My First Roast Chicken

I tagged along on a trip to Bath with my mum on Saturday and marched around all the places I wanted to visit in under two hours while she had lunch. It was great but I wish I'd had longer! I bought the most beautiful 21cm chef's knife made by I O Shen - the swirls along the handle aren't just decorative but help with the weight and balance of the knife. Then, I visited the amazing Foodie Bugle and chatted to the lovely owners, Silvana and John-Paul de Soissons about their beautiful and eclectic selection of kitchenware for sale. I purchased a pretty tile to take photos against, which is something I've been after for a long time, along with a Falcon enamel pie dish (for 2 potion lasagne in Poitiers) and their first printed magazine - it started out being online. My third and last stop was Richard Bertinet's bakery for some focaccia and a quiche for my supper. Once there I also couldn't resist one of his recipe books that focused just on bread recipes - an excellent find as I have enough cookbooks already that are half bread and half cake!

School's Out For The Summer!

I'm a cook!!

I have a job! And a flat in France! And it's summer! And Very Hot! As you can probably tell, I'm excited and busy. First things first, I am moving to Poitiers in September for a year, as you may already know, and I went there with mum a couple of weeks ago to find somewhere to live. Well, we expected it to be really difficult but by some miracle we loved the first flat we saw and got that one. It's lovely and spacious and right in the centre of town. The weather on the weekend we were there was gorgeous, and there were some amazing markets that are on every day/week so I won't be short of ingredients for new recipes to share with you. You can see in the photo below what it was like.

Poitiers

Pizza Party

I'm packing up my flat at the moment, ready to move back home for the summer, but I thought I'd take a break and quickly write a new recipe for you. I'm going to really miss Manchester when I leave, which, for those of you who knew my feelings before I arrived, is quite surprising. Coming from a small town and then a very safe big city (Singapore) I thought crime ridden Manchester would leave me refusing to leave my room apart from to go to lectures to stay safe. Well, one thing I learnt quickly is that Manchester and Greater Manchester are different and if you're sensible and somewhat cautious (not waving your phone around on street corners etc) then it's a great place to live and study. Summer is looking very busy and then my next adventure begins - I am studying in Poitiers for a year so you will have some French produce orientated recipes to come, as well as many of my favourites.

 

A Long Awaited Recipe!

* Argh! This was supposed to go up at the start of this week! I'm so sorry it's late. I've just finished my last exam and I'm packing for a trip to London and then home for mum's birthday. I hope you enjoy this recipe and forgive me for the delay.

I only have one exam left! Whooooo! Unfortunately it's also the longest/hardest but we'll skip that for now.* Today I am going to share with you a recipe for Thai Green Curry so that you can finally put that curry paste recipe from last month to good use. I don't know why it's taken me so long to post this - I think I just always thought I already had, as it's one of my favourite meals. It's really easy to make and if you don't want to make your own paste then I'd probably recommend Mae Ploy as the paste to use - you can buy it from Tesco and Asian supermarkets as well as probably others. It's a large pot and will last for ages but once you've made your own curry pastes then I can promise that you won't go back. 

A New Idea

Oh woe is me! Exams are upon me! And I have no real inclination to cook as I don't have the time for my usual marathons, so I thought I'd try out a new idea for the blog, based on a theme that Kassiella does - weekly photos of what I've been up to, or more accurately, what I've been cooking. It's often old favourites that I turn to over revision time and I will link the recipes where they're ones I've already shared with you. This week has had ups and downs, I had a lovely afternoon with two good friends on Wednesday, to celebrate the end of a project Grace and I had been working on for uni and that we had all done our speaking exams for French. The rest of my week, well you're just going to have to look at the pictures!

Clockwise from top left

- Chocolate chip cookies to aid my revision
- Pork and peppers with noodles (from this recipe but I ran out of sesame seeds)
- Two new 500ml water bottles to encourage me to drink more water - as I've been drinking 3-4 of them each day I think it's working!
- Thai Green Curry - I promise that'll be my next recipe!
- The napkin from Filthy Cow in Manchester, which does seriously good burgers and has a really fun decor. I ate the burger and chips too fast to remember to take a photo
- Pizza Express dough balls from a lazy evening home alone
- Veal pasta from a lovely restaurant in Scarborough, where my family ate after watching the Tour de Yorkshire - I counted 55 police motor bikes!
- My new ladle from OTOTO, it's so cute and it stands up on its own!
Centre
- A delicious bowl of pea and pancetta risotto with a liberal serving of parmesan

What do you think of this new style of post? Is it a good idea or does it make you too hungry? And is that a good thing?

Hi And Bye: A Very Quick Recipe

Argh!!! Exam season is upon me and I have only got a week before a major deadline AND my French speaking exam. Scarily, in a month's time I shall have finished my exams AND be half way through my degree *cue manic nail biting terror*. This means that my recipes will be uploaded somewhat erratically as it will be a nightmare few weeks but I do have a few posts up my sleeve for you pre-written to avoid me stressing out too much. On a brighter note, I got 67 in my last essay, which is worth 40% of one module's final mark - for those of you who aren't familiar with university marking - one teacher said she'd only ever given 80 once before and that was because she couldn't have sat down and written a better essay herself. 67 is equivalent to a high 2:1, which is great. I also had a presentation to do on Wednesday, so hopefully that went well, I think it did but I won't get the mark for a few weeks.

Don't Say Never Trust A Skinny Cook: Spaghetti and Meatballs

The weather has been great recently and I'm making the most of it with recipes like this mediterranean chicken and my light butter chicken but sometimes, no matter the weather, I just want spaghetti and meatballs. You could make this and pretend that you're in Lady and the Tramp with some extra long spaghetti (like this (sadly out-of-stock) packet from Firebox.com - I love their descriptions!) or you could just enjoy it with a glass of kir, as I did. The other good thing about the weather is I'm going to the gym more regularly, funny how the lack of rain and wind makes me more included to venture out!