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Banana Cake

I had some very elderly bananas left from my packed lunches, that were far too brown to eat but not yet so far gone to be binned. So I thought I’d be brave and try cooking a banana cake to use them up. It’s not a recipe I’ve done before, as baking is really not […]

Licking the saucepan

I tried out a new recipe on Saturday, for Passionfruit Curd. Passionfruit seem to be in season at the moment, or at least they are plentiful and relatively cheap in Waitrose. I synthesised a recipe from several I found online, scaling the quantities down to something I though was manageable. I’ve never made a curd […]

Roast baby new potatoes

I’ve never been particularly keen on potatoes. They are a staple part of my diet, but I much prefer them to taste of something other than potato – such as roast potatoes with goose fat, mashed potato with lots of cream and cheese, or chips with vinegar. I simply won’t eat plain boiled potatoes, not […]

A taste reminding me of holidays

My holiday in Peru was hardly a gastronomic experience – the most positive adjective I could use to describe most of the food is “interesting”. But I did particularly enjoy one dessert – churros with chocolate. They were deep-fried sugared sticks of dough, like long thin doughnuts, and were the highlight of one otherwise unmemorable […]

Very quick and easy baked apple

At this time of year, cooking apples seem to be pretty cheap and plentiful, and I’ve always enjoyed a baked apple for dessert. But I really can’t be bothered to wait for the oven to heat up and then bake an apple from scratch, especially not mid-week when my energy and patience are typically pretty […]

Fluffy pancakes

When Chris was alive, he made a big thing of cooking pancakes and maple syrup for our breakfast every Sunday morning. I think it harked back to when we got married in Upstate New York, where pancakes & maple syrup (and/or waffles and maple syrup) loomed large at every breakfast, and our whole wedding party […]

Slow-roast lamb with potato and fennel gratin

When my sister and her boyfriend were here last weekend, and despite the burst water main making life very difficult, I made a big effort for Saturday night dinner, which is traditionally the best meal of the week in my family.   It seemed to go down well – we all had thirds, and J went […]

Pomegranate Lamb

I’ve had some requests for the recipe for pomegranate lamb, which I cooked before Christmas. Now that I’m back home, and within reach of my cookbooks, here it is. The recipe is taken from The Book of North African Cooking by Lesley Mackley which seems to be out of print but available secondhand from Amazon […]

Kitchen looked like an abattoir

After completely abdicating on the cooking front on Friday, and having left-over Chinese takeaway for Saturday lunch, I thought I’d better make an effort for Saturday dinner. That always used to be our big meal of the week, when Christopher cooked something special which required more effort than mId-week. It’s a tradition I’ve tried to […]

Smokovaca

Three years ago (Is that all? It seems longer) Christopher and I went on a study tour to Split in Croatia with the Kent Archaeological Field School, and had a really good time exploring the stunning Roman remains there. On the last night of the holiday, as is traditional on such trips, the whole group […]