BBC Good Food Hidden Vegetable Sauce

"I don't like that.  It's stinky winky!" came the plaintive voice from the dinner table.  I was in the kitchen photographing my own plateful and I knew at that moment that I'd failed.

I'm sure you've guessed from the title that I was trying to fool Miss A into eating vegetables.  It's one of those great bugbears of parenting.  The child who won't eat vegetables.  Thankfully, because I don't have the opportunity to hang round with many other mothers for more than a few minutes - apart from a minute or two's snatched conversation in the Ladies' with equally harrassed looking female colleagues who are also trying to juggle parenting and working - I've not had the misfortune of coming across one of those awfully smug mothers whose child eats every vegetable placed in front of it.

It smells quite nice, actually

Awful person that I am, I almost wept tears of joy when one day I spotted one of my neighbours returning with their child from McDonalds*.  Although deep down I know that Happy Meals are nothing like they were when I was young (I have only read about this in the papers), I was just a little bit smug that Abigail has never been inside the place.  And if I have anything to do with it, won't go in there until she's in her teens.

In fairness, my neighbour is a keen cook and on the rare occasions when we've spent time together, I've nodded sympathetically whilst she bemoaned her own child's adventurous palate.  It's so heartening to hear honesty from another mother.  Women of a certain age and background willing to admit that their child is far from perfect are as rare as hen's teeth.

The closest Miss A comes to eating vegetable is having a bit of lettuce in her mini fajitas.  It's been a trial over this past year to get her to eat meat.  I am proud to say that she no longer has fish fingers or pasta for tea every night and will eat chicken or steak or meatballs with aplomb.  But despite her eating fajitas, she'll religiously pick out every trace of onion and pepper.  It's also difficult to hide them as I make her mini wraps using a pastry cutter from a big tortilla.  They're barely big enough to hold a piece of chicken so the veg is really obvious.

Pretty colours

So tonight's experiment was to make this tomato-based sauce which is rammed solid with carrots, leeks,  peppers, onions and celery.  I thought it would be a good thing to do regularly as I usually end up with various leftovers of all of those rotting slowly in the bottom of my fridge.  In winter I'd throw them in soup but in summer they wilt until I end up feeding them to the dogs.

The sauce is really nice.  Its smell is reminiscent of my grandmother's minestrone and despite processing, it keeps a good texture.  The addition of balsamic gives it a little kick.  Sadly, Miss A didn't like it and although I didn't dare serve it to the husband, he took one sniff and agreed that it was 'stinky winky' and then asked what was in it in his own inimitable style.  The answer did nothing to persuade him it was worth trying.

But it freezes well so I have now stocked up on a great, healthy pasta sauce for me to eat all to myself.  And the grumpy pair can just have plain pasta with cheese.

You can find the original recipe here.

*I wonder what Mrs Sconegate would have to say about that?

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: Pap and Chakalaka - Lesotho

Landlocked entirely by South Africa, Lesotho (pop 2.06m) has sent five Olympians to London 2012.  Lesotho is one of those countries I've heard of and I knew it was in Africa, but thanks to both GCSE and A-Level Geography being all about Central Business Districts, population distributions, vegetation, and some geology, I couldn't have even guessed whereabouts it was on the continent.

I'm ashamed to say that when I was sitting GCSE Geography, the then seven-year-old @BridestockBride was able to pinpoint more countries on a map than I was.  And this all in spite of my second favourite book being my Readers Digest Atlas of the World (I was only interested in the bit at the front about the planets and volcanoes - also covered at GCSE/A-level).

Not long after I met the husband, one night in a drunken stupor, he decided to buy a map of the world for the hallway.  Unfortunately, having not sat any secondary school exams (he was a rebel and dropped out), he thought he was buying a 60cm wide map which he could frame.  It was actually sixty inches and has dominated the walls in our previous residences - and solved many World Cup related 'discussions' - until it got relegated to the loft so our immense caricature of London could have pride of place on the lounge walls.

But thanks to the joy that is Google, I was able to find out everything I ever wanted to know about Lesotho.  Originally I'd planned on making a banana souffle because I've still managed to avoid souffles this year but then I figured that it didn't seem very African, even though it's a very popular dish in Lesotho.  A little more research led me to Chakalaka and Pap which I just had to make because I fell in love with the names.

Chakalaka is a tomato-based stew and delightfully simple to make.  Just chop up carrots, tomatoes, a chilli, an onion and a red pepper.  Fry.  Job done.  Pap is just as simple.  It's actually plain polenta seasoned with salt and pepper.  And had a double benefit of further reducing the bag of polenta that's been lurking in my cupboard since I bought it to make cornbread for this blog some months back.

Interestingly, I got tweeted by Dan aka Mr @SoupTuesday (and co-author of the SoupTuesday blog) last night with a comment that he thought that these dishes were South African.  I was a little worried that I was about to be found out as @KasariW (aka Mrs Soup) is from SA but thankfully she concurred that the dish is common to both countries.  I've found this with many Eastern European dishes - and similar in the Caribbean.  There are dishes that are similar save for a slight tweak here and there.

Lesotho Flag

What I fell in love with in Turkey as borek are served in many other countries - Greece and Cyprus to name a couple.  But it can also go by the name of Spanokoptika in Greece when it's formed into one single pie and in Serbia, they have the same dish which, according to my Serbian friend Vukan is called Cheese Pie.  I'm sure it's really got an exotic Serbian name, but I'm happy to go with Cheese Pie.  It does what it says on the tin and his is the best I've ever tasted.  I'm a bit gutted I didn't get Serbia because I've been meaning to try his recipe for years.

Anyhow, this is a really simple, tasty combination that will get me out of a hole in the future when I'm left with a few random veggies in the fridge and the need to cook something for dinner.  I don't think I ever expected something with such a fab name to become a store cupboard staple.

You can find the recipe here.

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: 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!

Day 183: Halfway! Aubergine, tomato & Parmesan bake

So here I am at the half way point.  Or rather at the start of the second part of this challenge.  This is my 186th post - I've double blogged on three days.  Back when I first came up with this idea, one sunny day back in September, I'm not sure I really believed myself that I would get this far.  I know the husband didn't think I'd make it past the first week.

I'm not sure what's been more challenging - the recipe selection, cooking something from scratch every single day (okay some days have been a bit lame) or the writing about it.  Nor am I sure whether I have enjoyed the eating or the writing bit more.

Sunrise snap on my phone whilst out running

The scope has certainly changed over the six months as I've gone from an idea of getting my family to eat a more varied diet (still on my radar, but very challenging) to trying new things myself (haggis, cooking squid, making laminated dough for danish pastries) and fattening up my colleagues with an array of baked goodies.  Some days, I'm really excited about trying new recipes whether it's something completely new or a twist on an old favourite.  Others I just crave the idea of having a bit of toast with cheese for my tea (never cheese on toast as I don't like it) but duly cook something new and write about it.

I've also (as regular readers will know) have taken to whittering on about the trivialities of my life.  This isn't a traditional food blog as I'm not selling you my own recipes, instead, I'm kind of reviewing someone elses and in a roundabout way documenting how that fits into my rather busy life.

Having hit 8,000 views in six months a few minutes before writing this post, I am truly amazed and humbled by the interest people have shown (lots of this has come off the back of me Twittering).  I only hope that you've enjoyed reading and will continue to visit - especially because the husband reckons I won't make 16,000 views by the end of the next six months.

One thing I do love is lists of random things so here are ten things about me and my blog

1. The first and second most popular posts on this blog are about recipes by Lorraine Pascale.  Number one is her chilli (which I didn't even post the recipe for) and number two is her salmon and sweet potato fishcakes
2. The third most popular post (so far) is about Eric Lanlard's banana fritters.  I blogged about this, Eric retweeted me and it had 124 page views in just over 12 hours.  The power of social media.
3. My oldest cookbook is 365 Cakes and Desserts by Ebury Press which I choose as for my reward at a school prizegiving aged eleven. I've never cooked anything from this book although it's been pored over many a time.
4. My favourite book by far is Short and Sweet. Every recipe just works and turns out beautifully.  Everyone thinks I have 'mentionitis' when it comes to Dan Lepard. But it's an amazing book, and Dan is really friendly and helpful too. Follow him on Twitter!
5. I am a little bit addicted to any recipe that has chorizo in the title
6. BBC Good Food website is my saviour when I have random ingredients and need an emergency recipe
7. Haggis isn't actually that bad.  Just so long as you don't think about what goes into it.
8. I need to be more adventurous over the next six months - and I will cook something with liver and kidneys and not just buy them and then cook them for the dogs when they've reached their expiry date.
9. The reason why people select to read certain posts seems entirely random.  The presence of pictures or the lack of a recipe (and no link to the recipe) doesn't deter people from reading.  Sometimes even posts with chocolate in the title have had less of a glance than ones about squid. I find this interesting and would love to do a more detailed statistical analysis if I had the time. I'm sad like that.
10. I sometimes don't know when to stop typing :)

Really rubbish picture of a tasty meal

Anyhow, I really wanted to do something special (like Lorraine Pascale's Mini Beef Wellingtons or Dan Lepard's Sour Dough) to celebrate the half way mark, but in the excitement of a sunny weekend and all that, I forgot it was the 26th until I was driving to work this morning.  By which time I'd already had to resort to Good Food for a recipe to use up the aubergine I randomly bought with my shopping this week.  So all you get tonight is Aubergine, tomato & Parmesan bake or a version of Melanzane Parmiagiana.  I must confess that I've tried another, similar recipe before and wanted to compare like for like

I enjoyed this one, but prefer the other one more as it uses stringy mozzarella.  It was simple, tasty, easy to make although I'm not sure the egg topping did the parmesan any favours as it went crunch rather than melting but it tasted good so that didn't matter so much.  And if the husband hadn't been off scouting edgy photography locations, it would've been a great meal to have in the garden as the sun set with a glass of white wine to celebrate.

The only downside is that it really didn't photograph that well.  When I tried to cut it with the serving spoon, it just all came out in one big, gloopy, tomato and cheesey mess.  But it's not all about the presentation.  So to make up for it I've included a picture of the sunrise from my early morning run the other day.

Right, I need to stop now so here's the recipe - knock yourselves out.  

It's all downhill from here-on-in!

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!

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!