orange and lemon cake

Having made the Christmas cake yesterday, I was all set to make some mincemeat. I started by blitzing an orange and a lemon in the food processor, and then pulled opened the baking cupboard to get at all the other ingredients (they’re all kept in a pull out cupboard).  And there, on the top shelf,…

a day of kitchen mishaps

I made the Christmas cake yesterday morning, after boiling the fruit up with sugar and butter and brandy on Saturday. It, thankfully, seems fine. However … A chicken went in the oven to roast on a bed of vegetables. Roast potatoes went on top in another dish, as did a coconut and citrus cake (see…

a nibbled lemon cake

There was a lemon waiting to be used up (I generally use lemon juice in my cooking, as it’s so much cheaper), and a pot of plain yogurt in the fridge, and no cake in the cake box. So I had a bit of a google, as you do, and found a recipe on Nigella’s site…

yet another risotto

Actually, that’s unfair, because we haven’t had a risotto in ages. But we did last night. We bought a pack of chicken thighs in Aldi last week. Pete manfully skinned and filleted them on Saturday, and they’ve been stowed in the freezer (yes, for this was just *before* PumpkinGate) for stir fries or whatever; the…

an instant cake mix

  I know, I know, it’s shocking, but sometimes you just get carried away in the moment … Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of slow cookers, and own three of varying sizes. I belonged, briefly, to a slow cooker group on Facebook, but mostly the members used theirs to put in…

the battle of the pumpkin

[image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/blissfulgirl/ I bought a pumpkin. First time ever, I think, because I’m not fond of Hallowe’en as a holiday – what’s wrong with bobbing for apples, eh? But we were going to a Sunday gathering at friends, and I thought a seasonal offering might be nice. I was planning a pumpkin gingerbread, only to…