Category: Winter
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Winter spice marinated goat’s cheese
Much like this year in general, this Christmas has been an excuse for my family to bake. My dad provided the Christmas pud in all its nutty, fruity glory, warm from his slow cooker. My sister made the post-Christmas trifle with layers of homemade sherry-soaked sponge, fruit, cream and chocolate shards, and my mum spontaneously…
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Bacon and Marmalade Sandwich
Christmas Eve is the sparkly magical wait before the big event. And it’s the perfect excuse for a bacon and marmalade sandwich. Mince pies are being defrosted and dredged in snowy icing sugar, we bundle up in coats and gloves and hats and march around the local countryside for a walk, and the radio serenades…
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Hazelnut Butter
It’s good and familiar to be near a lovingly-stocked kitchen. The cupboards are full of jars and spices and pastes, all the accoutrements that take time to collect. In our new kitchen in Toulouse, our cupboards don’t even have an order, unless you call ‘wherever you can find space, that’s where it goes’ order. The…
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Christmas Baking: Mincemeat and Apple Jalousie
And so, it’s the countdown to a Covid Christmas! Does that sound cynical? Nowadays, Christmas requires returning home two weeks early for the obligatory quarantine. Never mind that France and the UK were both in respective lockdowns. Ok, yes, I’m cynical. Upon touching down in London, it was like Christmas exploded. Christmas appears to be…
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Roast chicken, lime and herb salad
This year we have all made a new friend. That friend is called Lockdown. He’s not a friend to everyone – he’s quite smothering and bossy, to be honest. He says he has your best interests at heart. But if that best interest is me eating my body weight in baguette and not taking any…
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Hot chocolate fudge sauce
If there wasn’t a day dedicated to it’s cooking and consumption, how often would anyone make pancakes? And I mean crêpe pancakes – the thin, lacy articles reminiscent of minuscule underwear. We would demolish them while holidaying in France, stuffed with molten cheese and stringy ham, or from the crêperie in the local park with…
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Dinner on a budget: Bacon and egg congee
We are all familiar with that countdown to January payday. Those five weeks from Christmas to the end of the first month of the year lasts an eternally long time, years not weeks, as we wait, nervously gazing at our empty bank accounts and wondering how much we should chip into our savings. January is…
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Rhubarb Bakewell slice
My favourite activities tend to rotate around eating. No surprises there, but let me digress. Over the last two weeks I have managed to repeat a particular structure which, inevitably, results in eating, and I’m not sure how I can get away with repeating it again next week. You’ve no doubt listened (read?) to me…
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My problem with Veganuary
January started with a jolt. It was a bumpy return to work what with the two fresh burns to my forearm – I genuinely think I have a hazard perception issue, there’s something hot there so don’t knock it, oh look I’ve knocked it – and the sudden reappearance of those bothersome bags under my…
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New Year’s Eve and Lamb Koftes
And so the mince pies are dwindling, the turkey curry is tucked away in the freezer, the cheese board has been scraped clean, and the recycling bin is full of prosecco bottles. The old year always ends with a gut-busting feast and the new begins with much anti-bac and taking out the bins. But, oh…