Thoughts of Christmas

So its that time of year again...I know its only November but Mr. Chops and I have been discussing our Christmas dinner already. It looks like its just going to be us again this year which is a very blissful thought indeed. Its nice to cook the dinner our way and by our own schedule. Last year was the same. We got up around 10.30am, opened the presents and got most excited by Doggie Chops' reaction to his pressies; there's nothing like watching a dog eviscerate wrapping paper, joy to the world indeed! After a leisurely morning of stuffing the turkey; changing the vegetable water in various pots; and early morning home-cooked ham and brown bread for breakfast, we had a nice long walk with said Doggie who was wearing his Santa jacket. Westhighland Terrier's look very fetching in red it really shows off their noses:

Late afternoon, we had our starter. The plan of action was at least 1-2hours between starter and main course and sure an auld drop of wine inbetween! Our starter last year was a Tomato & Chorizo tartlet. It was my own invention. I defrosted the puff pastry and halved one sheet; created an edge by scoring it lightly with knife, pricked the middle part and then spread over sliced cherry tomatoes, fried slices of chorizo (the full sausage not the pre-sliced packets you get) and a good sprinkling of grated mozarella. Cooked it in the oven for roughly 20-25mins approx and served with a peppery salad of rocket and watercress. To accompany it we popped open a bottle of pink Cava from Tesco. It was a lovely start to the meal.

When we were ready for the main event and the turkey had its sufficient time. We sat down to the traditional full meal with all the trimmings: roast turkey, honey & mustard roast ham, roast potatoes, roast carrots with honey, roast parsnips with maple syrup, potato stuffing, bread stuffing and gravy. Mr.Chops didn't speak for at least an hour, so I think he enjoyed it. Then we weren't the only ones who had pig for Christmas:

Just an observation:

For a blog about cooking I've done very little...

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It is only right that I'm embarrassed.

Sorry, It's Been a While

Yeah, its been ages actually, over a month apparently (insert sad smiley face here please). Cooking has been on the down-low due the Mr. Chops being on overtime a lot and who can be bothered cooking for one, night after night? I've been putting a lot of effort into Doggie Chops recently because he had a sick tummy so it was a strict diet of chicken, rice and some pasta. I've been slowly trying to introduce dog nuts back into his diet but it seems Doggie Chops is an animal of discerning taste and palate and not everything is acceptable. Though, he has no problem with sausages, burgers, stew, toast, biscuits, pretzels.....basically whatever I'm eating! Also, I've started an Open University course about Leonardo da Vinci and I've been trying to get ahead on it cos there's lots of reading. But I'm feeling awfully intelligent reading dem big words.

Anyway, tonight I watched 'Julie & Julia'. For those who don't know, its the film of New Yorker Julie Powell's year long blog to cook her way through Julia Child's 'Mastering the Art of French Cookery'. Meryl Streep plays Julia and Amy Adams plays Julie. Since I saw Amy in Enchanted she has become a favourite actress of mine. She's brilliant in 'Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day' as well. I digress, the film is sweet, warm and engaging. Both the leads are amazing, though that's kind of a given with Meryl. For anyone who's ever seen footage of Julia Childs I think Meryl really captures her, though I'd like to know how they made her tower over Stanley Tucci (he plays husband Paul) it was a feat of cinema magic. The film has inspired me to order Volume I of Julia's book and her autobiography from Amazon. I'll read the biog first methinks and I'll cherrypick from the cookery book; I don't have the discipline or the time at the moment, but I have to say I felt the inclination to make Boeuf Bourguignon. If you watch the movie you'll understand why.

What amazed me most about the movie is loving way the food is shot. You're salivating watching it and my gosh did I want duck after I watched. So that's my recommendation for today: Julie & Julia.

Speaking of duck, I had delicious crispy duck last night from the local Chinese (see I'm not cooking). It was falling off the bone but still a little bit pink in the middle and the Hoisin was unctious and sweet. Even Mr. Chops liked it and he doesn't like duck that much or Chinese food.

PRAWNS AGAIN

Last night I decided to go Chinese with my dinner. I had some raw king prawns that needed to be used. I soaked some egg noodles in boiling water for 3 or 4 mins, then strained them and refreshed in cold water. I sliced some red onion, red pepper and topped and tailed some sugar snap peas. For the main event I stir fried the prawns for around a minute and removed from the wok. Then threw the peppers into the wok, stir-fried for 2mins then added the onion and sugar snap peas fried for another minute and now throw in the noodles. Keep everything moving or else they'll burn and stick. To this mixture I added a couple of teaspoons of Sweet Chilli Sauce (I use Blue Dragon) and 3tsps of Ketchap manis which is a sweeter soy sauce from Indonesia (if you don't have any use light soy sauce instead) and around 30mls of water. Let this mixture bubble away for a few mins until the sauce is syrupy and thick. To this add the prawns to heat through. Serve immediately. There is no need to add any salt to this mixture though I did add a few grounds of black pepper, but that's only because I love black pepper.

The above measurements are for a single serving. You can find Ketchap Manis in Tesco with all the other ethnic foods.

Mr. Chops didn't partake in my meal, he had a fish finger sandwich. Now that's living!!

TIS BEEN BAD FOOD WEEK

Didn't do too much cooking this week. Other than a Thai-noodle soup with prawns from Nigel Slater's new programme on BBC2. Mr. Chops isn't a fan of Thai food while I adore it. I love the heat of it and that little touch of sweetness in the background. You can find his recipe on the BBC food website bbc.co.uk/food, there's a link to his show.

I've become obsessed with prawns recently. Tesco were doing an offer on frozen raw king prawns so I stocked up on a good few bags. Of course, I never remember to take them out to defrost overnight so my little tip is to put them in tightly shut plastic bag and let sit in very cold water for an hour or so. If you think of it, change the cold water a couple of times but they won't be sitting in it for that long so its not entirely necessary. Turn the bag around every now and then and eventually you'll have perfectly safe-to-use defrosted prawns. The Tesco prawns are pretty tasty too, nice and meaty.

Another fall-back cupboard dinner is pasta with olive oil, garlic and chilli. If you've a fresh chilli near the end of its life hanging around, you can use it, otherwise I used dried chilli flakes. All you need to do is cook your choice of pasta, then while its draining, use the same pot to heat up a good splash of olive oil with a very finely chopped garlic clove and a sprinkling of chilli flakes - more or less depending on how much heat you like. Just make sure the garlic doesn't burn. Add the cooked pasta to the oil mix and give it a good stir. Check for seasoning, but definitely add some fresh ground black pepper. For a final flourish add some grated parmesan, then serve. Literally from pan to plate in 15mins max! Mr. Chops likes it and he's usually not one for plain pasta, he likes a little texture added. If you have it, you could add some roughly chopped chorizo to the pan with the garlic.