cookbook addict

What is better on a Sunday than a nice Sunday roast, at home we often had roastbeef, but I find roastbeef too much for two people, so I usually go for a roast chicken, not quite the same, I know! Here, I tried a combination of what chefs like Jamie Oliver suggest and what my Mum does, and the flavours are all from the Mediterranean area, so I called it : Roast chicken Mediterranean style 1,5 kg free-range chicken a head of garlic pitted green olives a few twigs of rosemary 1 organic lemon 2 tomatoes olive oil salt, pepper 1) Preheat the oven to 200-220°C. Wash and pat dry the chicken. Rub it with salt and freshly ground black pepper. 2) Insert slices of the lemon, along with rosemary leaves, a handful of olives and a few garlic cloves into the cavity. 3) Rub the bottom of a roasting tray with olive oil, then rub the bird with oil as well. Put two slices of the lemon on a roasting tray and lay the bird on them. 4) Put in the oven and let it roast for an hour or so. 5) Cut up two tomatoe...

Yesterday, the chop suey stir-fry was postponed until dinner time.Why? Well, since I've got a brand new G4 and broadband, I can't stop surfing the web, which has its advantages when my other half is away, and as I've got vacation coming up, as well as maternity leave in a few months... After a bath, it was already time for me to visit the local cinema. You see OH and me are fervent supporters of seeing films in their original version, now it's not so easy to practice because we have different mother's tongues and now live in my country and in a smallish city, where there is only one cinema that will show such films, and they tend to have a passion for Asian movies, and neither of us can understand Asian languages, so OH wouldn't be able to even read the French subtitles. All this to say that I use his time away to watch either *exotic* movies or French ones. So yesterday it was time to hit the town before I could say "stir-fry". Undeterred by this cont...

I’ve just had a breakfast of Nigella Lawson’s Mother-in-law’s Madeira cake (from How to be a Domestic Goddess) spread with Nutella and dipped into a bowl of hot chocolate. Now, when I bake, it’s usually something with chocolate, but once I tried this for a picnic, and it turned out splendidly, so I make it once in a while. It’s better eaten on the next day and can keep for quite a few days. Madeira Cakes are traditional English cakes, much like pound cakes or the French quatre-quarts, that are made of very basic ingredients (lots of butter, sugar, eggs,flour, baking powder and the grated zest and juice of a lemon or two), hence the name, I suppose, or as one of my cookbooks on Victorian cakes mentioned, named so because it went well with the sweet liquourous Madeira wine. The lemon note is quite subtle but aptly improves the butter flavour. It’s fine eaten on its own at tea-time, but I find it delicious for breakfast, spread with jam or Nutella. For lunch, I plan a sort of chop suey di...