Category: Easy Dinners
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Food from literature: Harry Potter
This Christmas I received two cookbooks from my aunts. One was the Honey & Co. Baking Book thanks to the babka incident, the other was Kate Young’s ‘The Little Library Cookbook’ complete with the tagline ‘100 recipes from your favourite stories’. If you haven’t come across Kate’s blog go and explore it now; before you…
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5 a day
At last spring is here! Hands up; who’s excited about all the fresh veg? Just me? Not that we all don’t love a muddy turnip or beetroot, but the dense, sweet, earthy flavours of winter are now too hearty for the season. So long to soups, stews and pies (unless you live in Manchester where…
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New beginnings: Manchester
What goes around comes around, so they say. My life has become that phrase a little too literally. Here I am back in Manchester again. Having only left it last July. And before that the previous autumn. And before that I was at university here. I am a broken record in human form, repeating the…
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One-pot chicken tagine with quinoa
The end is nigh. Once again, my suitcases are packed and cardboard boxes filled, ready to be crammed haphazardly into my car and trundled off somewhere new (not really, it’s back to Manchester again. Curse you, long-distance relationships). Before that particular date arrives, however, I’m living out of my suitcases in an echoing and empty flat.…
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#newyearnewme: Spiced carrots with couscous and preserved lemon
Cooking vegan meals is more fulfilling than I thought. This is a statement I never thought I’d say. If you are a reader of this food-obsessed blog you will already know it’s unlikely I have partaken in this month’s Veganuary, especially as my last post described my recent meat spree in graphic and visceral detail,…
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Roasted pepper and sweet potato soup
This time of year reminds me of the front cover of a Sophie Dahl cookbook. Wrapped in a cosy thick coat (in a pink print much like a rug you’d see in a vintage shop which you’d immediately notice then avoid) her elegantly crossed legs ending in some sturdy wellies, she’s sitting on the steps…
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The food of love
Earlier, I stumbled in from a trek in the rain, sans umbrella, to find the nearest post box (which, I will add, was about a half hour trip – do we just not need post boxes anymore these days? I bought a packet of stamps back in March and have only used two of them.…
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One-pot meals: Seabass en papillote
One of my favourite things is to sit down to a spread of a meal, especially at Christmas, help myself to all the dishes, load my plate, drown it in some gravy or sauce and enjoy the meal and company. It produces something close to euphoria. Then, after the last mouthful and everyone reclines in…
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Yorkshire puddings
This Sunday I cooked for a dinner party. The party was more personal than usual because it was to celebrate my dad’s birthday – a milestone birthday, I’ll add. Fiona went full party-planner when it came to the decorations. Only gold was allowed, no multi-coloured numbered confetti, no sparkly pink balloons, no shiny foil bunting.…
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Convenient and simple: Spaghetti a la Clara
The kitchen is being painted. What started as a highly indulgent picnic adventure has now reached a tiresome level which is purely my aggravation that I can’t bake anything. Instead, I must satisfy myself with squidgy pieces of banana bread made on Sunday, cold pizza from the fridge, and try not to stare at pictures…