All Butter Shortbread

December is now creeping past and it's time to do one of our usual Christmas treats. Shortbread is something that is just right for this time of year. A recent trip to Scotland has only heightened my seasonal desire for this traditional treat! Rather than just opting for the usual recipe, I decided to take a little longer over this one - and it has been a while in the baking: 8 kg of shortbread mix...

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Pickled Onions

I have never pickled anything before. It has been on my to-do list for years (my culinary to-do list is diverse, mostly in my head and only partially shared with a few people). Whilst at the farm shop I discovered they had pickling onions in stock. Suddenly a reckless urge overcame me as I looked at this box full of shiny, brown onions and before I knew it I was asking my wife to pick up vinegar on...

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Bad days and bad meals (or Comfort food and Nachos)

I live in hope that my wife and I are not the only ones who have "bad days". These are the times when your computer crashes, you can't seem to make any headway at work and it's dark and wet outside. You can tell you're having one of these days because you're curled up on the sofa underneath a patchwork quilt watching a trashy movie. Well I can at any rate! Jenny and I plan for these little crises...

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Glazed Pork Chops with Celeriac Mash

Autumn must be one of the best times of year for celeriac. The ugliest of the root vegetables (and possibly of all vegetables) has a wonderful earthy flavour with aromas of celery. Not loving the sound of it so far? I can understand - celery is somewhere down the bottom of my list of things I enjoy eating on its own. Somehow celeriac manages to take the essence of celery and remove the stringy, chewy wateriness and...

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Pumpkin Pie

I have been salivating over the idea of pumpkin pie all week. My work colleagues have been discussing Halloween and all the trimmings, and for some reason my mind visualised pumpkin pie. By happy co-incidence my mother-in-law asked us if we would like her to bring a pumpkin when she came to visit. Oh the hardship! Being British I have a definite lack of a family recipe for pumpkin pie so some research...

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The Beginning

For a while I have posted photos of particularly successful meals onto Facebook for the world in general to browse - everything from roast potatoes to profiteroles. I decided recently that this should change. I like taking photos, I relish food and enjoy cooking. I feel it is a small logical step to attempt to take things further and share my (sometimes obsessive) attempts to produce good food with...

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