Time To Cosy Up

It's the new year and the weather is definitely getting colder (finally) and so I thought I'd make the ultimate in comfort classics, tartiflette. Traditionally eaten after a long day on the ski slopes and appropriately filling, it's perfect for a winter night to be eaten by a roaring fire after a long walk in the countryside. Apparently, it's not such a rustic dish as one might think and was actually invented in the 1980s by the Reblochon (cheese) makers to boost sales!

Last Minute Gifts and Stocking Fillers

It's only a week until Christmas and while I'm sure most of you have already bought the majority of your gifts (if not check out my guides here and here) you might still be looking for a few little pieces, maybe to go in stockings? If so, then this is the list for you. All of these present ideas can be bought from chain shops (I love independents but by their very definition there's normally only one of them and that's just not practical for last minute things) and most cost under £10. With the other posts I have chosen a make and then suggested some of my favourites within their collection, while here I shall switch between item (e.g. biscuit cutters) and shops, depending on what you can get where - Paperchase have so many gorgeous things that it seemed silly to have a long list of ideas with only one item in each and all from the same shop!

Paperchase

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I think these christmas pudding bin bags (£10/12) are so cute and would make a great gift for the cook, and makes taking out the bins a bit more fun (as far as taking the bins out can be fun). Continuing the christmas pud theme is a set of juggling balls (£6) perfect for big and little kids alike. For me, recipe books are one of my ultimate weaknesses but I often find it hard to find my favourite recipes in a hurry (at university alone I have 30 or 40 cookbooks) so I write up my favourite recipes into a (now tattered and stained) Paperchase recipe book that a friend gave me for Christmas 2014. Paperchase sell fun patterned ones (£10 each) and a slick Molesine recipe journal (£18) that I aspire to, or finally you could go for loose cards and a box to store them in (paperchase £10), which are easier to transport. The other thing I rely on at uni is a meal planner to stop me from impulse buying my food (an expensive mistake). Normally, paperchase have a great selection in multiple sizes and also straight shopping list pads, but online they only seem to show this one (paperchase £8) which is a bit too cartoony for my tastes. Finally, for the cocktail enthusiast, there's a sweet gold toned cocktail shaker (£18) that says "Cheers!".

Gifts for Foodies

For those of you who would like to buy a present for a food-lover but don't want it to be, you know,  food, then here's a gift list for you. I've put together a few things that I have given or received in the past and loved, as well as a few things that I'm coveting. If you do want to give someone a food extravaganza for christmas then here's a link to my christmas hamper guide.

PANDORA

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Pandora have a few food related charms, my all time favourite being the cupcake (coincidentally the reason I bought a pandora bracelet in the first place). They also have some seriously cool looking cakes, including a three tiered one (that I can no longer find on their website). In fact, there are some many that I like it was hard to choose just three to show you. The cupcake (Pandora £40) was obviously on the shortlist but then, should there be an ice cream cone (Pandora £35)? A pineapple (Pandora £45)? or a teacup (Pandora £25)? In the end I decided to add to the list a pretty espresso maker (Pandora £35) for coffee lovers and a cool chef's hat (Pandora £35), appropriately named "I love cooking", for all those recipients who would just rather be cooking! If you need to get the bracelet (Pandora) to go with the charm then they start at £35 for a multi-strand strap and go up to £1,200 for a gold gold one! Don't worry though - the silver ones are £55 and hold at least 15 charms, or you can buy a leather one (£40-£50) although they recommend a maximum of 7 charms as the leather can stretch.

Christmas Time

Christmas is not very far away (where did the time go?) and the weather is not at all frightful (really Poitiers? Why is it 21 degrees celsius in mid-November?!) and an email from the lovely people at Cailler (read my review of their chocolate here) reminded me that I have a post mostly written about last year's food related presents that I want to adapt into a gift guide. First up, last year I made a hamper for my parents, which they loved and my bank balance hated. One word of advice? Set a budget and stick to it. I kept adding extra things and forgetting to total it up, so that I have no clue as to the total value of the hamper. It was worth it though - to be able to pull together all these amazing things that linked and expanded upon daddy's request for cheese and wine and that my parents loved.

Hampers take the most time to pull together, so I'll write and post my ideas for your hampers this week and over the next few weeks I will post other ideas for gifts, both edible and not, for foodies and gather them all together under the christmas tab on my navigation bar.

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Cailler Chocolate*

It was reading week last week and I took a trip home, via Paris where I participated in a macaron making class (more about that in another post), to see my mum and relax for a bit. Well, it was supposed to be relaxing. I actually zoomed around for the whole holiday and found myself in London 4 times!! The most unexpected visit also turned out to be one of my favourite days and a completely new experience. One of mum's friends passed along an invitation to a chocolate launch on the South Bank (Sea Containers's restaurant is very swish by the way).

The chocolate in question? Nestlé's prestigious swiss brand Cailler, now launching in the UK exclusively at Amazon. It's made at Maison Cailler near Broc and uses (unlike most chocolate companies) fresh milk in their  chocolates, not powdered. They even showed us a video about one of their cows, Gwendoline! All the milk is sourced from within a 20 mile radius of maison Cailler, which is a nice touch and helps to keep the brand close to home - apparently there are some locals who say you can taste the difference between the chocolates made in the summer and winter, when the cows eat different things. I think they must have insanely good tastebuds!

Things Are Finally Settling Down

I know it's been a long time since I wrote a post and I know that I keep apologising but things will get back to normal now and you'll get your regular dose of recipes again. I've just chosen all of my classes and I think I'm happy with them (having walked out of today's one half way through because the same subject made my cry in first year and switched it for a better class). Some are brilliant. like my writing techniques class - this week we had to write lonely hearts ads and last week it was acrostics - and some are straightforward and not too challenging - like my translation classes. My flat is also, mostly, behaving itself after a flood during a bad storm. Although I'm still trying to get the roof fixed, I'm beginning to understand that the French are unbelievably laid-back about water coming in through the roof and that if I ring every so often then hopefully it'll all get sorted before winter! The social aspect of uni is great - I've made plenty of friends - and I've even thrown my first baby dinner party (4 friends and lots of thai green curry). Here's to many more to come!

My friend from Manchester, Jed, was staying with me for a couple of weeks while he found himself a flat and one night I made the Hairy Biker's lemon chicken for us. Well, it was delicious and while it's very different to my favourite lemon chicken from Dim T in Winchester, it's got a punchy flavour without being cloyingly sweet and unhealthy. I've changed a couple of things around as I didn't think there was enough sauce but that the juice of 2 whole lemons would make it too sour (I was right - 1½ is about right but feel to add more if you want to).

The Last Month (Time Has Flown)

Last Sunday it was the first anniversary of this blog and I realised I hadn’t posted for a while due to a busy summer. Well, I’m going to rectify this today with  a catch up of my holidays. This might not be posted for a few days as I currently don’t have reliable internet but as soon as I can I promise to upload this! 

I last posted when I was in Sweden. We had a fantastic two weeks there and the food, well, it was brilliant. If you ever go to Stockholm then I recommend you eat at Oaxen Slip, which is on the same island as the ABBA museum (also worth a visit for the hilarity of it all. And the chance to pretend you’re part of the band). The menu is intended to be shared but you could quite easily have a plate each and just share the sides. We each chose a dish and then tried each others’. I had pork with spring onion butter and a charred lemon, so simple yet full of flavour. My family chose cod with hazelnuts, Swedish beef sausage, and a steak. All tasted fantastic. For me, the anticipated dessert, and the reason I chose the restaurant, having spotted it on Rocket and Squash’s instagram, was a salted caramel brownie with ice cream and sour cream. Boy, did it live up to expectations! The warm brownie was light and gooey with the sour cream being a perfect, if unusual, foil to the chocolate sweetness.