Mexican Feast...

...we had another of our 'Dinner In' with friends last night...this time the theme was Mexican Feast Night...

Picadillo

It was an impressive and somewhat strange set of ingredients that I found in front of me yesterday when I got all set up and ready to make the Picadillo from Thomasina Miers' Mexican Food Made Simple...

The Simple Life...

...do you ever get fed up of cooking? I do...a strange thing to say for a foodie blogger type?? I don't think so...I think lots of us feel this way from time to time...


Sometimes I just feel as if I've 'had enough of food', of cooking and of eating...sometimes I crave simple dishes and meals, ones that require minimum effort, yet still use great ingredients.


Tonight was a bit like that! After the weekend of foodie heaven I just couldn't be bothered with anything rich or time consuming...so whilst at the supermarket I kept my eye open for ingredients that might take it upon themselves to tempt me!! Guess what they did!!!

Cottage Pie...

...I know, I know...not a new or even radical recipe, but a much loved, sometimes much maligned recipe...some say it's boring, but here in our house, we say it's fab!! Cottage Pie reminds me of my childhood...It is the meal I am most likely to cook after a week or weekend of excess...it is one of those unassuming, unpretentious, comfort food recipes...It is one of those recipes that every family knows and has their version of...and this is mine...via my Mum of course!!!

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...

I promised one day that I would...

...share my burger recipe with you, well here it is...
It originally came home from school with Emily when she was in cookery club a few years ago...but it wasn't written down, it was from her memory! So over the interim period it has developed into the recipe that we use today...which was still not written down until today!!


For Emily's Yummy Burgers you will need:

Pasta hugs...

As we seem to be gripped by a cold snap right now, our family are all craving warming, comfort food...you know the sort of things I mean, foods and meals that will give you a great big warming hug on a freezing cold Winter's day...and what is more comforting than a big bowl of pasta bake?

My 2 children wolf this meal down whenever it is put in front of them!! So last night as a last minute supper, (they decided last minute that my idea of sausages and mash was not comforting enough!) I raided my fridge, freezer and cupboards for the ingredients to put it together...What they don't realise is that the sauce is chock full of hidden veggies...and so they are getting about 2 of their "5 a day" in one big comforting hit!

I always seem to have a couple of tubs of my bolognese sauce (I have to point out that yet again this is one of my tweaked recipes, that is more accurately a combination of several Bolognese recipes that I have used over the years) in the freezer at any one time, so a quick defrost in the microwave and off we go!

This tub would also feed 2 as a spaghetti bolognese dinner

My pasta bake changes occasionally, but there are a few key elements that never change...