Create a personal recipe book

Ingredients

New potatoes (some – but remember they shrink so you might need more than you think).
Olive oil (a couple of tablespoons of non-posh stuff for cooking with and a similar quantity of posh stuff for the dressing)
Garlic (as much as you like, on a clove-by-clove basis. Obviously use whole heads if you’re trying to keep vampires at bay)
Fresh herbs – rosemary, thyme, oregano (a selection thereof. Last time I used rosemary and oregano although this was partly because the shop didn’t have any thyme.)
Sea salt and black pepper for seasoning

1) Pre-heat over to about 180C (or start cooking and panic when you realise that you’ve not put the oven on yet)
2) slice potatoes, keeping the skins on (not too thinly or you’ll get crisps)
3) put potatoes on roasting/baking tray of some description
4) smash garlic cloves with the back of a knife (without cutting yourself) and remove the skin (of the garlic, not your skin – that wouldn’t taste very nice)
5) add garlic to potatoes in roasting tray
6) add several sprigs of the herbs and the non-posh olive oil to the potatoes & garlic and mix (with clean hands please) until all potatoes are evenly coated with oil
7) put tray in oven
8) have large glass of wine or other similar beverage and waste some time/do something constructive for about 45 minutes
9) have a look at potatoes, prod with knife to see if cooked, hopefully they’re golden brown and not black
10) remove tray from oven and put potatoes into a bowl of some kind, leave for 5 minutes
11) add posh olive oil to potatoes, mix (again with those ultra-clean hands) and season with salt & pepper.

Eat! Or give them to other people to eat, it’s up to you!

...to have started a collection almost inadvertently.
I now need to find somewhere to get them all put together.

Ingredients etc are as follows:

Onion

Garlic (goes in everything!)

Vegetable (or chicken) stock

Potato/potatoes

Carrot (optional)

Tomato puree/paste/whatever you call it ;p

Red/green bell pepper

Green (French) beans (optional – depends on whether you want to blend the soup or not. I’d steer clear of too much green if you’re going to blend unless you don’t mind a strange brown coloured soup. I once made a lentil-based dhall soup which went greeny-brown. It apparently tasted delicious but I couldn’t eat it because of the colour!)

Haricot beans

Borlotti beans

Black-eyed beans

Flageolet beans

Butter beans (I know this is technically six kinds of beans but it’s in case you want to leave some out – I always use canned versions because I’m too lazy to soak dried beans)

Cumin

All spice

Cayenne pepper

Black pepper

Chilli powder

Dried crushed chillies

The basic idea is:

Chop garlic and onion

Dice carrots, potatoes and peppers

Cut green beans (if using) into pieces about 1.5” long

Fry chopped garlic & onion in oil

Then add diced carrot and fry a bit more

Then add diced potato and do the same (cook on a medium-low heat and put a lid on or some butter paper/greaseproof paper and this will stop the veggies colouring)

Sling in stock, pepper/s beans, tomato puree/paste, spices

Cook til any tough bits are tender!

If you fancy it, take out 1/3 to half and blend, return blended portion to the pan.

Taste and add any extra seasoning required. Maybe throw some chopped fresh parsley/chives/soured cream/grated cheese on top of each serving.

You should now have enough soup to feed about 6 million people (portion control was never my strong point!)

I have found two recipes to start with.
Hurrah.

It’s fun and creative and there’s (usually) something yummy at the end of it.

Years ago I intended to put together a recipe book consisting of recipes from my mother and my grandmother and things that I had concocted myself, but for some reason it never materialised.

Anyway, I’d noticed that of late my cooking has become somewhat stuck. I haven’t made anything other than a handful of dishes for quite some time and I’ve decided that this has to change. Hence the purchase of a new cookery book and the adoption of this goal!