Here's a rant I made earlier.

Why in heavens name do some people insist on telling you everything they did to the food you are eating!  If I sit down to a meal I want to chat and perhaps comment on its deliciousness, discuss it maybe for a moment or two, but then move on to the next subject. But my husband won't let go of his captive audience and bores us all to tears with his trip to the kitchen.  You only have to give him an inch and there he is telling us about how he chopped the coriander and made an effort to dice the red onion particularly small.  Please Stop! His food is good, we all love eating it but don’t take the enjoyment away from us, by prattling on.  The kids of course think he’s funny and it’s funny that I get so cross.  But I suppose the plain truth is, is that I am jealous.  How dare he produce good food in my kitchen especially when he only cooks once in a blue moon.  Typical man.

My New Gadget

Today I got a metal potato ricer which, just in case your wondering, is the best thing since sliced bread!  I am loving it.  Now I too can have silken potatoes and no longer will the mash that I envy so much be only the domain of others. 

Of course given it is only my first time using it, (not that you'd think it should be difficult) I managed to under cook my potatoes and so have ended up with slightly grainy mash.  Perhaps some more butter/milk/cream will sort it.  But not to worry, I'll get it right next time.

An Empty Fridge

I have just been reading Trish Deseine's blog 'Feeding my World' and she was talking about getting your kids used to seeing an empty fridge, unfortunately mine are only all too used to it.  And the reason is this, I plan ahead with weekly meal plans.  As organised as it might seem, the fridge only looks full for so long and not as long as you might think.  I do my best not to buy too much quick gratification food stuffs.  Firstly because they are expensive and secondly because they never last long - hence quick gratification.  Although the kids tend to kibosh me regularly with demands for crisps, I try to ignore their pleas but even I know what simple pleasure a packet of crisps can give you!  

As always with me its onwards and upwards and so I am trying to teach myself to be a better cook.  I can't afford an intensive year long course as much as I would love it.  I have an awful lot of cookbooks on a variety of topics and my thinking is, if I have to make thing's from scratch then my understanding will be greater and hopefully my food will taste better.  Thanks to Darina Allen's Forgotten Skills of Cooking my chicken stock is knockout and a brilliant base for my soups and sauces.  Last weekend I got 5 chicken carcass's from the butcher for 50p, so there really is no excuse.  I don't add any salt into the stock base as advised by Darina, enough will get added in later.  A good vegi option is Kerstin Rodgers vegetable stock from her Supper Club cook book.  She adds in garlic cloves which I think raises the stock up a level.

 Homemade chicken stock

Too Chicken?

Happy New Year to one and all.  I haven't been in the mood to write for a while, Christmas had me cream crackered what with driving to Ireland to collect my mother, stopping off at my friends house in Kildare for a catch up drink which never ends that well for my head but I always enjoy.  Then driving back to London again.  Obviously not all in the same day but still, its tiring.

Yesterday I got a call from a chap up the road who was going shooting and wondered if I would like a bird once the day was over.  Even though I agree that it is wrong to kill a bird for sport and then not eat it, I did have difficulty with the fact that I would have to pluck the thing and I think that that was a bridge too far for me.  On this years Masterchef they had to pluck a pigeon prior to trussing it and how badly some of them did it was just upsetting!  I wouldn't want to do a disservice to the creature.  By the end of the conversation it was agreed that if the butcher took a few from him I would pay to have it plucked and the innards taken out.  So as it turns out I am too chicken to pluck a bird!