chicken pesto pasta

Here’s another 20 minute recipe (although, to be fair, I used cooked chicken – you’d need to allow a bit longer if you used raw; if you do, cook it off as the first stage). Put some olive oil in a deep frying pan and heat it up (just low-medium is fine), chop up a…

a timed supper

  As my regular reader will know, Tuesday night is pasta night. I just open the fridge and concoct something from its contents. For people who don’t have time to cook, here’s a 15-20 minute supper. Bear in mind I have an ceramic hob, so you can skip the “put the rings on” bit if…

prepayment meters

We knew this house had a prepayment electric meter. It was with EDF and, as they were the supplier in our previous home, I phoned them and asked them to put in a proper credit meter, which they did within two weeks. I also asked them to transfer the gas from British Gas to themselves,…

It lives!

Many apologies for the radio silence – we’ve been moving house, which meant eating everything in the freezer and the cupboards, finding homes for all our culinary stuff in the new (and frankly inadequate) kitchen, sourcing new fridge and freezer (the USAnian behemoth having been left behind), and then starting to fill them. So no…

hurrah for Aldi

I must confess to just a little schadenfreude upon hearing of Tesco’s woes. Yes, I know they employ thousands of people, and yes, I know that a lot of pensions are invested in them, but they were a bit Icarus like of late. I very occasionally visit the huge Tesco in the centre of Hull,…

the poor don't know how to cook

Baroness Jenkin said this week, as the report on poverty and food banks was released, that “the poor don’t know how to cook”. Which was a tad patronising, really – lots of people who living in poverty know how to cook, and indeed lots of people who aren’t haven’t a bloody clue. And quite a few…

orange and lemon cake

Having made the Christmas cake yesterday, I was all set to make some mincemeat. I started by blitzing an orange and a lemon in the food processor, and then pulled opened the baking cupboard to get at all the other ingredients (they’re all kept in a pull out cupboard).  And there, on the top shelf,…

a day of kitchen mishaps

I made the Christmas cake yesterday morning, after boiling the fruit up with sugar and butter and brandy on Saturday. It, thankfully, seems fine. However … A chicken went in the oven to roast on a bed of vegetables. Roast potatoes went on top in another dish, as did a coconut and citrus cake (see…

a nibbled lemon cake

There was a lemon waiting to be used up (I generally use lemon juice in my cooking, as it’s so much cheaper), and a pot of plain yogurt in the fridge, and no cake in the cake box. So I had a bit of a google, as you do, and found a recipe on Nigella’s site…