16th October - bolognese sauce and garlic bread

This was my dinner on this day. I was reallllllly ridiculously hungry. I got some beef mince on the way home with the intention of making bolognese and having it on a baked potato. Perhaps using up some carrots from my box of goodies.

But then hunger was getting out of hand, so I got some bolognese sauce too, because I was doubtful I could hold out until I cooked bolognese from scratch.

Then, on the way home I noticed the sauce actually already had meat in it.

I got home, and had no stamina whatsoever to even wait until a potato was baked, so ended up having bolognese sauce with garlic bread from....I can't remember where from.

This was speedy, but the sauce was SO tart that it made me make this kind of face. I had to put some black pepper and half a teaspoon of sugar in, but it was still a bit Wrong.

Still. Wasn't hungry anymore.

11th October - fennel and potato gratin

My latest food adventure has been to sign up to get a small mixed organic box from Abel and Cole - less because they were organic, more because I can get surprise fruit and veg to my door every other Tuesday.

This serves several purposes - the box often contains things I wouldn't voluntarily buy. Unless I don't like the taste of anything on the list (a rarity) I won't remove it from that week's box. But I do have to think of something yum to make with it! Somewhat inspiring.

Aside from that (and how selective it is - hate aubergines? You'll never have to have a single one) I ordered some soups (Mushroom Soup with Tarragon and Juniper - yum, Caremelised Onion - don't bother) and some brie too. In fact, I can add bits and bobs to my delivery as and when I like, then just send the boxes back with them the next time.

I get a box every other week, but now that I've been made redundant and can eat all meals at home, I think I might try getting one every week for a bit.

So, this particular week I got fennel and potatoes as two of my ingredients.

Fennel is YUM. Potatoes are good comfort food. Throw in cream and nutmeg and milk and put parmesan on top and you'll decide not to eat cheese for days...but then you'll have leftovers!







Before it went in the oven...I was too greedy after it came out to remember to take a picture!

My life in food

Seeing as I spend a LOT of my time secretly busying my mind with questions such as, "what can I do with that cabbage?" and "maybe I could use that dinner up if I bake a potato, and..." - I thought it might be interesting to document all my lunches and dinners. And my baking, of course. A combination of sweet and savoury - though of course there are many bakeable main meals.

At the moment, there's no thrilling outcome I expect from this - I don't plan to dazzle you with my, er, variable diet. I don't have a hypothesis - I'm just curious about what'll happen if instead of ruminating internally about my next meal, I write my ponderings down. And given some of the things I've eaten in the past few days, maybe I can switch people on and off things. I don't expect any kind of miracles, but maybe you will be tempted by my mum's Indian attack on chickpeas and rocket, for example.

My battery's running low (not just the one in my laptop...) so I'm going to sign off for now.

Just a reminder that there will be lots of events in honour of National Apple Day tomorrow - from what I can work out, it's always 21st October. Seems Gloucestershire are going particular loopy on the apples, but if you are a Londoner like me there are plenty of events this weekend.

It's pretty yum to have National Baking Week AND National Apple Day all in the same week...I better make the most of it; I've got some Cox's apples lurking in the kitchen and have been thinking to turn them into mini crumbles with cream. If I was a free woman, I might see how they are in tarte tatin but I think I might need Bramleys for that...I'll investigate.

Baking beginnings

Something tells me that a little after midnight on a Monday night (though I keep thinking it's Sunday) is not the best time to finally start writing my blog. But I've had my eyes in my screen so much today that now is by far the best time...well, the best time today, at least.

I started baking when I was a young'un - my mum taught me how to bake what you might call a bog-standard cake, which she'd been taught when she did home ec. at school...I can't remember how I went from that, to being limited to baking no more than two things a week - if I kept on, we were going to have to eat dessert morning, noon and night to get through it all.

The book I remember using most (in the early days) is The Dairy Book of Home Management. Amazingly there's a copy going for 50p on ebay.

We never had The Dairy Book of Home Cookery, but the home baking section of our copy of the former is well thumbed - it's where I first rummaged for recipes to make scones, and rock cakes, and pancakes and such.

I also used to get wide eyed at all the food and kitchen gadgets on offer when we'd go to the Ideal Home Show - the most pertinent memory is that they'd always be giving out an endless stream of kiwi fruits with plastic, luminous green spoon-knife thingummies so as to best devour your kiwi fruit.

Somewhere around this time, or maybe a bit before, I'd use the hatch in our kitchen to present my own cooking show to the dining room (the invisible audience got bored of me making rotis, I'm sure) and when I was a tiny toddler my mum would sit me in my pushchair in the kitchen and I'd watch her cook.

Never mind the baking - I'm not surprised I start pondering what to have for dinner around the lunchtime mark.

SO - my point is this. Anyone can be inspired by food and baking and get used to 'nutrition' being as much about enjoying your food and all the rituals that go with cooking and baking - rather than it just being a means to an end, eating a meal can be more than just putting food in your gob.

When you've got the Sunday blues, baking's one of the most therapeutic mid-afternoon activities you could imagine!