Working Girl

So it's been a little while since I last posted and that is because I now have a job. A job! A REAL JOB! Well... it's only for four weeks so far but A JOB! This is great for 2 reasons - a.) I get out of the house and b.) I get some money! MONEY! YES. At last.
The downside, of course is less time for cooking and blogging.

However, I have been keeping track of my delicious lifestyle for you despite being ever so busy and business-like.

As my body is definitely still adjusting to the 'having to get up at a reasonable hour' syndrome, when I arrive home I'm so shattered that finding the will to cook is even proving to be a challenege. So last week, when I arrived home in desperate of a horrible, greasy (yet extremely tasty) curry, and we took a trip to Club 182, an authentic Indian in the heart of Wembley Park. On first impressions, it's just a pub with booths that could do with updating and a huge wooden bar, and they had a huge party in the room at the back. Great for atmosphere, service was suffering.

I was feeling a bit 50/50 as to what to expect but had good authority that this place was 'the shit'.

But, Oh My Gosh was this place AWESOME.

I ordered the Grilled Talapia Fish, Sag aloo and a Garlic Naan. I don't usually order fish in Indian restaurants, I tend to stick with chicken or vegetables, but I'm really glad that I did this time. It was the most beautiful fish I have ever tasted. It was light and flaky and covered in fantastic spices that weren't over-powering and complimented the delicate flavour of the fish. Very impressed.

I would definitely recommend Club 182 - great prices and great food.


After a long day of typing up expenses, all I want to eat is comfort food. Salads I can deal with at work but after the gruellingly long drive home stuck in copious amounts of traffic and frantically V-ing at anyone who cuts me up, I just want to get into my pajamas and eat a severly indulgent meals.

So this is what I've been cooking:

Bouef Bourginion.

Possibly my favourite dish of all time. Beef and a lot of red wine, what more could you ask for? Served with Potato Dauphinoise - food heaven. It's also one of my favourite things to cook because you can just leave it for hours whilst the beef tenderizes.

Burgers. Not just any burgers thought, because that would be boring. These burgers we formed from scratch (not as far as killing an actual cow) and then rolled in morrocan spices (these being cumin seeds, coriander and a little smidge of sumac) to form a crust. They were garnished with fresh tomatoes, baby spinach and onions and served with sweet potato wedges (one of my favourite things in the world.)

My new office is not the sort of place where you have to bring in your own cake on your birthday - oh no. Your birthday is celebrated with a menagerie of cake, games and on this occasion, Wagamamas.
I offered to make the cake this time, despite my up and down luck with baking. The unfortunate victim of this was Sarah, and it is common knowledge that she loves Mojitos... a great excuse to make some interesting cupcakes.

First of all I planned on making some individual rum cakes with a mint and brown sugar frosting. Despite these cakes being in the oven for an hour(!) they were terrible. They didn't rise and the middle was uncooked. Rubbish. Or just my luck with cakes...

So I reverted back to my good old Hummingbird Bakery cook and made plain vanilla cupcakes. They came out perfectly, so beautiful and delicate. For the frosting, I combined 2 shots of rum, lime zest, lime juice, fresh mint and butter until the butter had softened and then gradually added icing sugar until I had a thick, creamy frosting. Now, I don't usually like mojitos at all but this icing was so incredibly fresh and delectable that I could have happily eaten the entire bowl. I frosted the cupcakes and placed a mint leaf and sprinkling of brown sugar on each. Mojito cupcakes. They went down a treat.