Jamie Oliver

Jamie’s Yorkies

Any recipe that gives such marvelous results with such a minimum amount of time and effort on my part gets a big thumbs up from me!
I also need to hold my hands up…yes, I too, have been known to buy a certain brand of Yorkshire puddings advertised on the TV, why I don’t know, when it’s so easy to make the real thing!

Here’s the recipe:

Just under 1 mug plain flour
1 mug of milk
1 egg.

Mix ingredients together with a pinch of salt.
Place into a 12 hole shallow muffin tin into which you have previously heated a little oil in each compartment.
Place in the top of the oven. Cook for 14 mins at 220deg.C.

That’s IT. Seriously. Make them this Sunday – you’ll be glad you did!

Nigel Slater – The Kitchen diaries.
February 21st…
“There is something romantic about falling snow. This is the first decent fall we have had this year, in two hours covering the box hedges and settling on the grey branches of the plum trees. By mid-afternoon, with a single trail of fox prints to the kitchen door, the garden looks like a Christmas card. The cats, huddled together round the aga, look as if they are not amused: ‘Oh, that stuff again.’
Every sound is muffled, the grass across the road sparkles in the streetlights, not a soul passes the front door. It is as if everyone is asleep. It takes something magical to make this stretch of road look as it does now, like a scene from a fairytale.”

Dreary, cold and grey.
Rain, rain go away..come again another day…..Actually I’ve decided I don’t really mind the rain. It has to be better than the white stuff we saw far too much of earlier in the month. Don’t get me wrong, I love snow! Especially when I don’t have to go anywhere, and I can stay home feeling warm and cosy and loved…I love it especially when it enables us to build cute little snow monsters:

He’s a sweetheart isn’t he! He left us too soon though…
I made my own Christmas cake last year, it was Delia’s last-minute brandied Christmas cake from her new Christmas book and there was another kind of snowman decorating that….

But now of course Christmas and New year have gone. The tree packed away for another Year, resolutions made, broken and re-made. Why oh why do I find it so ridiculously difficult to eat in a healthier way?

Perhaps when the daffodils come out, things will get easier!

So, after Christmas, when we’ve all had far too much of rich traditional food, the jaded palate longs for something zesty, zingy, light and spicy. Jamie’s dan-dan noodles fit the bill perfectly! Believe it or not they’re not from one of his books, but from the iPhone app – Jamie’s 20 minute meals.
Made from beef mince, chillies, stir fried until browned, then honey is added to make it sticky and sweet. It’s mixed with noodles, lime, soy, Sezchuan peppercorns, garlic and spring onions and bok choy.You can get the recipeHERE