Hello and Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my blog.

This is my very first one, so bear with me and enjoy reading about my adventures cooking all of the recipes from Nigella Lawson's new book 'Kitchen'.

From time-to-time I may post about things other than cooking, after all, Nigella does sell a lifestyle that most women would like have a slice of, so I would like to share a bit of mine - not quite as glamorous but fun none-the-less (may I add that most of my ideas and thoughts revolve around food anyway)!

Just to set the scene a little, I am based in Yorkshire, live with my husband and gorgeous toddler who is rapidly approaching his second year. I work in the events industry and love music, books, fashion, culture and of course... food.

Enjoy.

Goddess Mx (meant in the loosest possible sense, believe me)!

Monday 10 January 2011

Pasta like you would have on holiday

No matter which way I look, I am surrounded by talk of holidays - our friends have just come back from sunny Sydney, a friend's family are off to Barbados and various other friends are booking at least a week in the sun to look forward to. We went on our first family holiday to Menorca last year and paid above the odds for a package deal. I think we made the right decision as we needed to build confidence in travelling with a toddler and booking last minute has its own stresses, but this year we have opted for a late deal. I am reading 'Eat, Pray, Love' at the moment by Elizabeth Gilbert, and this is as close as I am going to get in terms of holidaying for now, so I have let my mind take me to Italy, India and Indonesia quite happily.

So where is all this talk of foreign shores leading? Calamari of course! I may have mentioned before that calamari reminds me of holidays - Greece in particular, sitting in a beach cafe in my bikini with a bowl of fried calamari rings with garlic and lemon. In Samos (Greece) I have also had a delicious dish of stuffed whole squid which was heavenly which would be interesting to re-create. Now, Leeds Market is brilliant and I can easily by ready to eat baby squid (with tentacles) for around £1 to feed two which I think is a bargain. Nigella suggests buying pasta to replicate the calamari rings that the squid are cut into, and I went for some expensive large tubes which look nothing like the seafood rings but was nice anyhow. The pasta is cooked as normal and the sauce comprises olive oil, vermouth, butter, red chilli, spring onions and parsley. The rings are fried off first for a couple of minutes and then left to simmer in the sauce for a bit. As the pasta shapes were so big therefore meaning the cooking time took longer, I overcooked the squid but it was still tasty and the texture was fine.

Exciting news that I promised on my last blog is that I have applied for Britain's Best Dish on ITV and have a couple of recipes up my sleeve which I hope the programme producers will like. My only worry is that they are simple recipes, not like last year's dishes on the programme so I hope this doesn't go against me. They are my own recipes (crikey!) and the flavours are great. Should hear this week whether I will be called for an audition - fingers crossed!

Goddess Mx

7 comments:

  1. Your pasta holiday looks yummy. Good luck, I hope you get good news.

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  2. Good luck with your application to BBD. Keeping my fingers crossed for you. The pasta dish does sound yummy. I love squid, and have had the best in Greece. Never cook it at home though. Might have to give it a try.

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  3. How exciting - will be great to see you on T.V.

    I love squid, must try this dish.

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  4. Ooooh Good luck! Fingers crossed. Love your blog and your recipes look great too! x LondonZest

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  5. Yummy! How amazing to be on TV with your own recipes! Good luck, keep us all posted won't you.

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  6. What a delicious blog! Wow, Ive just been reading through it and I am soooo hungry (and Ive just eaten--you;re no good for the post Christmas diet!!). Glad I found you. Im a follower now. And off to scribble down this recipe. Oh and enjoy the TV experience! Looking forward to hearing more about it.

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