Thursday 30 June 2011

Im going to Cornwall!!!

I'm so excited, I'm going on a road trip to St Just in Cornwall with my Boyfriend and four of our friends for a whole week on Saturday. We've rented a gorgeous cottage overlooking the sea, we have a lovely big garden and one of the oldest buthcers in the UK on our doorstop so fingers crossed there will be many BBQ'S and I'm going to stuff myself silly with Cornish pasties, cream teas and fresh locally caught seafood.
I 'll be back next week with loads of photo's and some lovely recipes, in the meantime here is a chicken Tikka pasanda I made using a recipe from 'The Curry Secret' by Kris Dhillon, a curry cookbook that tells you how to make curry's the same as the ones you get in UK takeaways so they aren't authentic but GOD Damn that was a seriously delicious curry!

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Wednesday 15 June 2011

Pork Belly

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I love pork belly and would eat it every day if I thought I could get away with it, it's creamy fat that renders into the meat so it's meltingly tender and of course the best bit of all....the crackling.
It's a very sad affair when your crackling doesn't crackle and there are many tried and tested methods for getting it right and I have tried them all. The trick is to the skin as dry as you possibly can, I cover my slab of belly in rock salt and leave it for around an hour then wipe the salt off with kitchen towel a nd try to soak up as much of the moisture as possible for using a hair dryer to dry it out even more!!!
To cook my pork belly I cover the sides in tin foil to protect it when the oven is turned up to the fullest to achieve the crackle!!

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Here she is in all her glory with cauliflower cheese, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, Roast parsnips and lot's of lovely veg. There was of course cider gravy and apple sauce as well.

Sunday 5 June 2011

Salted Chocolate and Almond Cheesecake

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Ive made another cheesecake I couldn't help myself, the last one was so delicious not making another seemed bad and almost wrong like a puppy or a fairy ( Fairies are real) would die somewhere if I didn't...at least that's what I told my boyfriend when he asked why I was making cheesecake again, think of the puppies and fairies God damn you. I made my cheesecake with Lindt chocolate and I used there 70% coco bar and two of the salted almond bars which were heaven, that tiny bit of salt seasons the chocolate so well and it made the most delicious cheesecake. I always make no-bake cheesecakes and one day I may change that but for now I am happy just mixing melted chocolate with cream cheese, creme fraiche and double cream mmmmmmmmmm

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