Thank you!

First of all, a big thank you and hugs to my lovely friend Violets, who awarded me with an 'Excellent' award. It means a lot to me, truly.

I thought I'd share with you just a little of how Violets and I first met- We became friendly on Nigella.com's 'Your page' (which sadly is no more)when we became aware that we lived within about 10 miles of each other.
Violets invited me around to her house for coffee, and I must admit I was really wary of meeting up with someone that I had become friendly with over the internet. My family thought I was mad!
We got on famously though from that very first meeting. And I'm really proud to call her one of my best friends.
We have been through a lot together and whenever one of us needs a moan, or even when we don't, we just pick up the telephone and away we go. I've been known to stay on the phone for over an hour, ignoring kids, husbands and meals to be made.
If there's one thing I have taken away from Nigella's website, is the fact that I've been blessed to have made wonderful, true friendships with some lovely people, some of whom I may never meet in person.
They have enriched my life, sorry this sounds so corny, but that's how I feel!

Maria and George have also awarded me with a 'You make my day' award. Thanks to you two also, but the truth is YOU made MY day!!!

Do have a look at their blogs, they are truly inspirational!

I would like to pass the 'E for Excellent' award to:

Kelly-Jane who is one of the most inspirational cooks I have seen.

I would also like to pass the 'You make my day' award to:

Lisa who really does 'make my day' constantly, by being such a lovely, caring, trustworthy friend.

Red eggs, kataifi and chocolate muffins

Last week was Orthodox holy week and whilst I'm not very religious I do enjoy going to church during this week. The services are powerful, moving, hypnotic..
I've also had my SIL staying who helped me out by dying our traditional eggs. These are eggs which have been hard-boiled in a red powder dye. My SIL also places patterns on the eggs by putting a leaf or two on them and tying them in place with small lengths of tights (new ones I hasten to add!)

When the leaves and tights are taken away the pattern is then on the egg. We play games where each person chooses an egg and takes turns to see who has the toughest egg (almost like a game of conkers!)
I chose this week to try and make kataifi for the first time after I managed to track down the elusive shredded wheat like pastry in a Kurdish shop which specialises in Medditerranean groceries.


chopped almonds, sugar and cinnamon are rolled up in the kataifi and then baked. Afterwards a sugar syrup is poured over them. It's very sweet and very delicious. If you like baklava, you'll probably like kataifi too.
My SIL left today, so before they did I knocked up a batch of Nigella's chocolate muffins, we love these!

Nigel and Nigella

Nigel Slater and Nigella Lawson. Two of my favourite food writers, and also creators of these two fine recipes.
I've lost count of the amount of times I've made Nigel's pasta with spicy sausage. It's warming, filling, tasty, spicy...in fact it ticks all the yummylicious boxes in my book!
I think Nigel must like the recipe too, because he's got it in both 'Real cooking' and 'Real food', both of which are amazing books.
Here are the basic ingredients:

sausages
basil
mustard
wine
chilli flakes

also incuded in the recipe are pasta and double cream. I couldn't find orrechiette today in Waitrose, so settled for little shell-like shapes called 'gnocchi'. I've used these before with good results.
Here's the pasta 'sauce' - sausages, wine, basil, mustard, chilli flakes and cream before it's added to the cooked pasta:



and here's the finished dish:


Here's the recipe.

My sister-in-law and her daughter are arriving later to stay until next Monday, it's a long story, one I'll save for another time, so I thought I'd make some quick muffins to have something home-made and delicious to offer them. I chose Nigella's pear and ginger muffins, which quickly morphed into apple and cinnamon muffins when I realised there were no pears in the fruit bowl!


The smell of apples and cinnamon filling the kitchen is quite delicious! And here's the recipe in case you want to try them.

Anna's food pic tag - Top 10 food pics. Let's have some fun!

Right guys, listen up....I'm starting a tag. It's called 'Top 10 food pics'. Here are mine, all my favourites.
I'm tagging 6 people to do their own 'top 10'. Then if those 6 people could each choose 5 people of their own to tag we'll get to see some really good food pics! Almost like our very own food pic chain...


Here are my top 10 food pics......... drumroll please..........

1. 5-a-day-veg from Ching-He Huang's fabulous book 'China Modern'


2. Chocolate brownies from Nigella's masterpiece 'Feast'

3. Chickpeas with chorizo and kale - losely based on a Nigella recipe from 'Nigella Bites'.

4. chocolate pistachio fudge from 'Nigella Express'.

5. Coby's meatloaf with coffee sauce

6. Fairy cakes from 'How to Eat'.

7. meatballs and rice from the kiddie chapter in 'Feast'.

8. pomegranate ice cream from 'Nigella Express'.

9. rapid ragu again from 'Express'

10. scallops with chorizo - my last 'Nigella Express' recipe

Hope you enjoyed seeing my favourite food photographs!

I'm tagging:

1. Violets

2. Kitchen Goddess (George)

3. Kelly - Jane

4. Lisa

5. New Nigella (Amy)

6. Tea and wheaten bread (Brenda)

Have Fun!! And sorry I couldn't tag more of you!

Quick as a flash!

A great standby dinner in our family, when it feels as though there's nothing in the fridge, is my bulgar wheat and halloumi pilaf. It takes next to no time to make and it's nourishing, tasty and filling. The addition of halloumi is a Cypriot thing which makes the pilaf highly savoury and delicious. Here's the recipe:

1 small, finely chopped onion
about 2 tbsp olive oil
a small handful of vermicelli, broken up (I buy this in packets from Greek grocers)
about 4 tbsp chopped tomatoes
1 stock cube (either chicken or vegetable)
2 cups of bulgar wheat (If you can get one that is course cut, even better)
4 cups of boiling water
about half a block of halloumi cut into small cubes.

Greek, set yoghurt to serve.

First of all heat the oil in a wide bottomed pan that has a lid.
Fry the halloumi until it is lightly browned, then add the onion and after that has also browned slightly add the vermicelli.
Fry together for a couple of minutes taking care not to burn the vermicelli which browns very easily.
Stir in the chopped tomatoes, the stock cube, the bulgar wheat and finally the water.
Turn the heat to low, cover the pan and simmer for about 10-15 minutes until the water has evaporated and the bulgar is cooked.
Stand the pan, undisturbed to one side for about 10 minutes.
Serve with thick Greek, set yoghurt. I like the 'Total' brand. Or Fage if you can find that.

a super quick sweet to finish the meal is Nigella's chocolate croissants from 'Express'. You can hardly call this a recipe - just bought puff pastry, chocolate, shaped, brushed with beaten egg and baked for 15 minutes. Super quick and super tasty!

Hello! A catch up (and I've been tagged)

I feel like I've slightly lost touch with everyone since I started LL. But since lovely Lisa tagged me, I thought the time was right to have a catch-up with everyone, and anyway I've missed you all!!

I still love food of course, and my Amazon habit hasn't abated. Rather, I'm mainly ordering 'healthier/ healthyish' books. I'm currently waiting for Ellie Krieger's new book which has been on order for months (note to self: order from Amazon.com next time if I'm ordering an American book!)

I have stopped baking, apart from when I really have too ie if hubby or the kids start complaining!
It's wierd, but being on this diet is both the easiest and hardest thing I've ever had to do.
By easy, I mean, I don't have the daily struggle with what to eat, whether I'm having too much, or making unwise decisions, and the weight is coming off regularly.
It's also hard cutting out food completely for 100 days, but it's also made me think how attached I am to certain rituals like having a take-away on a Saturday night, or having something to go with my skinny latte!
I've managed to lose (as of last week) 21lb (A stone and a half!)

Guess what? I've also joined the gym and am really enjoying that too! I've had my hair cut into a short crop because I just couldn't cope with hair that needs straightening to look halfway decent!

Oh, and before I forget, here are my answers to the tagging:

I have to describe myself in 6 words:

1. Home-loving

2. A people pleaser (Is that a bad thing?!)

3. Honest

4. short-fused

5. passionate

6. kind hearted (well, I think so anyway!)

It's been lovely catching up with everyone, hope you haven't all forgotten me!
xxx