White chocolate fudge cookies.

Well the cookies in Lorraines first book were simply amazing, everytime I eat a shop bought biscuit I'm always disappointed and wish I'd made the effort to make my own. So these had a lot to live up to! They did not let me don't and were really yummy, although I think I slightly overcooked them so they were more crunchy than chewy but nobody complained too much. In the book Lorraine has a guide number of 6 for these beauties, I got twelve and they were still huge!!! I can't even begin to imagine the size they would be if I only made six. I think I would happily scoff in cookie land all afternoon on a single one!

These are definitely up there with the make it again selection, it will just be a battle between these and the double chocolate, www decisions...... 

Lasagne

When it comes to Lasagne I think everyone has a favourite recipe. Whether its a cook from scratch each time, or buy the jars of sauce or even ready made stick it in the oven. When it comes to lasagne you know what you like. In our house it's made from left over bolognaise sauce and home made cheese sauce. I very very rarely make a mince sauce especially for lasagne.

So this one was completely from scratch, it has a lot more ingredients than mine and a few missing. It has added pancetta (ours was smoked, don't make the same mistake it's all we could taste!!) and there is no cheese in the white sauce. Her white sauce (as I will now call it) was much easier to make than my normal way, melt butter, add flour stir in milk a little at a time. The difference was that she takes hers off the heat and you get fewer lumps and you feel slightly more in control, added bonus don't need to grate any cheese in a last minute panic.

It did taste really good and I think if we'd had the unsmoked pancetta it would have been better. The children didn't like it, I think it was a bit rich. If I was making lasagne especially then I would probably use this recipe again.

Herb crusted Salmon with Hasselback potatoes and Roasted Brocolli

Well this is a biggy, three recipes in one dish. Thankfully all three were pretty simple to make. Salmon is just covered in herby crust made with parsley and breadcrumbs and baked. The brocolli covered in oil and chilli and baked. But be warned, these are really hot, thankfully I had done half without any chilli on them for the children but I'm sure they were still quite warm even for their well trained curry palates. Finally the potatoes, which have been renamed hedgehog potatoes in our house. These were the trickiest thing to do, you have to cut slices into them without cutting through, I know it sounds really simple, you do it and see how you get on. The one in the photo is the only one that managed to stay whole! They were baked too, so little washing up which is always a bonus.

Chocolate fridge cake

Wow, hadn't realised how long it's been since I last blogged. It's definitely more difficult fitting this in now I'm back at work. I made the almost a fortnight ago now for our Thursday craft group. I've made fridge cake before, but years and years ago. This is a pretty simple one, chocolate, digestive biscuits and maltesers mixed together with a bit of golden syrup and butter. Gorgeous. I think fridge cake is magic, it just doesn't go too hard to eat and it's really yummy with quite a little amount of effort. So all in all not a lot to say about this one, wish I had enough chocolate in the house to make another now........

Quick Teriyaki Chicken

The first thing to mention with this is, it's quick to cook as long as you've got everything ready first. I had this down as a quick wednesday night dinner because it's the worst night of the week in our house. Both me and Mark worked late, I have staff meetings he teaches after school. It's usually a case of whoever gets home first, get cooking because Mark has to be out again to go to orchestra and the children are usually starving. Well this one took about 20 minutes to cook, which I know isn't that long, but a quick cook for us us is get the rice on and by the time it's cooked everything else is ready.

 Ok time complaint over. It was really easy and it did taste good, there was a lot of sauce to go round  but it didn't really thicken the way I expected it to so stayed like a broth. It tasted good though and the chicken wasn't overcooked.

New recipes always take longer than you think so I will add this one to our quick things to cook mental list. One thing I notice about a lot of Lorraines recipes is that there isn't too much washing up and I like that. This pushed the boat out with three pans, but it's worth it.

Pad Thai

In our house we love love love Pad Thai, I don't know what it is but there is something very addictive about it. We have a recipe that we're happy with, it tastes good and it's pretty simple to make. So to be honest I was a little suspicious about this one, many of the ingredients were different, some were missing and some thankfully are the same. For example this one uses egg noodles, in ours we use rice noodles, also this one has an omelette, ours doesn't.

I was vary weary of that first mouthful, but I cannot believe that I even doubted Lorraine for one second. This explodes with flavour, it was stunning and I was gobsmacked, it was really really yummy. This was as usual pretty easy to make. The problem we have it that we bought a massive bag of monkey nuts when we first made pad thai and we are still making our way through it and that was the only hassle, shelling them. Word of advice, get everything ready before you turn the heat on. If I could stand all the washing up I would do it all the time and pretend I was on Something for the weekend with pretty little dishes. All very cheffy! Pad Thai fans, it may be different but it's really good. Wwww can't wait to make this again.......

Quick Roast chicken and fresh green buttered beans

Well, were off, but this may be a slower start than last time. The great thing about the new book its that most of it is made up of traditional family meals with a few desserts, breads and treats thrown in for good measure. So the first one tackled was the roast chicken, hey it was a sunday and we've got to eat! I've never quite treated a chicken like this before, cutting up the back and then cracking it's legs. Not the most pleasant way to prepare food. But is tasted really really good. The best thing about this dish was the sauce, we love tarragon in our house and don't use it as much as we should. The potatos though were something else, you just slice them cover in olive oil and a crushed garlic clove and bake them for 45 mins, combined with the gravy they were delish and we really didn't mind that Zoe didn't want her, waste not want not!

I chose the fresh buttered green beans to go with it (there are also a few veggie options) they are cooked then tossed in melted butter and spring onions with a sprinkle of pomegranite seeds, but we got to the supermarket to late for the pomegranite, but we didn't miss it.

Overall a pretty good Sunday dinner in under and hour, we'll definitely be making this one again!

Special delivery!

Well a certain new cook book dropped through my door today and immediately I was devouring the pages within. When I finished Lorraines first book I said there was no way I would be repeating it with the second, but now it's arrived I feel bad not to do it! Looking through the book there are so many recipes that I would want to have a go at anyway that I might as well make them all. But, there definitely won't be the manic mission from last time and make sure I'm blogging everyday, or making so many over the weekend. I'm going to take my time with this book.

But of course I want to make so many dishes for my tea and for sunday night pudding, it will be difficult to decide where to start. The other problem is once you hit a magic recipe, the one that you always go back to time and again, it can be difficult to move on and try the others. I found that with the first book, the chocolate cookies were a magic recipe and the brownie is one that I'm always trying to get just right. But there looks to me like there might be a few new ones to add to that magic list and I really can't wait to try them!