Posie’s Place

I’ve never made Mince Pies before but this year I thought I would make some to give as a gift and to enjoy at home.  When I tried to get the right size cutters I drew a blank so they’re not as neat as I’d hoped they would be but I guess that just adds to the rustic homemade charm.

I looked at several different recipes and this is the one which I liked the sound of the best, it’s from Ainsley Harriot and I found it on the BBC food website.  It’s a little bit cheaty since it uses shop bought mincemeat, but I decided that conquering the shortcrust pastry was enough of a challenge for this year so maybe next time I’ll try making the mincemeat too!

According to Ainsley this makes 18 but I think my muffin tray must be much deeper than his as I only got 12.  I also refridgerated the pastry overnight in a zip lock bag and that may have contributed to my pastry cracking quite alot.  All in all though I thought it was a pretty sucessful first try.  Give them a try and see what you think.

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This is a really side dish which I came across a few weeks ago and we’ve had it as quite a few times since.  It’s really great with grilled chicken or anything off the barbeque.  The recipe appeared in a show called Food Poker and the chef was Lawrence Keogh.

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After making my steak pie the other day I had some puff pastry left over and went hunting for a recipe to use it up and so I came across this nice little recipe from James Martin. It took minutes to make and was really delicious.

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Sorry for the absence dear readers but as you can tell from my last post all those weeks ago we’ve been really busy here since Matthew arrived!

Stewart my darling husband has been taking care of mealtimes as I take care of Matthew’s bedtime routine.

I’ve been breaking myself in gently back into the way of cooking and so last weekend I made a huge pot of chilli. The weather today was really hot and we decided to go for a picnic so when we got home we weren’t in the mood for anything too heavy and so after trawling through the cupboards I came up with this quick and healthy snack.

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Although the weather isn’t very seasonal at the moment I still find myself craving warming, comforting soups.

When I lived in the UK I really loved the range of fresh and seasonal soups from The New Covent Garden Soup Company and was delighted when I found out that you could buy a couple of cookbooks with some of their recipes. This recipe is taken from The New Covent Garden Soup Company’s Book of Soups – New, Old & Odd Recipes.

This was the first time I have tried this recipe and I was pleasantly surprised, I can really recommend the Covant Garden book since I have yet to try any of the recipes in this book and be disappointed. I have made some minor modifications.
Give this great soup a try and let me know what you think, both Stewart and I thought it was fantastic!

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Ever since I was a small child I have always had a real aversion to egg mayonnaise. I love eggs and I love mayo but the combination of the two I have always detested. That was until a few years ago..

Back in 2002 I had the misfortune of being diagnosed with acute cholecystitis or an acute inflammation of the gall bladder and I was told I would need surgery to remove said gall bladder.

Any know who has ever suffered from cholecystitis will back me up when I say that the pain is excruiciating and due to the nature of this condition many foods consumed can aggravate the pain.

It was to my surprise that whilst awaiting surgery I found myself cravings egg mayonnaise and for days that was all I ate.

After surgery my cravings disappeared along with my gall bladder and to this day egg mayonnaise has never passed my lips again.

That was until this morning…

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I told you all I was addicted to curry at the moment and I enjoyed my Aloo Masala a couple of weeks ago so much that I decided to have another bash.  This time the slight difference was that I added some mushrooms and an extra onion. It was absolutely divine!!!

See here for the original recipe.

Here is the end product, mmmmmm even looking at the photo makes my mouth water….

recipe, food, food & drink

It’s Friday at last!!! What a long week it’s been, I think the sudden change from high summer and 30°C to Autumn and 15°C has made it seem even longer. My body has spun straight into hibernation mode and all I want to do is eat comfort food and sleep.

Still determined to eat less meat in order to feel better and to help me loose weight I decided to make a nice pot of chilli for dinner tonight and instead of meat I thought I would make it a vegetarian chilli. No meat doesn’t necessarily mean no flavour.

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Well I’ve made it, my final day of vegetarian week and I must admit I’ve really enjoyed it!! I may make this a regular occurance.

I was in the mood for eggs for breakfast, there was some veg leftover in the fridge which needed used up or would have to go so I thought I would combine them to make a tortilla for breakfast.

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UPDATE AUGUST 14 : This dish was submitted for Tony’s 29th Curry Mela over at Anthony’s Kitchen.

So it’s day 4 of vegetarian week, so far I haven’t found this week difficult. I’m feeling pretty good and I’m still loosing weight.

I enjoyed my curry so much that I thought I would have a variation on it tonight only this time with new potatoes and a couple of other slight changes.

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