Category Archives: Main Course

Babotie

For me, there is nothing as alluring as the combination of meat and fruit. Minced beef cooked with banana and grated apple in Chiles en Nogada; lamb studded with pomegranate and sweetened with currants in kefta meatballs; juicy apricots in a tagine. Perhaps I should have been born in Medieval England. Following the Crusade, the European raisin tradeContinue reading “Babotie”

Pork Belly

Last Friday evening I spent a pleasant two hours on an empty train with the sea at my back. I’d spent the afternoon between work, school and trains, herding eight children in the direction of Sussex. It was like a school trip – myself and another nanny doling out packed lunches and supervising toilet trips.Continue reading “Pork Belly”

Chicken tagine with apricots

  I’m a member of the Facebook group, ‘Slow Cooker Saddos’. It’s a gem for the foodie voyeur, if only for the dimly-lit photographs of unidentifiable casseroles. I remember shunning the slow cooker after Nigella branded it a crime against cooking (along with electric carving knives – I can agree with her there). I’ve sinceContinue reading “Chicken tagine with apricots”

Chiles en Nogada

My time spent in Mexico last year was in a word, incredible. It was a month of discovery, reward and realisation. I made friendships with people who for their own unique reasons were pulled towards Mexico – to that little city nestled in the rippling peaks of the Sierra de Guanajuato. Whether it was toContinue reading “Chiles en Nogada”

Courgette lasagne

Goodbye clean work surfaces, adios baking supplies, arrivederci  kitchen. And hellooooo uni. I’m not even there yet (only four days to go…eeek) but I’m already anticipating the greasy ovens, lack of clean utensils and overall reduced quality of kitchen escapades. No access to my 60,340 recipe books – what on earth will I do?! (theContinue reading “Courgette lasagne”

Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic

Do you know what instantly brightens a grey day,  a work day, a Wednesday, a Tuesday or practically any day? Food. Food that comes hot from the oven; so mouth-wateringly full of flavour that it sedates all of the world’s troubles, leaving the diner left in a comatose state of food induced euphoria. A fewContinue reading “Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic”