Tomato sauce

As far as I’m concerned, having tomato sauce on standby is a no-brainer. There are just so many favourite meals that need it somewhere: pasta sauce, chicken curry, beef stew, a vegetable bake – the list goes on. Shop-bought ones can be good – and essential to have in the cupboard for emergencies. Delia likes [...]

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Cookbook Library

I have a rather large cookbook collection (although I have certainly heard of larger ones, so I comfort myself with that). There are a whole stack of online library tools, aimed at cataloguing, lending to friends, social networking, etc. However, I really like Delicious Library, (mac only) which allows you to create an inventory of [...]

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Goldilocks’ Chicken

When choosing a recipe to make, I often find myself objecting to some element of each one I read – an unpossessed ingredient, a step that I deem too fiddly – and move right along to the next one. Given the size of my cookbook library (not to mention the awesome power of the interwebs), [...]

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Surprise cake

Surprise cakeOriginally uploaded by louise_marston.
The picture looked quite appetising. You can see it too if you have a copy of ‘Jamie’s Kitchen’ by Jamie Oliver. Go ahead, take a look. “That looks good” I thought. “That looks moist, a little crumbly, a lovely teatime cake”. And I even had beetroot. the [...]

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January Cooking

In the reading time afforded by the Christmas holidays, I have been composing a list of recipes to tackle in the next few weeks. This started out at a mental list, but then I committed it to post-it, and now I’m posting it for the world to see – in the hope that it will [...]

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Christmas cookies

Food blogs have been awash with cookie recipes recently – those to eat, then & there, those to share with visitors and those to pack up and post off to deserving friends and relations. I have been busy with a variety of recipes this year – some new and some old. But rather than describe [...]

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Better cookies

There have been occasions for cookies recently – visits with friends, the need for something sweet on a cold night, so last week I determined that I would make some Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, which always seems to suit autumn well. My first thought was for a huge batch of Oatmeal Raisin cookies from my copy [...]

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Macaroni and other crunchy-topped things

I was going to write a recipe for Macaroni Cheese here, but it occurred to me that this wasn’t very helpful. For one thing, it’s a pretty simple recipe and most people have one somewhere. For another, I don’t even have a recipe as such. This is one of those dishes that I have been [...]

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Ale Cake

I recently made the same fruitcake for the 3rd time since hearing of the recipe early this year. I first heard the recipe on Woman’s Hour in my lady-of-leisure days. It’s a lovely recipe, simple and tasty, that has to be approached in quite a leisurely manner, requiring pre-soaking of the fruit and a long, [...]

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Buffet food

This is a special post in response to Sam’s heartfelt plea over at Becks & Posh. She wants recipe suggestions for her Mum to make for her own retirement party. As it happens, waaaaay back in February, I made a brunch buffet for a load of people, and the stand-out winner was the frittata. I [...]

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