Chocolate orange loaf cake

This from Nigella’s Kitchen - a book that I have cooked so many things from I knew that this cake would taste amazing.  And it does.  Although I love chocolate of all colours. And lots of it, I’m not a massive fan of chocolate flavoured things but the orange flavour ever so slightly comes through making this a slice of deliciousness.  One to keep in the repertoire.

Hearts, roasted carrots

My hearts recipe here is from the Italian classic ‘The silver spoon’ and correctly titled is hearts with herbs, but I had no herbs in and made it anyway as the dish sounded so delicious - and it was.  I’ve not made hearts for over 25 years and even then I’d only once made myself, but was a very happy eater of them, made by my mum, baked I think, in the 1970s - my family always called hearts ‘prairie chicken’ which was my dad’s way of getting us kids to eat offal. The gravy made alongside the hearts was gorgeous and as with everything in ‘The silver spoon’ was super simple to make.  The roasted carrots were from a recipe in Jamie Oliver’s ‘Jamie at home’ and were roasted in garlic and tangerine juice (should have been orange but I only had a tangerine).

White chocolate and pistachio biscuits

A friend visited with her little boy today to meet my new dog, Stan.  I baked these for her.  The recipe is from ‘how to be a domestic goddess’ by Nigella Lawson.  I made about 40 of these and they have proved to be a success, particularly with my boyf who has been snaffling them for most of the day, so as you can see there are only about 10 left.

Pasta, courgettes, mozzarella

The weather feels like it has turned properly wintry today and my thoughts, inevitably, turn to cooking new things and pottering in the kitchen.  I am also in need of comfort food - the weather doing that to me I think.  I had courgettes in and saw this pasta bake in 'three good things on a plate' (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall) so thought I'd give it a go, the fact that the cheese in it was mozzarella immediately appealed to me.  I did like this (I added crispy bacon to mine) and my vegetarian boyf loved it so it was a winner.

Cauliflower and cashew nut curry

I received the ultimate accolade from my boyf tonight when he told me that my cooking is getting better - he swiftly followed up with 'it was already really good but it's getting better'.  I've got to say, given how simple to make this was, it really delivered on flavour and will be one to make again and again.

prawn chow mein

Reader, prepare to be astonished - I am not sure that I've ever eaten a chow mein before, let alone cooked one.  It's just not the kind of thing I'd order.  I am, however, trying to run the contents of our freezer down in a bid to defrost it (and hopefully double it's size) and found a bag of sorry looking shrimp at the bottom.  Looking for a meal without having to buy other ingredients I alighted on this in Gok Wan's 'Gok cooks Chinese', my go to fake away book.  This tasted very fresh and light and I liked it but it's still not my first choice when cooking Chinese food so probably will only make it again next time I find a bag of frozen prawns at the bottom of an iced up freezer.

Pork souvlaki with oregano

This is from Rick Stein's 'From Venice to Istanbul' which I got as a present a couple of years ago and have still not made much from.  The weather has been so glorious lately that I've been trying to up my skills in barbecuing and thought this would be ideal.  Rick suggests pork shoulder but I had a nice big piece of fillet in the freezer so I went for it.  It was the first thing I put on the barbie and it was perfect.  We had it in pita bread with a feta salad on the side.   Would make again.