home made pizza

For some reason, we hardly ever have pizza, and I’m not sure we’ve ever made it. So we decided to remedy that on Saturday. There was a small tub of tomato purée in the freezer, and some pork and duck stuffing balls (from Waitrose, no less!), and it seemed a good way to deal with them….

courgette and pasta bake

We make this recipe (or a variation on it) fairly often, and it involves far too long standing over the cooker in a cold kitchen (the hole in the wall is being mended tomorrow – hurrah!). So in the interests of experimentation, I thought I’d have a bash at doing the sauce in the little…

a butternut squash

I love butternut squash. It has a lovely texture, and works in so many things: risotto, roast veg, Thai currys, soup, etc. But there’s no denying that it’s a faff to deal with due to the peel. So I did a little experiment. I wanted some soup to come home to on Saturday, and astonishingly,…

using less fuel

Fuel prices here, both gas and electricity, are larcenous. We already try not to use the central heating; we are lucky enough to have a woodburner, and that heats downstairs, and our bedroom above, and we put up with a cold bathroom. Having the fuel paid for in advance is nice, and I get a…

corned beef pie

Photo from Paul Townsend This one is a real blast from the past. I used to make it quite often back in the 70s and 80s, but I’m not sure when I last made it. Years and years, for sure. I had a bowl of cooked potatoes in the fridge, and thought “why not?”. So: cut…

breakfast frittata

Half a bag of spinach to use up … Diced two rashers of back bacon, a few mushrooms, half a green pepper* and half a red onion, and put them in the shallow pan of the Remoska with a little olive oil for 15 minutes (switched it on, obviously!). Beat four eggs with some seasoning…

a frittata

A frittata is a great way to use up bits and pieces. As I had quite a few bits and pieces to use up, that’s what I made 🙂 There were some leftover cooked veg – cauli and broccoli, and some new potatoes – left over from when we served the chickie! pie. Some tired…

making good use …

We held a small gathering here the other night, to celebrate a friend’s birthday. We cooked up a slow cooker’s worth of lemony chicken and coriander, and  a big pot of dhal to accompany it, and also for the vegans/veggies in the throng. We also served (bought) chapatis. That recipe, incidentally, is a base –…

rough brown bread

This is yet another Irish soda bread recipe, and the one I make most often. It’s very forgiving of ingredients and mix, but here’s how I did it today. If you have milk or cream that’s gone over, use that. Or yoghurt is fine too (plain, not fruit, obviously, unless you like weird flavoured bread!)….

lamb, leek and barley soup

I don’t normally bother with recipes for soup – they’re a bit mongrel here. But I’ve started tracking what I eat on MyFitnessPal, so it’s worth writing stuff up, just for that. So hopefully there’ll be a lot more appearing here now. We make this quite often, as Morrisons do three lamb bones for about…