Monday 29 November 2010

Mussel Up - Mussels in chilli and garlic

Every so often I like to cook something nice and simple. Plain simple ingredients and minimal time at the cooker is a necessity sometimes and mussels are just the thing for such times, once you've cleaned the buggers that is!

I bought them fresh this morning and sat them in the fridge until I could face the chore of cleaning them.  Actually when I came round to it, it wasn't so painful. They were wild mussels so covered in barnacles which I had to scrape off. I then debearded them by pulling away at the threads that the mussel uses to attach itself to rocks etc and then rinsed them thoroughly. Some of the mussels were open, so I tapped them to check whether they were still alive. Any that didn't close I threw and I only came across about 3 dead ones so quite happy with that.

That is one thing with mussels, you spend so long looking after them; cleaning them and checking that they're still with you only to cook them... alive. I even named a couple of mine today; a couple of big fat ones, covered in masses of barnacles. They had to be Barny 1 & Barney 2.  Unfortunately I ain't that sentimental..... so RIP Barney 1 & 2..... and their mates.


Time to cook. One onion, finely chopped, fried off slowly in olive oil in a large pan. Once that had softened I added 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped, and one tsp of dried chili flakes. I gave that a minute or two, then turned the heat up high and poured in 150mls of chicken stock, tipped in the mussels and put the lid on to let them steam away for 4 minutes.

I served them in bowls with some of the juices poured over and some bread for dipping.


Lovely, even if I do say so myself!

Sunday 28 November 2010

A Winter Warmer - Moroccan Beef Tagine

By 'eck, it's a bit nippy out int it?! According to the BBC Weather page it's minus 3 out. It's also due to snow for the next..... forever. Joy. The one and only good thing that can come out of such vile weather is that we can easily justify hibernating away all day filling up on food. And this tagine is ideal for such cold times!  It's full of warming spices such as ginger, paprika and cayenne pepper and Christmassy fruits including dates.

I used this Anthony Worrall Thompson's Moroccan lamb tagine recipe. First adjustment to this one was the use of beef rather than lamb. Sorry, but things are tight and stewing beef was half the price of stewing lamb.  Needs must and all that! I actually made this a few weeks ago, using stewing lamb on the bone (I managed to get some cheap from the reduced section in Sainsbury's) and the meat was really tender and, as it was on the bone, it was tastier than usual, if a little fiddly.

Anyway, this time I was going to give beef a go. I had a friend coming at 7 for dinner and drinks and after getting in from stocking up on the wine at 3.30, I realised that I didn't have all that much time to prepare food. To top it all off the husband had left the kitchen in a state so I would have to do the washing up before cooking. I then read the recipe. Balls. I had forgotten that the meat was supposed to marinate overnight. I cleared a small space on the counter and started measuring the spices out. I was only making half the dish, and so flapped about a bit halving the quantities of the spices and in all the fluster of the messy kitchen, the time pressure and the error in not marinating the meat, I made another mistake and put all the spices in with the meat, forgetting to leave some to cook the onions in. Hmmmph. Tough.

Despite the long ingredient list and the mistakes that come from not reading the recipe the night before cooking, the dish is really easy and once the initial steps are done, it just sits in the oven for a couple of hours. Here goes;

Ingredients - AWT says that this will only serve 4 but it will serve 6, very easily.
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp ground black pepper
1½ tbsp paprika
1½ tbsp ground ginger
1 tbsp turmeric
2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1kg of stewing beef, or lamb, cut into chunks
2 large onions, sliced
olive oil, for frying
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
570ml/1 pint tomato juice
2 x 400g tinned chopped tomatoes
115g/4oz dried apricots, cut in half
55g/2oz dates, cut in half
55g/2oz sultanas or raisins
85g/3oz flaked almonds
1 tsp saffron stamens, soaked in cold water
600ml/1 pint beef stock
1 tbsp clear honey

So, THE NIGHT BEFORE YOU WANT TO EAT THIS YOU NEED TO MARINATE THE MEAT!  Measure out all the spices (cayenne, black pepper, paprika, ginger, turmeric and cinnamon) and mix together in a bowl. Then toss the meat in HALF of this spice mix and save the rest for cooking with the onions. Cover the meat and leave in the fridge overnight.

The next day pre-heat the oven to 150C then heat some olive oil in a large casserole dish and fry off the onions on a gentle heat along with the spices. When the onions are softened add the garlic and fry for a couple of minutes. Meanwhile heat some oil in a frying pan and brown off the meat. Then add that to the casserole dish. You then need to get the spices and meat juices from the frying pan to the casserole, so de-glaze the pan with a quarter pint of the tomato juice and pour that into the casserole.

Then you just stick everything else in, bring it to the boil and cook in the oven for two to two and a half hours.

I served it with cous cous, salad, char-grilled aubergine slices and roasted peppers. The roasted peppers were a bit fiddly and you don't get much, but they are worth the hassle. I took 3 peppers, chopped them in half, removed the seeds, brushed with oil and roasted for half an hour in an oven on full, until they were blackened, placed them in a plastic bag until cool and then peeled the skins. Word of warning... 3 peppers = one small ramekin of roasted peppers. So make sure you do loads!

Mission accomplished. All served on time and I'd even managed to have a couple of glasses of wine whilst the tagine was cooking. Brilliant. It all went down well too. The tagine is a lovely warming dish, the spices come through and the fruit lifts the dish. Not quite as good as a weekend away in Marakesh (where it is currently 15C at night), but it's as close as I'm gonna get at the moment. There was plenty and we both stuffed ourselves silly! My friend really enjoyed the aubergines, never really cooking with them before, hopefully she will now!

Saturday 27 November 2010

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes - Ham Hock and Pork Cheeks

Well, I've actually been a bit busy over the past couple of days. Some of you may scoff at that, but I don't care!  I've actually been working out what to do with my life and I feel as though I've made a few decisions and, in turn, made some progress. I've got a couple of things lined up for next week, which may or may not result in anything, but at least I'm moving in the right direction.   

Of course, I have still had time for a bit of cooking; after all I need to eat! The title is a bit misleading.  I haven't quite done the whole head, shoulders, knees and toes, but I have cooked a ham hock (which is the lower part of the pig's leg) and pork cheeks (and that is cheeks from the FACE, in case you were wondering). Of course everything is from the market and buying all that meat, or rather carting it home, was quite a challenge. The cheeks do not come nicely trimmed (more on that later), and the hocks are pretty big.  Carrying all my goodies home, I actually felt like I was carrying a dead body. But as I'm always after a bargain, I persevered. After all, the cheeks were 50p each and the hock was about £1.60; fantastic!

Once at home, the first thing to do was soak the hock in water as it needed a good overnight soaking in several changes of water to try and get as much of the salt out as possible. I also prepared the pork cheeks and stuck them in the freezer. As I have said, there will be more on this later and the squeamish should probably refrain from reading that section of the blog!

The recipe I used for the hocks was Honey Roast Ham-Hock with Mustard Sauce which is a Mark Hix recipe published in the Independent. To be fair, I didn't make too many changes to this one as it's pretty straight forward. It was also my first time cooking a hock, so I was happy for the guidance.

Ingredients - to serve 4

FOR THE HOCK
One ham hock (the ham hocks I came across were enormous and actually enough to serve four comfortably)
1 onion, quartered
2 carrots, scrubbed and chopped
1 bay leaf
5 cloves
1tsp of freshly ground black pepper

FOR THE SAUCE
2 small onions, finely chopped
knob of butter
1tbsp flour
1/2tsp tomato purée
2tsp Dijon mustard
2tsp wholegrain mustard
60ml white wine
300ml beef stock, made up from a stock cube
Salt and black pepper

FOR THE GLAZE
200g clear honey
60g wholegrain mustard

After soaking the hock, I placed it into a large pan of cold water along with all the other hock ingredient (the carrot, onion, cloves etc) and brought it to the boil to simmer for about 3 hours.

In the meantime, I made the sauce with the view of re-heating it before serving. I gently fried off the small onions in butter to soften them without colouring. I then stirred in the flour and tomato purée, then the Dijon and wholegrain mustards. I'd already made up the stock and mixed the wine in with that, so I just poured them both into the sauce, slowly, stirring all the while. After seasoning, the sauce then just needed to be simmered for 20 mins, after which, I let it cool so that I could re-heat it later.

Once the hock had cooked away for 3 hours, I took it out of the pan and set it onto a plate to cool. In the meantime, I heated the oven to 200C and started making the glaze. Measuring honey has got to a serious pain in the arse, so I just poured 3/4 of a 340g jar into a bowl and then mixed the wholegrain mustard in.

Once the hock was cool enough to handle, I used a knife to gently pull away the skin and also some of the fat, being careful to leave a layer of fat all the way around the hock to protect the meat. I then removed the smaller bone of the two from the hock; I'm not entirely convinced that this was necessary and considering how tender the meat is, and how easy it would be for the whole hock to fall apart when twisting this bone out, I would leave it in next time. I then slashed the fat of the hock in a criss cross pattern and spooned some of the glaze on top.

I then set the meat, glazed side down, onto a roasting dish, and slashed the fat of the other side before pouring over the rest of the glaze. I then stuck it back in the oven for half an hour and this is what it looked like when done;

Ham Hock
The finished hock
I served the meat with cabbage and mash, and of course, the re-heated sauce. It was lovely; truly lovely. The honey and mustard glaze managed to flavour the entirety of the meat and I was amazed at how good such a cheap cut of meat tasted after such little work! The meat was also very tender and it literally fell off the bone. There was still some saltiness there, but it wasn't overpowering in any way and it brought out the flavour of the meat. The sauce was very rich and worked well with the mash. However, if I had a choice (and I probably won't have a choice as Gavin still talks about how much he enjoyed the sauce) I wouldn't bother serving it with the meat again. I don't think it was needed.

Next time I am cooking Sunday Dinner for friends, I'm just going to cook two of these, throw them on the table and let everyone fight over them. Ham Hock, roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots, spinach, mash and gravy. I'm already drooling and I bet I'll be able to cook for 8 people for under a tenner. Can't be bad.
***
Now for the next section - the pork cheeks. When talking with friends about this dish, some have been intrigued, others disgusted! However, like it or not, pork cheeks are becoming more and more popular and before we know it all the gastro-pubs will be serving them. Don't believe me? Well Anthony's restaurant in Leeds, my favourite restaurant, is already serving them with baby squid. And it isn't just MY favourite restaurant; it is listed number 23 of the top restaurants in the country by this years Good Food Guide, so they do know what they're doing.

Admittedly I have cooked these once before, but only a couple of weeks ago and I had absolutely no idea how to prepare them. I Googled and Googled and Googled, but there is nothing out there to help the pork cheek novice. Coming face to face, quite literally, with a pork cheek is a bit daunting. Apart from anything else, you will come across teeth which are very human-like. In fact a lot of people say that they have difficulties with dealing with pork because the skin is so human like. I'm not so sure.  Yes, it's pink and a bit hairy, but it's really tough and rough and if my skin resembled anything like pig skin, I'd be devastated!

On my first carving attempt, I just hacked away until I found something that looked edible. I cut off a pieces of meat, rinsed and drained them. I didn't know what any of this 'meat' was, but my thinking was to take everything that looked edible and deal with it later. Eventually I came across something that looked a bit more promising; the actual cheek! It was a relief to finally find what I was after and, this will sound OTT, but it was like finding a jewel amongst a pile of rubble, just a bit more bloody! I then realised that the piece I had cut off previously was a bit of tongue and gum. Mmmmm. Nice. It went straight into the bin!

So here is a very quick guide to preparing pork cheeks; something I wish I'd had when first tackling them.  Here is the cheek in its unprepared form, along with my chosen weapons;

Pork Cheek

This is the side of the cheek. Just under the thick layer of fat, towards the right of the cheek is the meat that we're after.

Pork Cheek

So, you just need to slice off that top layer of fat. This is pretty easy as it is really soft to cut through. You'll then reveal the cheek meat.

Pork Cheek

You then just need to slice the cheek meat off the bone. Then trim away any fat, rinse off and you're ready!

Pork Cheek

So much work, for so little meat you might think. To a certain extent, I would agree, but once you have tasted the meat, I think, and hope, that you will change your mind. There is still a lot of waste which is disappointing. I could make guanciale, a Roman speciality, which is best described as a fatty version of pancetta, but I'm not sure that my tiny kitchen, or I, could cope with the hassle, no matter how good it is in an authentic carbonara.

On this occasion, I froze the meat in preparation for another day..... and when that day came, I used a simplified version of this recipe; Pork Cheeks in Cider, a recipe taken by one blogger (Dan of Essex Eating) from another (Graphic Foodie).

Ingredients - to serve 2

4 pork cheeks, trimmed
One onion - finely sliced
Olive oil
400mls cider
4 sage leaves
Salt and Pepper to season

Pre-heat the oven to 160C

I used a heavy casserole dish that can be used on the hob and in the oven and started by gently frying the onion in some olive oil. Once it was softened, not coloured, I browned the pork cheeks. I then added the cider, seasoned and brought everything to the boil. I then just put it in the oven for 1 hour and 10 mins; basting regularly. After the 70 minutes, I added the sage leaves, torn in half, and put it back in the oven for another 20 minutes; basting once. I served it with mash and cabbage with some of the juices poured over the dish.

Pork Cheek

Another success. The meat was very tender and flavourful; more so than the hock. The pork cheek tastes more of pork than ham if that makes any sense?! I guess you just need to give it a go and see for yourself! I am certainly going to cook them again, but I need other accompaniments than mash and cabbage. For a start, they look so bland and they also taste pretty bland (although I did 'perk' the mash up with some wholegrain mustard left over from the hock). Most other veg would work well, I'm sure. I have tried this recipe twice now and next time I'll experiment a bit. I'm thinking of cooking them in tinned tomatoes and red wine with thyme rather than sage. Once cooked, I'll gently pull the meat apart in the sauce and stir some al dente pasta in. Yes. That is a plan!

Tuesday 23 November 2010

Not for the Faint-Hearted - Chicken Hearts

My mum tells me that when she used to cook chickens, she used to eat the gizzards and the heart. Apparently I did too. Unfortunately we have become so prissy about food that these items simply don't come with the pre-wrapped Tesco chickens, and they haven't done for a long time. So, it has been a LONG time since I have even seen chicken gizzards, or any other internal organs for that matter. To be honest, it was only recently that I knew what gizzards were. And, Wikipedia confirms that they are the part that can grind the food with previously-swallowed stones and pass it back to the true stomach, and vice versa.  Sounds delightful yes?

Well, we don't have to worry too much about gizzards today, as today's post is about chicken hearts. Now most people wouldn't even consider cooking with chicken hearts, but please do give them a chance. They taste good; like dark chicken meat, so like the meat you get close to the thigh and leg bone. There is also an ever, ever so slight offaly taste, but this could easily be overcome by the use of spices and herbs if you were concerned. They are also very cheap around 90p a pound. 

What to do with them? Well first of all I washed them and trimmed off any valves. I found the easiest way to do this was just to slice the top off each of the hearts. Unfortunately I don't think that my chicken hearts were free range and there was quite a bit of fat around the hearts, which I also trimmed off. Now I could easily go off on a huge rant about how free range chickens would probably have far less fat on their hearts than a factory reared chicken, but I won't!

I decided to stir fry the hearts, so after slicing them I fried off a diced onion in a hot wok for a couple of minutes, then added the hearts.  Once they had started to brown, I added some chili flakes, chopped ginger and some chopped garlic. Then I added some sliced peppers, mushrooms and aubergine. I also added a bit of water and some soy sauce along the way.

The hearts are quite difficult to cook. I kept testing them to see if they were fully cooked, but even after about 10 minutes the juices were still pink - I'm happy eating anything but poultry and pork rare; for obvious reasons! Eventually I was happy and served the stir fry with some rice. They were good, maybe a little over-cooked (arrrrrrghhhh!), but they weren't chewy and they were still tasty - like I say they taste of dark chicken meat. They also, bizarrely, had the texture of mushrooms.

I will do them again, but maybe next time I'll braise them or cook them slowly in a sauce on the hob. There is this recipe (Potatoes Baked with Chicken Hearts and Mushrooms) where the hearts are cooked in the oven but I'm not too sure about the mayonnaise topping though! There's Chicken Hearts in Tomato Sauce or I could go Japanese and try Chicken Heart Noodle Soup (bet you don't get that in Wagamama).

I am certainly going to persevere with chicken hearts. I think I'm almost there; the taste is good, they just need to be a tad more tender.

Monday 22 November 2010

Caveman Cooking - BBQ Ribs

No matter how much I love the aubergine, and many other vegetables for that matter, I am no vegetarian and I do love meat. I was vegetarian once; as a teenager. My mother fed me pilchards and TVP (textured vegetable protein - which tastes as bad, if not worse, than it sounds). Needless to say, I only lasted a year and my veggie spell was broken by some cheap beef burgers at a friend's birthday party. I think we were watching Evil Dead 2 at the time, so perhaps not the best movie to accompany my first bit of meat in 12 months, but it still went down well!

So caveman cooking. Is there anything more 'cavemanish' than BBQ Ribs? The BBQ has always been the man's job hasn't it? I think it's the fire that interests them. Certainly my husband will show far more excitement at the prospect of grilling a burger over some smoking charcoal than just shoving it under the grill. Maybe the obligatory BBQ beer also helps!

Unfortunately, Britain in November is chuffing cold so a BBQ was out of the question on this occasion so I had to make do with oven baked ribs instead. Of course, I got them from the market. 1.5kg for less than a fiver. Can't complain. The butcher even chopped them up for me; although later I wish he hadn't!

There's plenty of recipes out there for ribs, and of course, I didn't need to stick to BBQ. Chinese ribs are also pretty good. But, after checking out a few recipes, and following the method in this ehow article, I devised my plan.......

Ingrediants;
1.5kg pork ribs
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp hot chili powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp caster sugar
1 garlic clove - diced
Jar BBQ sauce - 300mls or so

Apparently, before cooking ribs, you should peel a membrane sheet from them before cooking. Here is a helpful video showing you how to do it; something I wish I had watched before buying the ribs as mine were already chopped. I spent a good half hour or so peeling the membrane from each individual rib! Next time, I'll either ask the butcher to do that pre-chopping, or just buy them as a sheet. Whether you chop them before cooking or not will depend on how you wish to serve them. You might want to slice them into chunks of, say, five ribs so that you can serve a mini rack of ribs on each plate.

That done, the next step is to prepare a rub.  I was inspired by this rub for pork chops and used black pepper, paprika, hot chili powder, cayenne pepper, salt, caster sugar and a garlic glove. I have also seen recipes using brown sugar and cumin so I think that the combination is something to experiment with. I rubbed the spices onto the ribs and just left them in a big bowl, covered with cling film, in the fridge for a few hours; overnight would have been better, but I wasn't so prepared this time! If you're keeping the ribs in their sheet form then I'd put them into a dish and cover, or maybe just wrap in kitchen foil. Apparently the garlic and salt in the rub helps to tenderise the meat so the longer you can leave them, the better.

When you're ready to cook, take a baking tray and line in tin foil - this just helps keep the tray clean and saves on some serious scrubbing later! Place the ribs in the tray;  I had just enough room to squeeze them in without any overlap. Then pour over the BBQ sauce. Now this is where I let myself down, not only did I use a shop bought sauce, it was a simple one from Aldi.  Don't get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with the sauce as such, but I should have made my own! There are so many recipes for BBQ sauce out there, and the majority of them seem to be based on ketchup, sugar, garlic, onion, mustard and soy sauce. No difficult ingredients so no excuse for me not to make my own next time!


BBQ Ribs

You don't need to completely cover the ribs, just make sure that a bit of sauce covers each one. Then cover with foil and place in an oven at 140c for 2-3 hours. Unfortunately the low temperature works well for the ribs, but not really for any accompaniments. 140c is far too cold for baked potatoes or chips; either of which would have worked perfectly with the ribs. I tried mash, but as I use a recipe where you bake the potatoes first (something I am sure that I have taken from the God Heston Blumenthal, but I can't find anything on the net to link the recipe), the potatoes didn't cook fully in the 3 hours (I really did think that 2-3 hours in the oven would have at least cooked the potatoes, if not actually baked them). So the mash was a disappointment as there was the odd raw lump of potato here and there. Maybe I'll make it earlier and heat it up in the microwave next time, or a cold potato salad could work well.

So, 2-3 hours later the ribs should be tender. Start checking after 2 hours. As soon as you're happy, take the ribs out of the baking tray, pour the juices from the tray into a saucepan and heat to thicken. In the meantime, put the ribs back in the tray and into the oven, uncovered (still at 140c). Once the sauce has thickened, and it will need to bubble away for 10 minutes or so to thicken properly, pour it back over the ribs. Switch the oven to a medium grill and let the ribs brown off, again uncovered, under the grill for 20-30 minutes, turning halfway through. Then serve with salad and some form (!) of potato.

I made this for 4 and there was plenty. Gavin, the husband, had left overs for his lunch today too. Everyone seemed to enjoy, despite the disappointing mash, and the dish really did bring out the carnivorous side of another former vegetarian who happily crunched away on the cartilage! Overall, the dish was a success, and one I will repeat!

Friday 19 November 2010

Purple Power - the Aubergine Bake

My favourite colour is purple and it has been since I was a teenager. It's such a sumptuous colour, so deep and rich. It's not a girlie colour either (I don't do girlie), it's a solid, bold and strong colour. There was a spell when I had purple hair. I stood out in the crowd and felt, probably as any other students with silly hair, 'unique'. It all ended when I got a 'proper' job and felt the need to conform. Now I have brown hair...

Anyway. Purple is my favourite colour and with that in mind, it probably won't come as too much of a surprise that the aubergine is one of my favourite vegetables. Shiny purple! Thankfully it tastes good too; or rather it cooks well and takes up other flavourings well.

Now, I have already sung the praises of the local market and one of the best things about this place is the price of the food; especially aubergines! Some weeks they are two for £1, others they are two for 80p.  Whichever week it is, I am sure that you will agree that these prices are very bargainous. Aubergines don't need to do much to sell themselves to me so when they are priced so ridiculously I can't help but buy a few.

So what to do with all these aubergines? There are, undoubtedly, many things I could do. I could make a curry, stuff them or make some baba ganoush. Maybe next time I will try one of these, but I had recently spotted Tessa's baked aubergine with tomato, mozzarella & Parmesan which reminded me of the Italian Melanzane parmigiana, one of my favourite Italian dishes.  So my first recipe on here is vegetarian and pretty simple to make. No scary or unusual ingredients; just simple good home-cooking.

Ingredients;
2 aubergines - sliced
olive oil
2 large tomatoes -sliced
250g mozzarella - sliced
75g Parmesan - grated finely
1 medium onion - finely diced
2 large cloves of garlic - finely diced
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
2 tins of tomatoes (400g each), drained of the tomato juice
good squirt of tomato puree

I pre-heated the oven to 180C, then heated a griddle pan on a high heat until almost smoking hot and brushed the aubergine slices with some olive oil before seasoning them. I then griddled the aubergine in batches; until the charred lines appeared. Whilst doing that I heated up some of the oil in a saucepan and slowly fried the onions on a gentle heat. I wanted to soften the onions, but not brown them. Once softened, I added the garlic and dried basil. After a minute or two I added the tinned tomatoes and stirred in the tomato purée. I then just left the sauce to cook down on a low heat very slowly so that the sauce could thicken; probably for about 20-30 mins.

When the sauce and aubergines were ready, I took an oven proof glass dish - about 22cms by 22cms - and covered the bottom of it with the sliced tomatoes. Then I added a layer of the tomato sauce, then a sprinkling of Parmesan, a layer of aubergines, a layer of mozzarella, a layer of tomato sauce etc etc until all the ingredients had been used. I was left with a layer of aubergines on top and I sprinkled a good amount of the Parmesan on top. Baked in the oven for 30 mins and served with salad and crusty bread.

Aubergine Bake

It was good; simple and relatively healthy too. The sauce was a bit watery (probably because this time I hadn't drained the tomatoes - I will next time!). Also I think breadcrumbs on top would be an improvement to give it a crusty topping. The Parmesan is the most expensive ingredient used, but it is such a strong cheese and really does add to the flavour, so it isn't one to miss. I will probably skip the tomatoes on the bottom next time. They didn't really add any flavouring to the dish, but will have added some liquid. As with most tomato based dishes, the flavour develops with time, so it will make great left overs too.

Wednesday 17 November 2010

This little piggy went to market.

A recent, and important, discovery has been Castle Market. Don't get me wrong, I always knew it was there, I had even visited it before, but I hadn't SHOPPED there before. This time I went in search of bargains, a decent butchers and fishmongers and a sense of well-being, knowledge that my money would be going directly to the stall owners rather than the fat cats of Tesco.

On the first visit I felt confused and lost. I wandered around taking it all in; feeling out of place and vulnerable amongst all the hard-core shoppers, hustling and bustling by me, nodding in recognition of each other. I restrained from gazing at a store for too long for fear that I might catch the owner's eye and encourage him to speak to me. A bright, white supermarket, the market is not!

However, there is everything you need here; meat, fish, fruit, veg, canned goods, bread and the odd greasy cafe. I walked around, adjusting to the environment. Relaxing a little, I decided to stick to what I know and aimed for the fruit and veg section. Because, whilst some of the meat stores looked a bit scary, I thought 'You can't go wrong with fruit and veg, can you?' Well you certainly can't at market prices. I was astounded at the bargains and quickly overcame my nerves, filling two bags of shopping for significantly less than I would normally pay. But the market isn't just about bargains; there is a huge variety of foods available including plantain, scotch bonnets and fresh herbs. The first visit was declared a success; even the husband approved.  I would be back!

Over the next couple of weeks I continued to concentrate solely on fruit and veg whilst surveying the meat counters sussing out what was available and for what price.  When at home I searched the net for cooking techniques to see what I could do with these new finds. Armed with a few ideas, I finally hit the meat section.  There is, amongst the usual cuts, goat, rabbit, ham hocks, pork cheeks, ribs, steaks, shanks, tongues, tripe and various types of liver, kidney and heart. I was glad I had done my research as I knew exactly what I wanted. The butchers were friendly, smiling and chatty and I came away with everything I wanted, at the price I wanted it. I am now converted.

I said that the market was an important discovery. In terms of inspiration, it has been. I am now looking at cooking with other cuts of meat, offal, different fish and seafood.  I'll be facing some real culinary challenges, discovering new food, learning new skills and generally developing my cooking skills.

The Beginning?

Those of you who know me know that I am obsessed with food. I will happily while away the hours searching for recipes, shopping for recipe books, drooling over restaurant menus and planning gastronomical holidays. I have my TV box scheduled to record every episode of Come Dine With Me and I am giddy when a favourite restaurant makes the Gordon Ramsay's Best Restaurant series. 

If there's a new restaurant in town then I will know about it and will have already formed a view as to whether I think it's worth a visit. I will try anything at least once, from sushi to foie gras; from chicken feet to pig's head. Whether it's traditional homely cooking, or a nine course culinary delight; I will love every minute.

I love to cook and to play the host, but I am equally happy cooking a private feast all for myself. I don't do ready-meals, I don't do American fast-food and a recent experiment tells me I don't do pig's liver.

In short, I love to live to eat.

Those of you who really know me will know that this blog is about a bit more than food.  For me, it's about new beginnings and making the most of everything. Throughout this blog, you'll learn about my adventures with food. You'll share my experiences of dinning out, of trying new foods, new recipes and you'll learn about my visits to intriguing food stores/markets.  They'll be economical as well as gastronomical experiences to share; something for everyone.