The Sacred Art of Eating

It’s been a year since I finished The Challenge. I spent lots of time last year saying ‘this will definitely be cooked again’- so, one year on, what have we gone back to?

• Red Prawn and Mango Curry -a great many meals inspired by this, as well as ‘proper’ repeats.
• Caramel Croissant Pudding - about three times! Including just last night, in celebration of the acquisition of some bourbon.
• Rhubarb and Custard Gelato - when I found some pink rhubarb, and I even blogged about it!
• Steak Slice with Lemon and Thyme -at least once!
  
• Flourless Chocolate Brownies, and
• Hot Chocolate Sauce -when my cousin and her man came for dinner. Very well received :o)
  
• Goujons of Sole with Dill Mayonnaise- I am fairly sure we did this but perhaps without any dill. But I remember frying!
• Mango Split
• Home-made Instant Pancake Mix, - absolutely loads. It is our standard recipe for ‘breakfast’ pancakes now. We even did it for D’s parents and Granny on Christmas morning this year.
• Blueberry Syrup for Pancakes- sometimes, but not always, when we make the above. Ridiculously easy, ridiculously good!
• Maple Chicken ‘n’ Ribs- still can’t get them as sticky as I want. Still meaty and good.
• Moonblush Tomatoes
• High-Speed Hamburger with Fast Fries- fast fries, certainly. Not sure about the burgers.
  
• Tuna Steaks with Black Beans- yup, although we couldn’t get pinto beans in Leith, funnily enough!
• Nectarine and Blueberry Galette-right here!
  
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Sundae- well the sauce anyway. Tis gorgeous!
• Chowder with Asian Flavours
• Rapid Ragù- winter warming fare.
  
• Jumbleberry Crumble
• Doughnut French Toast
• Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies- they don’t hold their own weight though, so are not to be advised for taking to parties!
  
• Potato Cakes with Smoked Salmon- we haven’t re-cooked these. But D bought smoked salmon today. And the night is yet young!
• Duck Breasts with Pomegranate and Mint- again, I have not yet re-cooked. But I do have two duck breasts sitting in the freezer waiting specifically for the right occasion.
• Ice Cream Cake- for a party, it went down very well! So fast, in fact, that I got no pictures of the finished product!
• Mexican Hot Chocolate 1 2 Properly- Essentially whenever we have any kahlua!
  
• Rocky Road Crunch Bars- a LOT
  
• Sesame Peanut Noodles- quick, easy and very satisfying. Plus once you’ve bought beansprouts you might as well make a massive amount.
• Snowball- repeated a couple of times and then it dawned on me, the reason I didn’t rate it was that I don’t like lemonade! How obvious! Dougal has since introduced me to drinking advocaat with ginger ale. Much better!
• Festive Fusilli- is only festive if you serve it at a feast. Otherwise is sunblush tomato, vodka and mascarpone pasta!
• Marshmallow Crispy Squares- at least once. I needed to use the rice crispies up! And they are scrummy.
• Garlic Oil- eventually it dawned on me to use a food processor to cut the garlic up. We need a new bottle now, in fact.
• Salade Niçoise- even with the inclusion of anchovies!

17% repeat rate. I predicted at least 10 at dinner tonight, so I suppose I’m not wrong. Looking through the list tonight it is clear that I like making sweet things! I think the recipes we repeated were probably more representative of low-faff rather than those recipes we were most excited about last year. This might be because the biggest surprises came from recipes I would never normally have bothered with before…and which apparently I am not inclined to go back to! A revision of the list tonight was good though- now I have some fresh ideas for 2010!

A couple of posts back I cooked the Nigel Slater lamb (with Mediterranean flavours), for which I’d purchased a couple of those annoying fiddly little packets of herbs that always go limp in the fridge and make you wonder why you don’t grow your own herbs (until you remember you live in a third floor flat in Scotland right next to one of Edinburgh’s most polluted streets). I assumed they’d end up for the chuck so resolved to make a proper effort to cook with them. There were herby salads, garnishes and fragrant tomato sauces. In the end very little of either herb went to waste. This concoction stood out- it had Dougal practically jumping up and down- for its decidedly restauranty flavours.

It wasn’t really anything fancy. I got some happy chicken and pan fried it in olive oil with buckets of garlic till it was all tinged and fragrant and lovely. Then some cream went over the top, with oregano and thyme, and the whole lot was allowed to meld and bubble down. Served with tagliatelle, oven-roasted red and yellow peppers (need an excuse to get the oven on on these cold dark nights) and some peas to up the veg count a bit. It really did taste like something you might pay £8.95 for in a trusty tratt- what commendation!

Edible Table Decorations. Doubleplusgood that recently-married couple!

As regular visitors may have noted, I (and Dougal) am currently being spammed to hell in the comments. So, as an attempt to stem the flow I have switched on comment moderation. In theory those of you who have already commented sucessfully in the past may get to skip this step; who knows.

In any case I really need to write something first before I can reasonably expect comments. Having a lovely couple of relaxing days at my mum and dad’s just now; would post pics of wonderful Christmas Dinner only the SD card in my camera died on Boxing Day with the loss of all my xmas photaes. Which is awfy sad for you guys.