Try a new recipe each month

Tried a new variation on this – adding haricot beans and a layer of onions, peppers and mushrooms. Unfortunately I messed up the cheese sauce – I used to be so good at sauces I must be well out of practice. Anyway, I ended up sieving the sauce to get rid of the lumps, which resulted in there not being as much sauce as I would have liked. Still, it tasted pretty good.

A friend made cooked this for me when I was visiting the other week – first time I had eaten it in years. So I tried making it for my boyfriend yesterday – using vege-sausages – and it was very tasty. I used a Delia recipe, Toad in the Hole with Roasted Onion Gravy. The gravy has a really good flavour. Sweet onions and the tang of worcestershire sauce and mustard. We were too full to eat our pudding afterwards.

. . . I’ve got round to trying a couple of new recipes. I’d been cooking more the last week or so, experimenting a bit, trying out new ideas without following specific recipes. Pasta with blue cheese, spinach and rosemary was tasty. Spicy noodles with carrot, tomato and cashews was also good. At the weekend I baked a lemon and rosemary madeira cake, using a recipe that I have had for ages but never tried before. The flavour is good but the texture is a little dense in places. This evening I cooked Vegetable and Bean Mole from a cookery book a treated myself to a few weeks back. The recipe was easy enough to follow, and the result was good. Definitely one that I will add to my repertoire. Feel good that I am working on this goal. I had forgotten how pleasurable cooking was. I’ve really enjoyed the process of cooking over the last week or so. It’s relaxing when I take the time to do it properly.

Easy recipe. The puffiness gives one an overinflated (like the pastries themselves) sense of accomplishment.

http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/breakfast/recipe-easy-ethereal-popovers-043019

. . .but I have made more effort to cook of late. Made two good batches of soup (broccoli last week parsnip this), Last night tried something new – not using a recipe as such just trying to recreate something I enjoy eating in a local cafe. Pancakes filled with spinach and ricotta. Was tasty.
Next I want to try a recipe though – I keep cutting them out of magazines but never get round to trying them. tsk!

Just spent the last few weeks making homemade holiday gifts and cooking up a storm on Sundays again.

New recipes make it worthwhile to turn on those burners!