeled shoes.  If there's a little leeway in the budget and a book appeals, I'll buy it.  And I want to buy 'classics' from the Roux brothers and Richard Bertinet.  But I'll definitely check the internet first.

You can save yourself a few quid and find the Hairy Bikers recipe I used online here.  It was an okay family meal and really filling.  I chose to eschew the tortilla bowls and use tacos instead.  I've not eaten tacos for a million years and it was great to know that you can eat three taco shells for only a handful of calories more than a single flour tortilla.  This in itself made the recipe a complete bargain.  If I was feeling extravagant, I'd add chopped coriander to the salad.

And guess what I have for tea tomorrow night?  Yes!  Leftovers.  Because there is only one more recipe to go.  And Miss A has insisted we do cake :o)

*Two were Christmas presents (Lorraine Pascale's Home Cooking Made Easy and the Great British Bake Off Book).  One I've not used at all on this challenge (Jamie's 30 Minute Meals).  One I've lost (James Martin's Masterclass).  One was the best investment ever (Dan Lepard's Short and Sweet).  One was for the Weekly Bake Off Challenge (Mary Berry's 100 cakes and bakes).  The others were Wahaca by Thomasina Miers and Little Paris Kitchen by Rachel Khoo.  I'm sure there were one or two others.
**As I child, I believed everyone lived until 100 and died on their 100th birthday just after the party.  I intend to do just this.
***I read the Daily Fail online.  So sue me.
****That said, I never would've gotten my mum into Dan Lepard if I'd not sent her links to recipes from Short and Sweet.
*****I still do this

Thomasina Miers' Churros y Chocolate

This recipe has been on my to-do-list ever since I first got my grubby mitts on a copy of Thomasina Miers' Mexican Cooking Made Easy (my second favourite book after Dan Lepard's Short and Sweet) and I knew that if I didn't make it today, I probably never would.

Just a light breakfast

It's the kind of thing that you a) have to share with other people and b) couldn't cook in my house because the husband would freak out about the thought of all that hot oil catching fire.  So I decided to make it whilst visiting the Mothership as I knew she'd just about trust me to cook it by myself (see last night's brandy episode) and that my stepdad would do the honours and eat every last scrap.

The recipe supposedly makes 16 3-4" churros and I did consider only making half of the batter but figured that four each would be about right.  In the end, I must have had about 24 3-4" ones (and they all went).  It also makes far more chocolate sauce than it's humanly possible to eat at that time of the morning - but of course that will keep for another time or can be chilled and turned into truffles.

Mount Churros

Aside from the faff of deep frying, the recipe is simplicity itself.  The batter is just flour, oil and water;  the sauce a simple ganache of dark and milk chocolate*, double cream and golden syrup; the "sprinkly bit" cinnamon and caster sugar.  There's no need for a deep fat fryer to cook them - I did mine in a wok filled one-third full with oil.  You just need to be a bit dextrous trying to snip the batter from the piping bag when it's hanging over a pan of hot oil.  I had a couple that stuck together as the previous one floated into the path of the new one I was squeezing out but other than that, everything went to plan.

The only other tip is to either keep the pre-cooked ones warm whilst cooking the others or to serve them to people shortly after draining.  I made all mine first and so the last few were a bit icky when cold but the chocolate sauce definitely made up for it.

I would definitely make these again if I ever had a crowd to feed.  Which will be never.  But definitely worth the effort if you fancy a treat.  If you don't own a copy of Mexican Food Made Easy (then go buy one!) you can find the recipe here.

*It did feel slightly wrong cooking with 250g Finest Peruvian chocolate at 8am.  But only slightly!

Pan Seared Scallops with Lime

I don't drink much but there is always an open bottle of tequila in my cupboard.  It's been the subject of choice between myself and a friend for a while so when Ocado scuppered my plans for sweet chilli scallops for tea tonight, tequila was the first thing I thought of as I quickly Googled a new recipe.

I've not much more to say on the subject other than this sauce is the best sauce ever (the one that I poured over the scallops, not the neat tequila).  I was surprised the recipe used parsley rather than coriander given the Mexican overtones, but the freshness worked really well with the piquant flavours of the tequila and lime. I could easily imagine making this again with many kinds of fish or perhaps chicken to go with a summer salad.

Some alcohol-based recipes are just a waste of really good alcohol, but this definitely isn't.  As I'm now making inroads on the rest of the bottle (well I have a margerita by my side as I type), I will finish this post here before I post something really dumb :)

You can find the recipe here.

Wahaca Mexican Winter Salad

Yes, that's right.  It's the hottest day of the year so far and I made a Mexican Winter Salad.  Not only that but I've been cuddled up to a hot water bottle all day.  If you think I'm probably starting to lose the plot, you're wrong.  I lost it years ago.

These three events (hot day, excruciating back and leg pain, winter salad) weren't planned to coincide.  I picked the recipe mostly because I seriously couldn't understand why anybody would want to eat salad in the middle of winter.  Soup - definitely.  Salad?  Why.  But then the average temperature in Cancun is 23C in January (thanks Google).  Slightly different to the average 4C we can expect in the UK.  Which I guess kind of explains it.

So with the temperature at a toast 27, I guess today was as close as I'll get to eating like a real Mexican for a very long time.  The month started with J and ended in y too.  Tenuous but I feel I'm justified.

Why do my salads never look artfully tossed?

As I mentioned in a previous post, the standard Ingram family salad was just a bigger version of a pub side salad - lettuce, cucumber and tomato.  No dressing.  So to have a salad that contained none of those ingredients was a real departure.  In fact, my mother would have a fit if I served her this.  She doesn't like radishes and can't stand sweet things (oranges and pomegranates in this case) with meat.

I have to admit that I'd made up my mind before eating this salad that I probably wasn't going to like it. I don't like licorice and so the smell of the fennel  put me right off.   But having never tried fennel before, it's something else I can tick off my list of things to try before I finish this blog. I've also never been a fan of pomegranates - they seem a lot of effort for very little benefit in my opinion.  Plus the juice stains magnolia paint like you wouldn't believe (unless you used to own two African grey parrots who were obsessed with eating pomegranates and would flick the seeds up the wall).

But this salad - like all the other Miers dishes that I've been a little apprehensive of - just worked.  The balance of flavours was spot on.  I especially loved the spiky sea salt and sharp feta with the sweet oranges.  Served with a plain grilled chicken breast it was a delight and looked so very pretty.  I didn't include the Totopos - deep fried slivers of corn tortilla - purely because I'd've eaten way too many of them and having been put back on the 'running bench' whilst I get over my latest 'episode' I have to watch what I'm eating even more than normal.  I'm sure it would only make the salad even better.

Another fine recipe from Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home.  Really must start looking in some of my other books again!

Wahaca: Mollettes

Never let it be said that I don't like themes and patterns.  This week has mostly been about Stuff-on-Toast.  And today is no exception.  I guess it's a reflection of my current mood because I'm a) looking for something a bit comforting - toast being the cure to everything in my world in preference to a nice cup of tea - and b) because I'm feeling a little fragile healthwise and so I'm not up for big food.

Slightly over-zealous salsa application

Stuff-on-Toast started on Wednesday when I picked up some English muffins from Waitrose on my way home from seeing the Quack.  I'd intended to have them as a snack with Miss A but then quickly got swayed by Rachel Khoo's Stuff-on-Toast recipe - or to give it it's proper name "Tartines Sucrées et Salées".  Yesterday's tea was scrambled eggs and Tommy-K on muffins, washed down with a mouthful of my disasterous Pimms jelly.  Breakfast this morning after an hour of BodyCombat was peanut butter and banana on a toasted muffin and lunch has been the most recent encounter with Stuff-on-Toast in the guise of Mollettes.

I was torn about trying this recipe as it seemed to be quite similar in theme to Miers' Queso Fundido which is basically refried beans smothered in cheese and grilled.  It's probably the one bug bear I have with some recipe books where they're by the same chef.  You often get the same - or minor variations on - other recipes from their previous books.  Miers' Tortilla Soup appears in both Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home and Mexican Cooking Made Easy as do variations on Queso Fundido, Caesar Salad and Mexican Hot Chocolate (just a few off the top of my head).  I own two books by Gordon Ramsay where around 50% of the recipes appear in both books.  The original Hummingbird Bakery and Cake Days have a couple of crossover recipes too.  I appreciate that maybe it's my fault for buying more than one book by the same person.  


Anyhow, I was pleasantly surprised with this recipe.  It is a doddle and I was really tempted to make it with all storecupboard ingredients but did half and half, using Discovery refried beans in place of Miers' own recipe (which I really must get around to trying) but making the fresh tomato salsa myself - rather than using some shop-bought that I had in the fridge for using in sandwiches.


If one thing has changed in my cooking this past year it's that I'm more likely to have fresh herbs and tomatoes to hand.  This time last year, I probably hadn't bought a fresh tomato for about five years.  But today, I was able to root some from the back of the crisper, safe in the knowledge that the Ocado man will bring some more this evening.  As for the herbs, my staple is now to have a growing pot of coriander in the garden.  I really wanted to plant my own but I've never successfully grown herbs since we've had a male dog.  When he was a puppy, he took a fancy to chewing them.  I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions to what he does to them now.  I've tried growing them in a wall trough but they just died so now just pop a store-bought pot on my patio table instead.


Making the fresh salsa was a revelation.  Miers uses a combination of tomatoes, chilli, red onion, lime juice, sugar and salt.  I initially thought that the sugar would make it too sweet but it works brilliantly with the slightly salty cheese and beans and the taste combination of all the Stuff-on-Toast(ed muffin) together was amazing.  And despite the cheese and beans, the zingy salsa makes this perfect for a little summer snackage.


It actually comes from the breakfast section of the book.  Much as I love my post-workout peanut butter and banana munch when I've got the time to make it, I am so thinking of swapping it for this once in a while.  New favourite recipe.  Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home - highly recommended

Wahaca: Green Rice Salad

One of my overriding childhood food memories is the annual family barbecue to celebrate my mum's birthday on August 3rd.  You could guarantee a pound to a penny that it would rain and my mum would end up barbecuing in the rain while the rest of us sat inside and watched her.

An Ingram family barbecue always consists of the same things.  To this day.  Sausages and burgers must come from the local butcher.  The only other thing we're ever allowed is chicken.  The salad contains cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes, spring onions and eggs.  Nothing else.  And most definitely no dressing.  Mayonnaise not salad cream.  My grandmother's homemade coleslaw and my mother's rice salad.  And that's it.  Them's the rules.

It's like Christmas day.  We have rules.  God forbid you consider breaking them and trying something new.  And my family always say I'm the unadventurous, fussy one!  In fact, when I hosted Christmas at my house last year, I was so terrified of doing something different from the norm that I very nearly didn't post anything that day.  In a moment of rebellion, I then plumped for Brussel Sprouts with Pancetta but also made regular sprouts for everyone else lest I got in trouble.  I was the only one who ate the 'weird' sprouts.  And very nice they were too.

There are a few green bits in there.  Somewhere.

Mum's birthday barbecue is fast approaching and I'm desperate to get my family to try the Wahaca Three Tomato Salad, an amazing looking Courgette and Goats Cheese Bread by the lovely Fiona Harvey who I met on my recent soujourn to Scotland.  And I want them to try today's rice salad recipe. But I know I'll wimp out and just end up making the birthday cake which I've always been allowed free reign with since I was about eight.

My mum's rice salad contains damp long grain rice, frozen prawns which always seem to have retained a bit too much water, peas, carrots and diced red pepper.  Colourful maybe, but despite the addition of a little vinaigrette, it's so bland.

Whereas the Wahaca salad is brightly coloured and packed with a different taste sensation in every mouthful.  Salty feta, sweet courgettes and corn, spicy chilli and the subtle seasoning of coriander and mint.  I had this for my lunch today and it was really quick to prepare and very filling.  It would go perfectly with barbecued meat but I'm not sure I'm man enough to make it for the big day.

Miers mentions that the original recipe contained leftovers from her green rice recipe but that she now just makes it with plain basmati rice for speed.  I definitely want to make the green version at a later date but the idea of putting green rice in front of my family is definitely a step too far.

If you want to try this recipe yourself, you can find it in Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home.

Wahaca: Three Tomato Salad

I have hated fresh tomatoes with a passion for my entire life.  They loiter on the side of your plate in pubs, oozing their juice over the best chips or lurk surreptitiously in the middle of shop-bought sandwiches, making the bread soggy.  This makes me grumpy.  If I'm dining in company, whoever my companion is (historically my grandfather or mother, now the husband) will immediately be furnished with said tomatoes in exchange for cucumber and/or coleslaw.  They offend me so much I can't even have them on my plate.  It's the slimy insides I don't like.  And cherry tomatoes are the work of the devil as they have the greatest slime-to-flesh ratio of all tomatoes.

I've got nothing against cooked tomatoes.  Not cooked whole tomatoes, you understand.  But if they're in a sauce then I'm okay with that.  And, one of my favourite recipes from this blog so far has been Thomasina Miers' chilli jam - which contains mountains of tomatoes.  I keep a huge jar in the fridge to dollop into sandwiches or eat alongside salads.

Not quite as nicely styled as the book version but just as tasty

The only time in my thirty-something years on this planet that I've ever enjoyed tomatoes was the first time I met the parents of my very first boyfriend.  Despite him being off to the top end of the weird scale, I really liked his parents and when they offered to make us dinner, I politely accepted.  His dad was a keen gardener and grew all his own fruit and veg.  You can imagine my horror when the aforementioned meal turned out to be chicken with a fresh tomato salad.  But because I was bought up to have good manners (things have changed since then!) I accepted the plate with good grace and steeled myself to do battle with the mound of tomatoes, taunting me.

What a surprise.  These were firm and tasty and had that gorgoeous fresh-grown tomato smell.  I've always loved that smell and it reminds me of when my mum used to grow tomatoes when I was a child.  Dressed in a simple vinaigrette and sprinkled liberally with salt, they were an absolute revelation.  Nothing like those squidgy, slimy, dreary salad tomatoes peddled by the supermarkets.

Sadly for my tomato-eating career, we split up soon afterwards on the advice of his mother.  She had the sense to see I could do better for myself (I couldn't have done worse!).  Don't get me wrong - she liked me. She even told me I was dating the wrong son and that I'd be a fantastic daughter-in-law (I was a late starter on the dating scene).  But the weird, psychotic tendencies of son number two quickly sent me running for the hills.

The past fifteen years have been plagued by further encounters with both people firmly at the wrong end of the weirdo scale and nasty tomatoes too.  I'm sure I've eaten in places that could've changed my tomato fearing mind, but it's just something I would never consider ordering.  When you go out, you go out to eat for pleasure, not to torture yourself.  Lycopersicoaphobia has remained firmly rooted in my psyche.

Until I got my copy of Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home by Thomasina Miers.  If you're a regular reader, you'll know I adore Thomasina's books.  And I'm now eager to holiday in Mexico one day (although I'll be going by myself as Mr Fussy wouldn't eat the food and would worry that he'd get kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel).  Flicking through the book, the one recipe that really captured my imagination was the aforementioned Three Tomato Salad.  Yes.  Seriously.  I've been obsessing about this for a couple of weeks now to the point where I'm wondering exactly why I'm craving something I can't stand.

For the record, I would like to categorically state that I am not pregnant.  My mother will obviously be very disappointed by that.  My boss will most likely be relieved.  As will the husband because he's starting to make noises about me working late too often.  I am actually working to keep a roof over our heads!

Pretty colours

So today, I headed to Morrisons to pick up some real tomatoes.  They've recently revamped the fruit and veg section and you can buy all manner of weird and wonderful things.  And lots of it doesn't come stuffed into a huge plastic box so you can just buy what you need.  Okay, it's probably more expensive, but I don't mind paying a bit more to buy only what I need if it's far tastier than a giant economy pack of flavourless tomatoes.

I was spoilt for choice with stripy Heirloom tomatoes and tiny orange plum tomatoes, regular cherry tomatoes on the vine and pretty orange and yellow tomatoes.  I really wanted someone to share this joyous occasion with but the husband is crashed out on the bed after another session of the Insanity workout and I'm too impatient to save it until the next time I'm at my mothers so it seemed the perfect antidote to yet another wet and dreary day.

The flavours are amazing.  Fresh tomatoes with feta and pineapple, mixed with a red-wine vinegar dressing.  The salt of the feta cuts beautifully through the sweet tomatoes and is balanced well with the acid from the pineapple and the dressing.  In fact this now ranks up there with my all time favourite recipes from this year.  And I have enough tomatoes left to make it again for tomorrow's lunch.  I was planning on using them to make Gazpacho, but it seems a criminal waste of beautiful tomatoes.

I'm now firmly converted!

Wahaca: Easy Horchata

As part of my new diet, one meal a day is either a protein bar or a protein shake.  I feel a little guilty about consuming both of these products as they contain a ridiculous number of ingredients that I have never heard of and are produced in a laboratory rather than grown in the ground.  This goes totally against the principle I've been trying to adopt of only eating things that you know where they come from (and I don't mean you can eat something because it comes from Waitrose - other supermarkets are available).

But that's what the meal plan says and so that's what I've been trying to do in my last-ditch, desperate attempt to get back to my happy weight so I can wear my favourite two outfits once more this Christmas.

The only thing these products have going for them is that they're pretty filling.  And because, since having Miss A, I tend to get the munchies at 4.30pm, I have one or other of these 'meal replacements' to banish my grazing needs once and for all.  I have tried Graze boxes, but they don't work - I'll just end up eating two or three if I'm that kind of mood.  But the protein stuff seems to be the solution.

Leafing through my new copy of Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home this week, I found two potential replacements for the protein shakes.  Although not scientifically balanced and guaranteed to help me lose weight (provided I eat nothing but lettuce and exercise seven hours a day, seven days a week), they're made using simple ingredients, packed full of all the good stuff that you're supposed to eat.

A drink that knows where it came from - my kitchen!

I tried the Horchata first.  This is a blended mixture of rice milk, almonds, oats, cinnamon, honey, banana and yogurt.  I chose it because I thought I could share it with Miss A.  Unfortunately whilst I liked mine, she wasn't a fan and insisted that she wanted a chocolate milkshake.  I ended up re-blending hers with a teaspoon of cocoa powder - it was then consumed in about five seconds flat.

The one thing I didn't do was serve it over ice as recommended.  I thought it would be okay because some of my ingredients were chilled and we had no ice, but on reflection I think it would've been far more refreshing served that way.  I think it would also work well blended with some soft summer berries.  If the sun ever comes out and ripens my raspberries, I'll definitely be making this again with some of those thrown in.

I would definitely recommend buying the book.  Although this is the first recipe I've tried, based on my experience of Thomasina's last book - Mexican Cooking at Home (the recipes I've tried from it can be found here), it will be jam packed with amazing recipes.

There are loads of variations for Horchata on the web so give it a Google.  Next up - Avocado Milkshakes!

Mexican Egg White Omelette

This new diet thing is very protein-based and so today, I decided to try an egg-white omelette for my breakfast.  Having done a bit of research online into recipes, I ended up a bit worried that it would be tasteless and runny - according to a Martha Stewart recipe they can be watery - but I was actually pleasently surprised.

An medium egg contains around 70 calories, with only 17 of these coming from the white meaning that it's a good diet choice.  Before I started I decided I'd include one egg yolk in the mix - lucky because I ended up dropping one in! - so I had four whites to one yolk.  With the filling, this came to just 218 cals for breakfast

Shortly before it got really messy!

There's not much else to say on the subject.  I treated it like any other omelette I'd make by seasoning it well with salt and pepper and throwing in a handful of coriander.  Normally I'd add a splash of water too (I can't remember who I picked this tip up from or what difference it makes) but based on the research, I didn't just in case.

Ordinarily I'd fill an omelette with mushrooms, spinach and a sprinkling of strong cheese, but  I was so concerned about this being tasteless, I went for feta cheese and salsa.  In Thomasina Miers' books, wherever she recommends a medium-hard cheese for a recipe, she says that feta makes a good substitute so that's Mexican enough for me.

The colour and taste wasn't as bad as I expected.  The colour was probably helped by the yellow from the single yolk and the herbs.  The texture was a little more rubbery than I would like but this is probably because a lack of fat from the egg yolks.

One bonus was it actually held together getting it out of the pan than a regular omelette does, although next time I'd probably fill it out of the pan as I made a mess with the salsa everywhere - hence the picture of it before folding and serving.

Recipe - Serves 1

• 3 medium egg yolks
• 1 whole egg
• small bunch of herbs (coriander or parsley)
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 30g feta cheese, crumbled
• 40g fresh salsa
• cooking spray

1. Preheat the grill to high
2. Whisk the eggs together with a fork, season generously with salt and pepper and add the herbs before mixing well.
3. Spray an omelette pan with spray oil and heat over a medium heat.  Pour in the egg mixture and stir with a rubber spatula as the curds start to form, ensuring that it covers the bottom of the pan well.  When the mixture is nearly fully set, put the frying pan under the grill for 1-2 minutes to ensure the eggs are fully cooked.
4. Use a palette knife to release the omelette from the pan and slide carefully onto a plate.  Fill with the salsa and feta before serving.

Turkey Chilli

Turkey mince.  Not again, thank you.  As part of the husband's planned fitness kick, I'm following the food plan myself and sampling some of the new recipes in advance of foisting them on him.

Low fat, low on taste

Today's effort was turkey chilli.  I got the recipe from Low Fat Cooking on About.com.  It certainly wasn't the tastiest of recipes.  But then it's healthy so I wasn't expecting much of it.  It was edible, but it didn't rock my world.

I think my issue was with the mince.  When you take it out of the packet, it feels like poor quality sausage meet.  Pink, soft, squishy and textureless.  And on cooking, it just goes clumpy and sticks together.  So when you come to eat it, it is kind of in chunks.  But squishy, textureless chunks.  If I made this again, I'd just use regular turkey breast and cube it.

The black beans were a good addition for some contrasting colour with the stark whiteness of the meat.  But in the future, I think I'd just take a regular chilli recipe using beef mince, cutting out as much fat as possible and bulking it out with extra finely diced veg to make it more filling.  In fact, I'm sure a smaller portion of Lorraine Pascale's chilli would go down far better than a larger, bland tasting one.

You can find the recipe here.

Thomasina Miers' Spring Tacos with Mushrooms

Just after hitting 10,000 views

Firstly, I would like to take the opportunity to say thank you to all my readers for helping me make it to 10,000 page views in just over six months.  I am amazed and humbled that people have spent time reading my words.  I never thought in my wildest dreams that anyone other than my mother* and my lovely cousin Laura would read it.  But to reach 10,000 page views in such a short space of time has made me all warm and fuzzy inside.  So a huge thank you to everyone who has read, commented and tweeted me about it.  It's been fun and you've all kept me going.  And given me a reason to see it through to the bitter end in late September.

I would love to name everyone who I know has taken the time to read, but I'm bound to miss someone out.  Don't take offence if I do, but in no particular order thanks to Laura B, Tamara, Chantelle, Pauls L and W, both Kate S's, Dicky, Robs A, B and C, Hubby (for letting me pick on him), Paul L, Phil, Nelly, Sadia, Jaime, @UnderTheBlueGum, Amy (@WeeklyBakeOff), Laura (@Philosophobia), both Jules', Lisa, Allison, Alison (yes one has one 'l' and the other has two), Ewan who is letting me join his Olympic challenge (more about that on another day) and to all the people who have had cake foisted on them when I've had a baking frenzy.

Anyway, on to today's recipe.  Despite living in a 'Market Town' we don't actually have a proper market.  There are a few token stalls strewn down the high street on a Saturday - most selling tat, the with a couple of local producers selling cake and a few veg - but nothing to allow you to stock up.

Driving home midweek and in need of just one chilli I was sulking to myself that I'd be forced to buy an entire packet that I'd either have to use or would end up rotting slowly in the fridge.  That's the trouble with generally cooking for one.  Or cooking for three - but cooking three separate meals.

Fungi

I stopped in Morrisons for some odds and ends and was amazed to see that the latest revamp has turned the fruit and veg section into a proper market place where you can actually buy small quantities of things.  And most stuff is loose.  Meaning if you want one chilli, you can spend 8p (as I did) rather than 65p on pre-packaged ones that will go to waste.  I got overly excited by the fact that you can buy all manner of exotic things which will be great for some recipes on this blog over the remaining months.  

So having fallen out big style with Ocado, I gave up my blessed Friday afternoon off this week in favour of doing my shopping myself and buying exactly what I need with minimal waste on both food and packaging.  See David Cameron, I'm doing my bit.

The most exciting bit is that they sell loose exotic mushrooms so expect many mushroom based recipes in the coming weeks.  I have always loved mushrooms and can't believe so many of my friends don't share my passion.  At one point, I was surrounded by so many mushroom-fearing that like a parched man in the desert, I literally jumped on the husband (he was not even boyfriend back then) like he would be my foodie saviour.  Desperation leads to hasty assumptions.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I'd had a few rubbish relationships around this time so with a good friend, came up with a list of ten criteria that any new beau had to meet.  Liking mushrooms was on the list.  The list became my dating yardstick and the husband was the only one who ticked all ten boxes.  

Cooked mushrooms taste better than they look!

Anyhow, although he's not being subjected to experimental mushroom-ness tonight, tea tomorrow will also contain exotic mushrooms (see no waste here now).  Like my mother, tea for him must contain meat, so I chose a recipe that would allow me to share part of the meal and for him to have chicken.

Thomasina Miers has a section in her book (Mexican Food Made Easy) about tacos and different fillings for each season.  I made the summer ones early on in this challenge.  The spring one is mushroom based so I gave this a whirl to great success.  Instead of using her taco recipe, I made Dan Lepard's corn oil tortillas.  The dough is pretty similar and I really should've just made a few smaller ones to replicate a taco - but I'm greedy so went for two bigger wraps.

As for the taste.  It sounds weird, but it was just like eating a spring woodland, in the nicest possible way!  The mushrooms - being proper mushrooms than bog standard white button mushrooms - had an amazing earthy taste.  I had a mix of Pied Bleu, Shitake and regular chestnut.  And despite having probably sat on a shelf in Morrisons for a day or two, they tasted like they were freshly picked.  I've picked mushrooms in the past with an expert, but wouldn't be brave enough to do so myself.

With a liberal sprinkling of parsley and coriander in place of the tarragon, the flavour was lifted with a kind of fresh, grassy flavour.  And the saltiness of the feta (Miers recommends this if you can't get Pecorino) gave it a depth that seasoning alone couldn't achieve.  

If I could afford to buy piles of these mushrooms (the Pied Bleu were something ridiculous like £30/kg), I'd eat this dish time and again.  As always,  top marks to Thomasina and also to Dan for the tortillas.  These I now make regularly as it's far less stressful than trying to open a packet of shop-bought ones and a darn sight tastier too.

Sadly, the recipe for the tortillas still isn't online but it's just another reason to buy the book.  But they do get rave reviews from lots of the lovely people I Tweet with.

Cooking time: 15–20 minutes

No matter how you look at them, they're not that attractive...

• 25g butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 750g St George's, Morell or mixed mushrooms, sliced
• Sea salt and black pepper
• 1 tablespoon truffle oil (optional)
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped a small handful tarragon, chopped

To serve

• A small handful of parsley, roughly chopped
• Grated Pecorino cheese
• Addictive sweet chipotle paste

1. Heat half the butter and olive oil in a frying pan and add the mushrooms, seasoning with salt and pepper.

2. Cook over a high heat until the mushrooms have released their juices and the juice has started to evaporate, about 10 minutes. Add the rest of the butter and the oil (including the truffle oil if you are using it), the shallots and garlic and cook until soft. Sprinkle with the tarragon and check the seasoning.

3. Spoon the mushrooms into a heated earthenware dish that will look fun on the table and sprinkle over the parsley and cheese. This is incredibly delicious with my sweet chipotle paste, but also yummy with the Fresh tomato salsa on page 26 and a dollop of crème fraîche. 

*My mother doesn't have time to read my blog apparently.  She'd much rather spend her time playing Cityville on Facebook.

BBC Good Food Black Bean Chilli

After the excess that was Easter, tonight I really had a craving for something that at least looked healthy even if it was full of things that I shouldn't eat.  I suffer from a condition called Endometriosis.  It's not something that should be discussed on a food blog - but if you want to read up on it, there's plenty of info on the web.  In turn, it causes me to be anaemic.  Which is why I tend to go through phases of lurgy after lurgy after lurgy.

Like most malaises, there is a wealth of advice on the interweb (some of it's actually been published in quack science books too) about what you should and shouldn't eat to keep the symptoms at bay.  For endo, the list of things I should eat is as follows:

• fish oils
• Walnut oil
• flax seeds/oil
• olive oil
• whole grains (excluding wheat and rye)
• beans, peas and pulses
• brown rice
• vegetables and fruits
• oatmeal
• mustard greens
• broccoli
• cabbage
• turnips

And I should exclude

• wheat  and rye
• red meat
• refined carbs
• refined sugar and honey
• caffeine
• chocolate
• dairy
• eggs
• fried foods
• saturated fat
• soy and soy protein
• tinned foods (but I can eat tinned tomatoes - whoop whoop)
• convenience foods
• alcohol

I'm not even trying to be smug and flippant here but I can safely say that I've probably eaten everything in the exclusion list this weekend except for fried foods.  I did manage both fruit and veg but that's about it from the top list.  I'd love to be able to adhere to the diet and maybe my next challenge once I've finished this year should be to do the endo diet and stick to it, rather than whining on about all the nasty pain and side effects.  And if I stopped baking so much, I'd do really well on the no wheat, no dairy, no eggs, no sugar front.

One thing I do try to do is maintain my iron levels.  My mother keeps threatening to force feed me liver when I go to visit because I rarely eat red meat when I'm at home.  To compensate, I've started taking an liquid iron supplement which seems to help - I got a sample of it in my goodie bag after running the Bath Half Marathon last month and it's much more tummy friendly than the stuff the NHS prescribe.  I'm also looking at ways to eat more beans and pulses - hence tonight's recipe of choice which was on the BBC Good Food website under their Iron Rich Vegetarian Recipes section.

Halfway healthy mixed bean chilli

It was an interesting recipe - using Spanish paprika rather than regular chilli.  This, in conjunction with the cumin and cider vinegar gave it a really nice flavour range.  Since starting this blog, I've been paying more attention to all the little bursts of flavour you get from the different herbs and spices etc and although the odd hit of a sour taste of vinegar was a bit weird at the start, I have to say that it really worked.

Rather than using just black beans, I had a tin of mixed beans from Asda.  I don't normally shop there but was pleased with this find as most tins of mixed pulses also include chickpeas which don't always work well in some dishes.  This dish would've been one of them in my opinion.

Do pay attention to the advice to cook the tomatoes for a while first as I missed the bit that said to wait ten minutes before throwing in the beans and consequently found it a little watery.  And of course, I served it with white rice - naughty - but life is too short to boil brown rice.  Seriously.  It seems to take forever!

Will definitely be making this again on a regular basis.  Warming, filling and packed with iron.  And I'm sure it would be really nice with some chopped chorizo thrown in too.

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.

Thomasina Miers' Mexican Tomato Rice

A few nights ago, I tweeted that I might have to curtail the blog due to the husband's displeasure at my cooking antics.  If you're a regular reader, you'll know we don't live in a world of champagne and roses (who does?) and much as we love her, like many older first time parents, things have been strained since Miss A appeared in our world.

The 'rents came to take Miss A out today for a birthday trip to Longleat, with the added bonus of giving me and the husband some time to ourselves.  It's been about six months since we were last in this situation.  Of course, things didn't go to plan and after a few toys were thrown out of prams, we got on to having a discussion about why the husband gets so fed up with me and my blog.  Apparently it's because we don't spend much time together and he doesn't like that some nights, I'm still cooking my tea when he's finished his.

Miers' Tomato Rice

I countered the argument with the evidence that he starts whining at about 6.30pm that he's hungry.  At this point, I still have around an hour of Miss A's bedtime routine to complete so sometimes, it's just easier to cook his dinner first to keep him quiet and then do mine and the lunchboxes for the following day at my leisure.  I didn't realise he valued my company at the dinner table so much - especially because (as he will readily admit) he's normally glued to the Premiership/Championship/Champions League/Europa League/FA Cup/Carling Cup/La Liga/Serie A/Bundes League.... at tea time.

It's now been agreed that if I tell him that I won't be eating with him, and that I don't get in the way of him loading the dishwasher or making coffee when he's finished dinner then it's okay for me to continue.  I can live with that - if he doesn't mind me interrupting the football to impart this information.

Unity restored, we went out for a late lunch and ended up pottering around the local vintage shop.  The husband is a photographer and one of his offerings is Vintage Pinup-style photography so we are always on the look out for fun props and items of clothing.  Because I have an hourglass figure, I love fifties style fitted shift dresses but I'm never brave enough to wear anything too extravagant.  However today, I found a big, floppy seventies hat in my favourite colour which perfectly matches my favourite Mary Janes and compliments my seventies-style winter coat.  I just had to have it.

'To be sure...!'

Even though it's a winter hat and it was a little to warm for it, I decided in my wisdom to wear my new purchase for the rest of our outing.   I got a few odd looks.  Being as self-conscious as I am, I wasn't sure if these were looks of amusement or admiration but I kept on wearing the hat because the husband said it suited me.

I got home and decided to tweet a picture of my fab new find.  And then I realised what all those looks were in aid of.  I looked like a bloody leprechaun.  On St Patrick's Day.  I mentioned this to the husband and he nearly died laughing.  Trust me, at the moment, it takes a lot to provoke his lips to even curl in an upwards direction and the level of belly-laughing that emanated from him made it quite clear that he'd realised this while we were out and was amusing himself by letting me wear it.

And so there ended my plan to further celebrate St Paddy's day with an Irish recipe.  Instead, I decided we'd have fajitas for tea and I'd have a go at making Ms Miers' tomato rice.  The husband normally  has a pack of Uncle Ben's tomato rice with his and I've been looking for a good recipe to replace his reliance on packaged food for ages.  This seemed to fit the bill.  I don't have anything against the ingredients in Uncle Ben's per se as there are supposedly no nasty additives.  It's just blooming expensive for a bit of rice.  The cost can be anywhere from £1.39 up to about £1.99 (ignoring the supermarket offers).  One packet is supposed to serve two.  The husband eats one to himself.  I'm sure Miers' recipe cost about £1 for four generous portions.

Nothing artificial - except the package

Best of all, you can make it in advance and keep it warm in the oven for a couple of hours.  This meant I could cook it whilst Miss A was still up and we could both eat together once she was in bed.

Overall it was a really simple recipe and had good flavours.  At first, I couldn't really sense the chilli but by the end, you knew it was there and I was gulping water like a camel at an oasis.

I do think it might have been better with long grain rice as it was a little stodgy for my liking - or maybe I just cooked it a bit too long.  I was also disappointed with the instruction that it would keep warm in a low oven for up to two hours.  An hour in, I took it out to serve and it was barely lukewarm.  Obviously not wanting to disappear back to the kitchen whilst the husband ate alone, I ate it as was.  Next time, I'd possibly only leave it for the minimum ten minutes or  blast it in the microwave for a minute before serving.

As I can't find the recipe online, you'll just have to go buy a copy of Mexican Food Made Simple published by Hodder  Trust me, you won't regret it!

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.

Mexican Hot Chocolate

As the wrapper says - 'Divine'

I first fell in love with hot chocolate as a young girl on a trip to France.  To a seven-year-old, there was something quite decadent about being allowed to drink from a bowl rather than a cup.  And being allowed to dip my food into said hot chocolate was even more exciting.

Until my taste developed to include coffee, it was always my hot drink of choice when the weather turned bitter or I needed a 'hug in a mug'.  Nowadays I'm more likely to plump for a latte.  I find hot chocolate too sweet.  Even when I do think I fancy a cup of hot chocolate, a few mouthfuls in and I end up leaving it.  But today was one of those days when a warm, sweet drink was just what I needed.

Except the Green and Blacks hot chocolate pot was bare after my Christmas truffle making activity.  Next stop, Thomasina Miers' Mexican Cooking Made Easy.  A really simple recipe.  Hot, cinnamon-scented milk poured over 70% cocoa chocolate.  Basically ganache, but not quite so creamy.

Whisked hot chocolate

It was just like drinking a chocolate bar.  And just what the doctor ordered.  I managed three-quarters before getting interpreted by the child.  Coming back to the dregs half an hour later, it had thickened up as the chocolate had cooled and was literally just like drinking chocolate fondue.  I could imagine it being pretty good with some churros dipped in it.  But that's a recipe for another day.

I will say that I couldn't really taste the cinnamon through the intense chocolate flavour.  It's difficult to tell if it made a difference because top quality chocolate always has fruity and spicy undertones.

Definitely an expensive, decadent treat to remedy a rubbish day.

Recipe - serves 2

• 450ml semi-skimmed milk
• 100g 70% cocoa solids chocolate
• cinnamon stick.

1. Place the milk in a small pan with the cinnamon stick and heat until just below boiling point.
2. Meanwhile chop the chocolate finely and place in a bowl.
3. Pour the hot milk over the chocolate and whisk until a layer of foam covers the top.
4. Pour into serving bowls or mugs and enjoy.

Chilli Jam

I'm obviously starting to lose my marbles.  Quite clearly a full time job, motherhood, helping my husband run his business, being owned by two dogs, training for a half marathon and trying a new recipe every day - and blogging about it - is clearly taking its toll.  Or maybe this is just the start of the slow slide into senility.  After all, according to Ian Beale, you stop being young at 35.  Someone shoot me now! 

Ingredients

Last night I was mildly mortified to find out that someone had been eagle-eyed enough to spot a typo on my blog post.  The lovely Sadia aka @bakingelements (find her blog here) tweeted me for my poor spelling of 'juice'.  I leapt to my defence, wittering on that I was obviously influenced by the lovely Miss A's constant demands for 'owinge jice pwease Mama'.  In fact, it was just sloppy, slovenly spelling.  Something I abhor.

Don't get me started on txt spk.  It drives me potty.  I'd rather send three text messages than skip characters.  I love Twitter, but honestly, the amount of time I waste agonising over which words and bits of punctuation to remove to hit the 140 character limit.  I've even embarrassed my mother in a posh restaurant by getting a red felt tip out of my handbag (this was back when I was training to be an English teacher - I'm now an analyst, a very telling profession) and circling all the typos on the menu then writing something along the lines of 'B minus - could do better' before replacing it in the stack of menus that had been put on our table.

Spices going into the muslin

And to top yesterday off, hoping for a decent night's sleep and a lie in (if you can call staying in bed till 7am a lie in!), I woke in a panic at 11.45pm, thoroughly convinced it was Sunday night and I'd not left Miss A's clothes and other paraphernalia out for nursery.  I then spent twenty minutes rushing round the house on tiptoe finding clothes, locating shoes, packing her lunchbox and trying not to yelp when I stood on random pieces of post-Christmas plastic detritus that got missed in the bedtime clearing up session.  Returning to bed, I snuggled down, only to jolt awake twenty minutes later with the realisation that it was in fact still only Saturday morning.

Which brings me neatly on (okay it's a tenuous link!) to today's recipe.  I'm made Thomasina Miers' Chilli Jam from Mexican Cooking Made Easy.  The full recipe sees it served with lamb chops, but it sounded so amazing that I decided to make it to go with the Tiger Bread I'm going to make tomorrow.  Cold cuts, cheese, chilli jam and fresh bread.  Perfect after the seven mile run I have planned for the morning.

And here comes the tenuous link.  I had to retake the picture of the ingredients seven times as I kept forgetting things on the recipe list.  And it's not even that good a picture after all the reattempts.  The photo-pro I live with would be horrified.  If only he'd get me a kitchen built next to his studio, I'd have gorgeous pictures :o).  And still I missed putting the sugar into the frame!  Hey-ho.

Tomato innards *shudder*

I've mentioned before that I don't actually like tomatoes.  There's just something fundamentally wrong in my eyes with the slimy bit in the middle, but I'm gradually learning to love them in other ways besides in a pasta sauce or courtesy of Heinz.  I had an amazing semi-dried tomato and green bean salad at work the other day.  Something I'd love to try to replicate one day.  They even give me the creeps when the slimy stuff comes out when I have the misfortune to cut them up.  And despite the copious amounts of tomatoes that went into this, the end result is well worth having to chop up pounds of the things.  

This jam, like all of the recipes I've tried from this book, is amazing.  I have a bit of a girl crush on Thomasina.  Or at least her food.  I'd love to live in her house and eat amazing food like this day after day.    I tasted a bit on a cracker with a sliver of cheese and I was in absolute heaven.  When I decanted it into the jar, I had to fend off Miss A who mistook it for real jam and actually ate something with vegetables in it.  She didn't even mind the spicy kick.  Much.  I could've licked the pan clean - but restrained myself.

Finished Jam

Really, you do have to try this.  It is just so darned tasty.  That said, I only had 900g of tomato thanks to Ocado but halved all the other ingredients, so I have a feeling the taste is a little more intense than it would've been had I been bothered to correctly scale it down.  Maths is not my strong point.

I was intending to stop by Allington Farm Shop and buy some lamb cutlets to complete the recipe, but I'm not sure the jam will last that long once I get at the bread and cheese tomorrow.  I got about 400g from my 900g of tomatoes.  Initially I wasn't too bothered as I didn't want to be left with gallons of the stuff if I didn't like it.  I'm now regretting this faux pas and considering growing my own tomatoes this summer just so I can make enough to bathe in.  I like it that much.  And on that subject, I really must create a page for things I'd make again.  This is one of them - and surprisingly, number one so far!

You can find the recipe online here, but I do urge you to buy the book.  It's RRP is £20 but it's on Amazon for £12.40 at the time of writing.

And do check back tomorrow when I will hopefully have a better picture of the finished jam accompanying some lovely Tiger Bread.  Growl!

The Tastiest Black Bean Tostadas

Sometimes a recipe is spoiled by the quality of ingredients and I have a feeling that this one was let down by mine.  The recipe today is from Thomasina Miers' Great Mexican Food Made Easy.  She's got some amazing fillings for tacos and wraps and I love that you can play around with how you present said fillings.

Like this one.  If I was being true to the recipe I'd've made my own little tostadas from scratch.  Instead, I made a tortilla bowl by baking a flour tortilla over the top of an upturned cup and filled it with the black beans and other goodies.

As Miers says in the book, the black beans are tasty however I reserve judgement as to whether or not they are the tastiest ever as I have nothing to compare this statement too.  But I think they were spoiled by the accompaniments that Miers suggested.  This, however, is down to circumstance and choices rather than the recipe itself.

Like when I made the Clementine Mojito Loaf at the weekend.  It was nice, but I think the flavour of the clementines I had detracted a little from the loaf's flavour potential.  Sometimes you just can't skimp.

The beans are in there somewhere...under the giant avocado...

In the case of this recipe though, I had a ginormous and rather expensive avocado from Ocado.  I didn't want a ginormous avocado.  I just wanted a lovely, small, perfectly ripe Hass avocado.  But they were out of stock.  So in their wisdom they decided I required an avocado that would feed a small nation.  It's called the 'Ocado Very Big Avocado'.  They should rename it to the 'Ocado Very Tasteless Avocado'.  Seriously it took bland to a whole new level.

Maybe mashed up in guacamole with loads of spices or something, it would be a great base to a dish.  But  as part of a salad it was bland, bland, bland.  Add to this the very sheepy-tasting Feta that I had from Sainsburys - I'm very fussy when it comes to Feta and it frustrates me that the same brand can vary in flavour from week to week - and in all, the overall dish was disappointing to the point that I didn't even finish it.

The beans were great and I can highly recommend them.  I forgot the salsa (senior moment so it'll be used in sandwiches for tomorrow) so that may have helped out.  Overall this recipe is, like all of the Miers recipes I've tried so far, potentially packed with amazing tastes on so many levels.  Just so long as you can be sure of the quality of your ingredients.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with three-quarters of the behemoth avocado that is still loitering in my fridge.  Am wondering how unfussy my spaniel really is...

A quick Google for the recipe reveals it to have been published in the good old Daily Fail.  Guess that saves me typing it out :)