A Belated Happy New Year

Hi everyone!

I'm extremely sorry for my absence over the Christmas and New Year period. I was so busy cooking and then sleeping from having eaten too much that I haven't had time to write anything coherent. Now we're head first into January and the ground outside is covered in an unfamiliar white powder, I can share all that we did over the festive period.

I brought out my mince pie recipe again and tried my hand at a non-fruit Christmas cake for the office. It was based on lebkuchen spices and decorated in the manner of a traditional Christmas cake. I used Paula Deen's recipe from the Food Network, which you can find HERE. With a little additional whisky in the batter.

We also went to Taste of Christmas at the Excel center. What an incredible experience. We were lucky enough to pick up the tickets with our Tesco clubcard points and traveled via the cable car from North Greenwich. This was great fun on it's own and gave us a beautiful view of the surrounding areas. Taste of Christmas did not disappoint on the freebies - we tried everything from cheese to rum to chutneys to my personal favourite - Sipsmith's Damson Vodka. Delicious. There were plenty of places to buy food from. We sampled dishes from Cinnamon Kitchen, LIMA, Jamie Oliver's Fabulous Feasts, The Bowler, Yalla Yalla (an old favourite) and Union Jack's Hot Dogs.

My favourites were LIMA's delicate and flavourful Ceviche and the hearty delicious meatballs provided by The Bowler (which have since acted as inspiration for a catering menu that I have recently designed). 

There were plenty of chefs giving talks and running demonstrations and we were lucky enough to catch The Fabulous Baker Brothers showing us how to make Bacon Porridge and a quick Soda Bread. They tried (in vain) to get the crowd to sing a carol or two with them, but it seemed that the event go-ers weren't as charismatic and exciting as these two.

Another highlight were these tempting Salted Caramel Choux Buns for £1 each, provided by Choux. One wasn't enough but when we returned later for more, they had sold out and I'm not surprised.Next time I'm thinking about a party, I may be giving these guys a ring. 

This Christmas was also a time of experimenting and trying things outside of my comfort zone. So I tried profiteroles from scratch by following a classic Prue Leith recipe. Choux pastry has always been something that I'd been afraid of and I genuinely had no reason to be. I would pick choux over shortcrust any time! For my birthday we had a French themed evening where I cooked a big Bouef Bourguignon (one of my favourite meals) and had a buffet of wine, cheese and oysters. I had a go at shucking an oyster last summer but this time I had half a dozen to get through - somehow not as fun as I remember. They were delicious as always.

If you're a fan of the GBBO (Great British Bake Off), you make have seen them attempt the Austrian chocolate cake, Sachertorte, in the technical challenge. With my incredible new Christmas present, I decided to have a go myself. If I was going to fail, I might as well fail in style. Having never actually eaten proper Sachertorte, I had to trust Rob to tell me that it tasted something like the original should. As chocolate cake went, it wasn't my favourite but the apricot jam and the ganache topping added a nice new dimension.

Rob and I ended up cooking Christmas dinner where we had chicken with all the usual trimmings. A tip for next year is add pancetta to your sprouts! Delicious. We repeated our well rehearsed roast routine on New Year's Day with a gorgeous Rib of Beef. I can't take credit for the meat as that was handled by the master of meat that is Robert White.

Finally I want to share my new toy with you:

You can be jealous now.