Beef Short Ribs

Beef Short Ribs

A Bank Holiday Weekend and an opportunity to try a new recipe requiring hours of slow cooking: my sort of recipe. I bought the beef with no particular recipe in mind so I was pleased to find I’d bookmarked this one for Glazed Sticky Longhorn Short Ribs over a year ago. I have no idea if my ribs were from Longhorn cows but I bought them from my excellent local butcher, Ruby and White, which has never let me down.

Ingredients

Serves 6

  • About 3kg beef short ribs
  • Rapeseed oil
  • Seasoning

For the sticky BBQ glaze

  • 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp light soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 300ml passata
  • 100ml tomato ketchup
  • 2 level tsp five spice
  • 1 level tsp all spice
  • 1 level tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
  • 1 level tsp Sichuan pepper
  • ½ tsp ground black pepper
  • 6 tbsp dark brown sugar
  • 1 level tsp rapeseed oil

Method

(Preheat conventional oven to 100ºC)

  • Place the ribs in a large roasting tin, season and drizzle with rapeseed oil
  • Cover with a double layer of foil and place in the simmering oven to slow-roast for about 8 hours but can be longer. The meat will be tender and falling off the bone
  • Alternatively, if you want to eat at lunchtime, place the ribs in the oven before going to bed. Could probably leave them there until you’re ready to add the glaze (see below), but if you’re worried they will be falling apart too much (is this possible?), remove them at breakfast time and replace them, with the glaze, a couple of hours before you want to serve them
  • A couple of hours before the end of the cooking time make the glaze
  • Place everything in a saucepan, add 100ml water and stir on a medium heat/the simmering plate until the sugar has dissolved.
  • Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Or bring to the boil and leave uncovered in the simmering oven for at least half an hour
  • Then pour about ⅔ of the sauce over your ribs, replace the foil and return them to the simmering oven for a minimum of 30 minutes but can be longer
  • I didn’t have all the ingredients for the seasonal slaw so I served our ribs with Nigella’s Hot and Sour Shredded Salad (recipe in her book “Kitchen”) and steamed Basmati rice, with the remaining glaze drizzled over the ribs

Nigella’s Hot and Sour Shredded Salad

Serves 6

  • 3 carrots
  • 4 spring onions
  • 1 long red chilli
  • 1 long green chilli
  • 20g/small bunch coriander

for the dressing:

  • juice of 1 lime (if you don’t have one, a lemon will do)
  • 4 x tbsp Thai fish sauce
  • 1 tsp caster sugar
  • Cut the carrots into long slices and then julienne them (i.e. cut into matchstick-like strips)
  • Trim and halve the spring onions and julienne as well
  • De-seed the chillies and cut into juliennes
  • Finely chop the coriander
  • Mix all of the above in a bowl. In another bowl mix the lime juice, fish sauce and sugar and dress the vegetables with this

Chicken and Sweet Potatoes with Miso, Ginger and Spring Onions

Chicken and Sweet Potatoes with Miso, Ginger and Spring Onions

 

Another of my Easter weekend dishes was this simple chicken traybake, which is also a Diana Henry recipe. It appeared in the Telegraph’s Stella magazine a few weeks ago. I tried it then and knew my family would like it. It’s perfectly suited to Aga cooking.

Ingredients

For 4-6 people, depending on hunger levels and the size of the chicken thighs

  • 8 chicken thighs
  • 700g sweet potatoes, washed and cut into wedges
  • 2½ tbsp white miso
  • 1 ½ tbsp honey or maple syrup
  • 2 tbsp rice wine
  • 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
  • 2.5cm chunk ginger root, peeled and grated or finely chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1 red chilli, halved and finely chopped (use the seeds for extra heat)
  • 12-18 spring onions
  • 3 tsp black or toasted white sesame seeds (or a mixture of the two)

For the final basting

  • 1 tbsp white miso
  • 1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
  • ½ tbsp dark soy sauce
  • ½ tbsp rice wine

Method

Pre-heat conventional oven to 190ºC/gas mark 5

  • Place the thighs in a large roasting tin with the sweet potato wedges (they should be able to lie in a single layer)
  • Mix together everything else except the spring onions and sesame seeds. Pour this over the chicken and sweet potatoes, turning everything over so the ingredients are well coated, finishing with the chicken skin-side up
  • Roast for 45 minutes at the top of the roasting oven, basting every so often, and turning the wedges over
  • Mix the final basting ingredients together and about 15 minutes before the end of cooking time, take the tin out of the oven and pour them over, adding the spring onions at the same time. They should become soft and slightly charred
  • When cooked, sprinkle with the sesame seeds and serve
  • I served ours with pak choi stir-fried in a little groundnut oil with black pepper and soy sauce

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Slow-Cooked Chicken

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A friend came to supper the other day who said he had exactly the same Aga as mine. He confessed he didn’t think he and his wife made the best use of theirs and proceeded to ask me some questions. I was surprised to find they didn’t even know what the ovens were for: they only used the roasting and baking ovens (although they didn’t know this is what they’re called) and the simmering oven for warming plates. They didn’t use the warming oven at all! I told him they needed to buy an Aga book and that I’d read my Mary Berry one, which came free with my Aga, from cover to cover. He said they had the book but hadn’t bothered to read it.  In their defence, they “inherited” their Aga when moving into their house whereas I made a deliberate choice to become an Aga owner and cook and saw it as a kind of project. It made me realise there are people out there who didn’t choose to have an Aga but have got one by default and that they might find blogs like mine useful.

I was sorry therefore that the supper I cooked for our friend and his parents, old friends of my husband’s family, was not one of my best. I wanted to use up the pheasant breasts I still had in my freezer and found this recipe. It looked and smelled delicious and tasted good, but the meat was a little rubbery and dry. I find this happens with chicken breasts too and I don’t know what the answer is. What is more, I chose the recipe because it was a slow braise, which in my opinion ought to have ensured tender, succulent meat. On reflection, I think breasts, whether of the pheasant or chicken variety, should not be cooked for very long, so my suggestion for adapting this recipe for the Aga would be only to cook it (in the simmering oven of course) for the initial 45 minutes.

Legs and thighs, on the other hand, lend themselves to slower cooking. The dish in the photo above is braised chicken pappardelle. I got the recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Guardian column, and you will see he provides two further slow-cooked chicken recipes. I pounced on the article when I saw it, as I always do when I see the words “slow-cooked”; I immediately think “Aga simmering oven”. I have now made all three recipes and they’re all superb, but today I’m going to tell you how I made the one above in the Aga.

Braised Chicken Pappardelle

Ingredients

  • 4 chicken legs (thighs and drumsticks)
  • 2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to finish
  • Salt and black pepper
  • 3 carrots, cut into 1.5cm chunks
  • 1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 5g thyme sprigs
  • 500g vegetable stock
  • 50g anchovies in oil, drained and finely chopped
  • 400g pappardelle (I used a good quality dried one)
  • 40g rocket leaves

Method

  • Put the chicken in a bowl and toss with the oil, a quarter teaspoon of salt and a generous grind of black pepper
  • Put a large, heavy-based casserole for which you have a lid on the simmering plate.  Sear the legs for ten minutes, turning them once, until the skin is dark golden brown, then remove from the pan.
  • Add the carrots, onion, bay leaves and thyme to the pan and cook until softened. You could do this in the simmering oven of course. Stir in the garlic and cook for a further minute
  • Return the chicken to the pan and add the stock, anchovies and a good grind of black pepper. Cover and cook in the simmering oven for at least an hour but two would be better
  • Lift out the chicken from the pot and bring everything to the boil on either the simmering or boiling plate and cook until the liquid is reduced to about 300ml
  • Meanwhile pull all the meat off the chicken bones in chunks or, as I prefer, shreds, and discard the bones and the thyme
  • Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions until al dente and drain
  • Add the chicken and pasta to the reduced sauce and vegetables and mix well
  • Divide between four plates or pasta bowls, layering with rocket leaves as you go
  • Drizzle with olive oil and serve

Apple Streusel Pie

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At a shoot lunch towards the end of the season, my husband was served what he termed “the best pudding I’ve ever eaten”.  He loved it so much he asked his hostess, Clare Pelly, for the recipe so that he could make it at home.  Only joking; I mean so that I could make it for us all.  I don’t mind at all: I’m happy to be the cook in our relationship because I enjoy it and because I’m better at it than he is, just as there are many things I don’t like doing which he is happy to do and is better at than me.  I imagine this is how most successful partnerships work.

As it turns out, I’m very grateful to him for getting me the recipe for this “best ever” pudding because it’s absolutely delicious.  Clare is also an Aga cook and the pie is particularly suited to Aga cooking because it can be baked on the floor of the roasting oven, which gives wonderful, crisp pastry.

Ingredients

For 1 x 10″/26cm or 2 x 7″/18cm flan tins

Pastry:

  • 8oz/200g plain flour
  • 4oz/100g butter
  • 1 tbsp icing sugar
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 2 tbsp cold water

Filling:

  • 2lbs/900g cooking apples
  • 2oz/50g raisins
  • 4oz/100g plain flour
  • 4oz/100g caster sugar
  • 2oz/50g butter
  • 10floz/285ml double cream

Topping:

  • 2oz/50g caster sugar
  • 2tsp cinnamon

Method:

  • Pre-heat conventional oven to gas mark 6/200ºC
  • To make the pastry, sift flour, rub in butter, stir in icing sugar and bind together with yolk and water.  Wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge for about 30 minutes
  • Roll out thinly and line your prepared tin(s) with it.  No need to bake it blind
  • Peel, core and slice  your apples and mix with the raisins
  • Make a crumble by sifting the flour, stirring in the sugar and rubbing in the butter
  • Spoon half of this into the tin
  • Cover with the apple/raisin mixture and pour over the cream
  • Spoon over the remaining crumble mixture and sprinkle on the topping
  • Bake on the floor of the roasting oven for about 30 minutes until it’s bubbling and caramelised or brûléed on top.  Your pastry should be lovely and crisp, although you won’t know this until you’ve cut into it
  • Conventional oven: after 25 minutes turn it down to gas mark 5/190ºC for 10 minutes
  • Can be served hot, warm or cold

Aga note:

I always worry about the Aga cooling down if you give it too much to do at once but yesterday I cooked a pheasant, some roast potatoes and this pie in the roasting oven in the space of one and a half hours and everything was perfectly cooked.

Cinnamon:

The first time I made this pie we were a little disappointed that the cinnamon flavour wasn’t very strong.  Cinnamon is one of my husband’s favourite things so he did a bit of research.  First of all he saw that the cinnamon I’d used (by Bart’s) was a blend “sourced from several Fairtrade producers” and that the cinnamon considered to be the best is from Ceylon.  So from the website cinnamonhill.com I bought some Ceylon cinnamon sticks and the next time I made the pie, we used the fine Microplane grater to grate some for the topping and reader, I can confirm it tasted noticeably better.

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Overnight Aga Porridge

Porridge has always been around of course but it has become fashionable in recent years.  This doesn’t mean we should reject it as a fad; quite the reverse.  In fact part of the reason it has become so popular is that its nutritional and health-giving properties have been well publicised.  There are studies which show it can help reduce blood cholesterol levels, for example.  Oats are low fat and have a low GI (glycaemic index) which means a slow release of the carbohydrate into your bloodstream so your energy levels are sustained for longer and you are less likely to feel hungry mid-morning.

Porridge doesn’t have to mean oats; it can also be made with rye, spelt or barley.  I think the two brands of porridge oats most commonly found in our supermarkets are Quaker and Scott’s, but other names are coming to the fore and building a reputation for wholesome breakfast cereals.  And we are discovering more about the different types of porridge; we are probably mostly used to oats which have been steamed and rolled into flakes (rolled oats like Quaker and Scott’s) but there are also the oats cut into two or three pieces (called, steel-cut, pinhead or coarse oatmeal).  It is said that because of their size and shape, the body breaks these down more slowly, thus keeping you full for longer.

A bowl of porridge can be made fairly speedily using rolled oats, in a saucepan or the microwave, but pinhead oatmeal requires some forward planning.  The instructions on the one we buy, by Rude Health (see photo), advise overnight soaking and this is where the Aga comes in, because a mere three or four minutes’ preparation at bedtime means one can wake up to a saucepan of porridge which requires just a quick stir and the addition of your favourite toppings.

So this is what you do:

  • Just before you go to bed, place 75g oatmeal per person in a pan and add 600ml water.  In truth, this makes a large portion so if making for two people, I only add half the amount again, ie I use 112g and 900ml water; for three people 150g/1.2l and so on.  You can add a pinch of salt too if you like.  My youngest son doesn’t like salt in his so I add a little to my own portion in the morning.
  • Place your saucepan on the boiling plate and start whisking with a balloon whisk.  Keep doing this for about a minute, making sure you get into every “corner” of the pan, and then transfer to the simmering plate and do the same for about two more minutes until the mixture is simmering.
  • Cover and place in the simmering oven and go to bed.
  • Next morning, put the kettle on (for tea), take the pan out of the oven and give the mixture a good stir with a wooden spoon.  Serve.

You can now add whatever takes your fancy.  Here are some options:

  • A little cold milk and sprinkling of demerara sugar
  • Dark muscovado sugar stirred into the porridge before adding milk or cream
  • Maple syrup, raisins and a little double cream (husband’s favourite)
  • Peanut butter
  • Honey
  • Cinnamon and a little sugar
  • Berries (blueberries, raspberries): keep some in the freezer and defrost overnight.

 

Aga Cookshop Sale

I try to avoid the January sales unless I want to check whether something I’ve had my eye on for a while is reduced.  I usually do this online because shops during the sales are not particularly pleasant environments.

It is not worth buying something just because it’s cheap; you have to know you are going to get a lot of use out of it.  This is why I am often tempted by items on the Aga Cookshop website, particularly textiles like oven gauntlets and tea towels.  They don’t last forever, so if yours are looking worn and threadbare, I suggest you head over there.  This is the link.

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By the way, I didn’t get them from the Aga shop but I am thrilled with these large hooks for hanging tea towels and oven gloves.  (Smaller hooks seem to be available everywhere but don’t quite fit on the Aga rail.)  I found them in my wonderful local shop, Kitchens Cookshop.  I can’t believe it took me ten years of owning an Aga to discover this way of ensuring these much-used items are always close to hand.

 

 

NB: I am not sponsored by Aga or the Aga Cookshop; I just enjoy sharing tips with fellow Aga owners and cooks.

 

Aubergine and Pea Curry

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So that’s it for another year and we can get back to normal, whatever “normal” is. The tree has been taken down and is currently awaiting collection in our front garden; all the decorations have been stored away in the spare room cupboard; and Sons 1 and 2 have returned to work, in Cambridge and London respectively. It was so lovely to have them at home, sometimes with and sometimes without the girlfriend of one and  the fiancée of the other, and although I should be used to it, I always feel a little sad when they’ve gone; not too sad, mind, because, as my mother says, if your children are happy to leave home, then you have probably done a good job as a parent. Son 3 stayed on for an extra couple of days which softened the blow, as much for his younger brother as for their parents. We all love films but Son 3 is the proper film buff of the family and at his suggestion we sat down on Monday evening to watch Singin’ in the Rain. I hadn’t seen it for years and had forgotten just how marvellous it is and what a wonderful actress the late Debbie Reynolds was: RIP. He returned to London with his dad yesterday, leaving youngest son and me, and Granny in her flat downstairs, in a very quiet house until the weekend.

Before he left I borrowed one of his Christmas presents to make supper: the book Fresh India by Meera Sodha, which is on the bestseller lists. Having eaten so much meat over Christmas we were all craving meat-free dishes and the aubergine and pea curry fitted the bill. The last thing I need is another cookbook but if this recipe is anything to go by, I might be adding this book to my birthday wish list.

Aubergine and Pea Curry

  • 5 tbps rapeseed oil
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • 2 large onions finely chopped
  • 6 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 4 large ripe tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 1/2 tbsps tomato purée
  • 1 1/2 level tsps salt
  • 1 1/4 tsps chilli powder (unless like mine, yours is very hot, in which case use less)
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 4 medium aubergines 1.2kg, chopped into 3cm cubes
  • 100g (I used 200g) peas (fresh or defrosted)
  • Put the oil in a wide-bottomed lidded pan on the simmering plate (conventional hob: medium heat). Once hot, add the cumin seeds and stir for 30 seconds. Add the onions and stir to coat in the oil. Cook (in the simmering oven) for 15-30 minutes until translucent but not brown.  Add the garlic and stir-fry for a couple of minutes
  • Add the tomatoes and purée and cover with a lid. Leave to cook for 5 minutes (or longer in the simmering oven), then add the salt, chilli powder, turmeric and sugar and cook for a further couple of minutes
  • Now add the aubergines, coating the pieces with the masala, pop the lid back on the pan and cook for around 10 minutes (or longer in the simmering oven). You want the aubergines to be tender and soft with little or no water running from them. If they’re watery or not yet tender, they may need another few minutes’ cooking
  • When they’re cooked, add the peas and cook for a couple of minutes
  • Serve with hot chapattis or plain boiled Basmati rice

NB:

  • I used one of those large round aubergines from Natoora. It weighed 620g and I was worried it would not be enough but it was plenty. Am therefore a little baffled by the aubergine quantity recommended in the book. Would it not have led to a very dry curry?
  • Also: I only used 5 cloves of garlic and 1 large onion.

 

Apologies that I don’t have a photo of this dish (but then nor does the book!). Instead here are a few photos of our Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mince Pies

This post is not about telling you how to make mince pies.  To be perfectly honest, as I may have mentioned before, I don’t rate my pastry-making skills and would not presume to pass on any tips, because you are probably all much better at it than me.

That is not to say that I don’t enjoy having a go.  What is more, there’s nothing like making mince pies for getting into the festive spirit and family and friends do appreciate homemade ones.  One of the reasons I’ve made a few in the last week is that I found a big jar of Waitrose mincemeat in my cupboard with a “best before” date of December 2016.  You see?  I don’t even make my own mincemeat!

For the pastry I use this excellent Xanthe Clay recipe.  Sometimes I make “closed” pies (see above) and sometimes I cut out pastry stars to place on top (see below).  I always brush with egg and sprinkle with caster sugar.  I fancy making some with an almond crumble topping one day.  I bought some like that at Bristol’s wonderful Hart’s Bakery yesterday and would love to try to emulate them.  But that’s for another day.

In the Aga

Mince pies bake very quickly in the Aga roasting oven.  Place your tray of pies on the grid shelf on the fourth rung of the oven.  They will be done in 15 minutes at the most.  The oven is hotter at the back and on the side nearest the centre, so I turn the tray round halfway through the cooking time.

 

Christmas Pudding

Christmas Pudding

As I confessed in my recent Christmas Cake post here I don’t always do a homemade Christmas pudding. After writing that, it struck me that this was really very lazy of me. “Call yourself a cook?” I asked myself, and resolved there and then to make one this year and every year. Honestly, it’s so incredibly easy and quick to make and doesn’t involve sophisticated baking skills.

The first thing you need to do is find a recipe. The one I recommend is this one by Bertinet’s in Bath. I’ve also bought Bertinet’s puddings in the past so when I found this recipe I was confident it would be delicious. I’ve also made Delia’s pudding (pretty sure you’ll find it online if you haven’t got her wonderful, and in my case much used, Christmas book) and one by the great Nigel Slater. My preference will always be not to mess about with the recipe and to stick to traditional ingredients, but if you fancy trying something a bit different, there are plenty of suggestions out there. For me, part of the beauty of preparing the Christmas meal is that it is the same (more or less) every year. With all that’s going on at that time of year, and the many tasks that need to be done, it takes the pressure off if you are not having to think up a new, imaginative menu on top of everything else.

So back to my pudding. You will see from the photos that I could not fit all my mixture in the recommended 2 pint basin and ended up with an additional small pudding; I intend to give this as a gift to the hostess of a party we’ve been invited to.

Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

You will need a 2 pint pudding basin (and maybe an additional small basin – see above)

  • 100g currants
  • 200g seedless raisins
  • 200g sultanas
  • 60g glacé cherries
  • 60g chopped candied peel
  • 90g blanched almonds, sliced into slivers
  • ½ cooking apple, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped
  • ½ carrot, peeled and grated
  • Zest and juice of half an orange
  • Zest and juice of half a lemon
  • 115g finely chopped suet
  • 115g plain flour
  • 60g white bread or brioche crumbs
  • 115 soft brown sugar
  • ½ tsp mixed spice
  • ½ tsp ground cinnamon
  • ¼ nutmeg, grated
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 3 eggs
  • ½ can Guinness
  • 2 tbsps brandy

Method

  • Put all the ingredients, apart from the orange and lemon juices, brandy, Guinness and eggs, into a large bowl and mix thoroughly
  • In a separate bowl beat the eggs until frothy and add the orange and lemon juices, Guinness and brandy
  • Add to the mixture in the other bowl and mix thoroughly until all incorporated
  • Fill your basin with the mixture and place a circle of greaseproof paper on top
  • Place in the fridge for at least 12 hours but up to 48 hours

Steaming: one way

  • Cover the pudding with clingfilm and then take a saucepan which holds the pudding basin and make sure you can fit the lid on
  • Place the pudding in it and pour in water about half way up the basin
  • Bring this to the boil on the boiling plate
  • Check the water level, put the lid on or cover with foil and place in the simmering oven to “steam” for at least 12 hours. Do it overnight and you will wake up to a heavenly Christmas-y aroma

Steaming: another (even easier) way

  • I recently discovered that even this initial steaming can be done in the Aga simmering oven without using any water at all. This is thanks to Sarah Whitaker, the all round Aga guru. All you do is cover the basin in foil or clingfilm and place it at the back of the simmering oven for 12 hours or overnight
  • Leave the pudding to cool in its clingfilm
  • You could then wrap it in muslin and tie it with string as you can see in the photo above. Foil or extra clingfilm would be fine; I just think it looks pretty (and traditional) in the muslin
  • On Christmas Day all you have to do is put the basin, wrapped in foil, in the simmering oven for four hours. How easy is that?

Spinach Soup

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Just a quick post today to tell you about my scrumptious spinach soup.  I have an autumnal cold and while I’m not feeling particularly unwell, it is nevertheless uncomfortable and annoying.  At 1 o’clock yesterday afternoon I realised I was hungry but had not planned anything for lunch.  Some hot, soothing soup was all I could think about but did not have any in the house.  Anyway, I really don’t like shop-bought soups: I find they’re over-flavoured, mainly of onion, and that this flavour lingers at the back of the mouth for hours afterwards.

So I made spinach soup.  First, I took a medium-sized potato, peeled and diced it and sweated it in butter for about 15 minutes (simmering oven).  Then I added 450g frozen spinach (I didn’t happen to have any fresh spinach in the house; this soup was not planned) and lots of salt and pepper and let this cook for another 10 minutes or so before adding 500ml of chicken stock.  It was fortuitous that I’d made lots of stock the previous day, but I expect a stock cube or some Marigold Swiss vegetable bouillon powder would have done the job too.  I grated in some nutmeg, brought it all to simmering point and let it cook (in the simmering oven) for another 15 minutes.  I took it out and let it cool for a few minutes before blending it in the pan using my handheld blender.  I then checked the seasoning and temperature and ladled some into a mug, drizzled on a little cream and voilà.

One of the reasons I haven’t blogged much lately is that I’m unhappy with the photos I’ve taken of what I’ve cooked.  I read so many beautiful blogs and food websites that I’m sometimes embarrassed to include my pathetic iPhone camera efforts.  Since I’m not particularly interested in photography (unless someone else is taking the photos), I might just have to overcome the shame and carry on regardless.

My next post will probably be about Christmas cake.  Too early, you might say, but you’d be wrong.