Fish Pie Friday...

...did you know this week is British Pie Week?...until March 12th in fact...so in honour of this special week we are having fish pie for our dinner tonight...
This recipe is just known as 'fish pie' in our house...no fancy name, no fancy ingredients (two fussy smallish people remember!)...just good old home cooked fish pie...the recipe is mine and mine alone!! I probably got it from a myriad of different fish pie recipes that have been 'tweaked' and adjusted over the years to suit all our tastes!! I seem to recall smoked haddock and salmon making an appearance pre-smallish people...but times change and so do recipes...

I know this isn't my normal kinda post...

...but I just have to share it with you anyway...

The moon was amazing last night...

...so my camera and I had a little play around with the night time settings...

...doesn't it look fantastic...they were taken from my back door...

Not sure if all that solar flare stuff had any impact on the moon at all...but whatever it was...whether it was just good timing on my part or freak weather conditions...the sight was really rather quite beautiful...

Beef, Red Wine and Black Olive Stew...

I found this recipe the other day as I was searching for a completely different one...and decided it looked pretty great for a Thursday night dinner...why Thursday? Well I don't work on Thursdays, so have time to make a lovely slow cooked evening meal...which is what this looked like to me...

All things BRIGHT and Bundt-iful...

I decided to brighten up the rather grey days we've been having lately, by experimenting with the new Wilton food colouring gels I got a little while ago...I was going to make these wonderful rainbow cookies, but time was of the essence, so I decided on a creation of my own...well, a 'tweak' at least!!! (the cookies will have to wait a couple of weeks)...Seeing as my two smallish people love bundt cakes now, I decided to 'tweak' Nigella's Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake once more..(I do believe it is becoming a new family favourite...)

 After making the original cake batter recipe, I split the mix into 6 bowls...

...then the fun started!! Into the 6 bowls went some of the fantastic gel colourings... 

Porcini Pasta Bake..

...this is last night's work night speedy supper...it's another favourite of ours...yes, I am well aware that we have quite a few favourites!!! It's a Simon Hopkinson recipe...I saw him make this on his tv show last year, and went out the next day to get ingredients...it as soooooo easy to make, and soooooo delicious to eat!! I just had to share it with you...

To start it all off you have to take some dried porcinis and soak them in warmed milk, this leaves you with...

Fridge Raider Frittata...

...yesterday and today were work days for me...so dinners have needed to be quick and easy...and preferably able to clear some of the bits and pieces in the fridge...with that in mind I plumped for a frittata on Tuesday...Hubby and I enjoy a good frittata, and I do make 'proper' ones from time to time, but more often than not they are a way for me to use up those leftover veggies in the bottom of the fridge!! Yesterday's was one of those...and was going to be our midweek veggie night meal...however I found some bacon lurking in the fridge, and it just had to be added...but without it would be great too...



I found:
a leek
some celery
a few brussel sprouts
2 half peppers!
some mushrooms   
half a courgette
a few new potatoes
some bacon medallions
and of course some eggs...6 in this case...

Marbled Bundt...Afternoon Tea...part 2...

And now for the bundt...I used Nigella's wonderful Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake recipe as before...but then the urge to 'tweak' got the better of me!!! So I got on to Twitter, messaged Nigella asking if she thought the 'tweak' would work with melted chocolate, she said cocoa might be better, so cocoa it was...

...so I reduced the vanilla to 3 teaspoons instead of 4, then halved the mixture and to one half added 3-4 tablespoons of cocoa powder...

Afternoon Tea with Friends...part 1...

...Well after the cancelled trip over in February, we finally got to visit our friends South of The River for Afternoon Tea and a catch-up..We decided to take the whole day and visit Canary Wharf for lunch on the way...As we live in North London, we thought a trip past the Olympic Park was in order...the pics aren't great as I was in the passenger seat of a moving car! But you can see bits and pieces!!

  
To the very right of this picture you can see the 'pringle' shaped velodrome...and on the left, the meringue-like basketball arena...