Tuesday 28 February 2017

REVIEW: Miller and Carter steak restaurant, Rickmansworth

Review of Miller and Carter in Rickmansworth - steak restaurant in Hertfordshire

I cook and eat a lot of vegetarian food, and often think to myself 'Sure, I could go vegetarian,' and I truly believe I could. If I had to, I could. But I don't have to. And also there's steak. Consider steak.

I didn't get into eating steak until quite late in life, and when I started to order it more and more often, I was shocked to realise I liked it rare. My dad loves to tell the story of being told off by a chef for ordering his steak well done, and... well, I'm siding with the chef. I totally get why people aren't into rare steak, but I revel in it. Bring it to me pink, and juicy and barely cooked, and I'll be happy. Still mooing? Cool.

This is a post for carnivores, my friends.

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Friday 24 February 2017

WEDDING: Honeymoon planning (well, fantasising)

Wedding planning blogger - honeymoon thoughts

It’s over a year until we’re planning to get married (I am like 73% sure the wedding posts will diminish during that time, I’m sorry I'm talking about it so much at the moment) and I can already tell that our planning is going to be anywhere but linear. We’re fixating on the little, insignificant details in a big way while giving rather less attention to the massive, significant stuff. Table names? Nailed. Venue? No clue.

And in that ilk, I’m idly planning our honeymoon. The honeymoon that we’re not actually intending to take until a few months after the wedding. I know why, of course. Hard savings this year means that exciting holidays has to take a backseat, and I’m getting all wistful for sunshine, interesting food and fun things. Currently I’m leaning towards an American road trip with a side of Disney, but there’s so much more out there to potentially choose from. The world is, quite literally, our oyster.

No, wait. That’s not literal at all. The world is not an oyster. Anyway, here’s some other honeymoon options that I’m toying with. I’m sure I’ll involve my fiancĂ© in these plans at some point.

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Monday 20 February 2017

RECIPE: Slow cooked beef and ale stew

Beef and Guinness stew from Jamie Oliver's Superfood, Weight Watchers friendly

As much as I cheerfully kept my food blog going last year, I felt like I didn't cook all that much. Well, I did, but I didn't cook very many NEW recipes. I kept returning to old favourites over and over again, like chorizo pasta, peanut curry, coconut dhal and burrito bowls. Don't get me wrong, my parents wouldn't have minded if I'd made something different every night, but I minded. I didn't want to be under their feet all the time, so I relied heavily on batch cooking, which meant I'd spend a day once a month or so to fill up our freezer drawer with meals.

And it worked, but I missed what I love most about cooking - learning new skills, finding new flavours and experimenting with different things. So when we moved into our house, one of the first things I unpacked was my cookbooks. You see, having my own kitchen again is so much more than just space. It's having complete ownership of what's in the cupboards and the fridge, which sounds like a little thing, but when you're sharing that space it's sometimes hard to remember what's in there, or even to guarantee that what you left in there will still be there when you get home. We've all been in that position, right?

When we moved, I was convinced I wanted to replace the kitchen, but now I'm not so sure. Yeah, I'd love to replace the faux-wood cupboard doors with a calming cream, but it's actually a really good size with tons of storage, and lovely to cook in. I also get the impression it had hardly been used by the previous owner, apart from the oven which was pretty appalling. I attacked it with liberal amounts of Oven Pride (which I find terrifying but oh-so-satisfying) and it's much better, but I'm dreaming of replacing it eventually with a nice shiny hob (with no rust stains, the dream) and a big old oven. Currently eyeing up a nice cream double oven from Belling kitchen appliances, even though I'm not sure we can actually fit a double oven in. Oh well. One day I'll have my dream cream-and-wood farmhouse kitchen, I will. And until then, I must count my blessings, and remind myself that what we have now beats the oven we had in our flat by a long way, which was tiny, terrible, and only had one shelf. The wooorst.

Aaaanyway. I've already been racking up the new recipes since we moved. From curries to chilli to stew to meze, I'm loving experimenting again. I think my favourite new cookbook is one of Jamie Oliver's latest, Super Food Family Classics. You know when you just want to make EVERYTHING? That. Anyway, his beef and ale stew recipe is to diiiie for. He recommends serving it with mustard spiced pearl barley, but I serve it with mash, because I don't understand why you wouldn't have mash when you could have mash.

Here's my variation on it. It's pretty close to Jamie's, but I add a bit more beef and a bit more veg, and spend some time thickening it at the end, too. And I add mash. Did I mention the mash?

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Wednesday 15 February 2017

RECIPE: Vegan blueberry bircher muesli with Alpro

Alpro breakfast ideas - vegan bircher muesli with blueberries

I always have a little list of recipes in my head that I want to try out, but they're often the ones that it takes me the longest to get round to. One such recipe is bircher muesli. I love the stuff - I'm always buying the pre-made pots from M&S or Pret, and whenever I'm in Germany for work, I make a beeline for it at the hotel breakfast buffet.

Despite its name, it actually has more in common with porridge than muesli, and consists of oats soaked in milk, yogurt or both with grated apple. That's the basis of it, anyway, but you can add anything extra you like to it, such as fruit, granola or nuts. It's been around for years (it's a staple breakfast food in Switzerland) although it's had a bit of a renaissance recently under the guise of Overnight Oats, and there are hundreds of different variations - even versions where double cream or condensed milk is used instead of yogurt. Decadent.

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Saturday 11 February 2017

WEDDING: Choosing my engagement ring

Story of choosng an engagement ring using bespoke design service from Purely Diamonds

It feels like absolutely ages ago now that I announced my engagement on here - and it kinda was, to be honest, as it was back in October. Well, if you remember, I was left with a little task... to choose my own engagement ring. Matt proposed with a beloved, broken ring of mine that he'd secretly had fixed, because he knew I'd want to choose my own ring.

He knew this because every time we idly looked in a jeweller's window or the conversation came up, I confessed that I had no idea what I wanted, just that I didn't want the standard cartoon emoji ring - you know, one square or round stone on a gold band. Of course, that's classic and beautiful, but I just wanted something a little different. And therein lay the problem.
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