Cutting Calories for the 5:2 Diet – Spaghetti Bolognese: I’m back in the UK after a couple of trips abroad and on the 5:2 diet trying to lose some of the weight I’ve gained and to continue to lose a bit more. For me, restarting a diet is the hardest time, so I try my […]
Mum’s Classic Beef Stroganoff
Classic Beef Stroganoff – My Mother’s Dinner Party Dish: My mother was a woman of great character. Cookery was not something that she ever wanted on her personal CV but when my father became the GP in a small seaside town, she was thrown into ‘Entertaining’. It was expected that the doctor had a formal […]
Mum’s Cornish Pasties Recipe
How to make Cornish Pasties – the Somerset Way When we were little, one of my mother’s staple dishes for weekday suppers was Cornish Pasties. She made her Cornish Pasties with flaky pastry which took an inordinate amount of preparation, but which she thought hid her poor pastry skills. My grandma was a dreadful cook […]
Venison Sausage Pasta
Venison Sausage Pasta Recipe – a spicy solution to the solo sausage dilemma. Sausages tend to come in packs of 4 or 6. If you are me and cook mostly for yourself or one other person, that can mean three or four days of sausages and chips. Or far too much toad in the hole. […]
Ignite and Excite – a Sichuan Style Noodle Dish
Tears of Joy – Spicy Pork Stiry Fry with Chilli Oil: There is, apparently, a traditional Sichuan recipe called ‘Tear in Eye’ which comprises rice noodles, chillis, crumbled peanuts sichuan pepper and scallion. I’ve googled. I can’t find it. But I can find reference to a dish served in a Chinese restaurant in the US which looks […]
Spiced Beef Casserole with Guinness and Orange
Spiced Beef and Guinness Casserole with Orange. It’s winter. And I have a brand new slow cooker thanks to the lovely people at Crock-UK. I’ve been dying to try it out and the other day I christened it using one of my family’s favourite recipes, a warming Spiced Beef and Guinness Casserole with orange. I’ve […]
5:2 Diet Recipe Chicken, Aubergine and Chickpea Lebanese Style
A Lebanese Pantry used for a 5:2 Diet recipe: OK, I’ll admit there’s a bit of calculated cooking going on here. I’ve been intending to enter Bethady Kedy’s competition to win a trip to The Lebanon for a while, and I needed to blog about something Lebanese as part of my entry. But, I’m also […]
The Perfect Steak Sandwich
Perfect Steak Sandwiches – a Scrumdowner Special: Shopping list for a classic Beef Steak Sandwich Rump Steak 1 Tomato 1 Small Onion Lettuce Mustard Chilli Jam Sour Dough Bread Salt and Pepper Making the perfect sandwich: Cooking the perfect steak sandwich from scratch (or nearly from scratch, because I don’t propose baking your own bread […]
Clonakilty Black Pudding Recipe – Stuffed Pork Tenderloin
Pork Tenderloin with apple and Clonakilty black pudding served with cider gravy: Are you a fan of black pudding? Or is it something you shove to one side of the plate when it arrives with breakfast? Me, I love the stuff. A full English breakfast isn’t complete without a slice of black pudding and I particularly […]
Ham Hock with Celeriac and Caraway for a comforting supper
Ham Hock with Celeriac and Caraway This is a wonderfully comforting dish to cook and eat. If you are lucky enough to have a slow cooker you can put the ham hock in that for 5 hours or more till it’s really tender. Alternatively, the dish works fine in a low oven. Ham hock is […]