Hungry curry

What's it called when someone had a name that describes exactly what they do? It's on the tip of my tongue, urgh so frustrating!
Anyway, this curry mix I found in a random Asian shop is the Ussain Bolt of food - in perfect Engrish!
So delicious.

Christmas sandwiches - Starbucks

Going to Starbucks for food is like asking your boyfriend to give you a haircut. Yes, it will be a hair cut in the most literal sense of the term, but at the same time quite a lot removed from what you had in mind, and not very nice.
I used to love Starbucks Frappuccinos, I remember I was about 13 or 14 and my friend took me and we shared one as an extravagant treat. But as you get older your palate changes and you don't want all your food and drinks to be Willy Wonka level sweet. It's very sweet, and heavy (they do finally sell salads, or Bistro Boxes, but haven't tried one yet).
The only indication that these sandwiches are the Christmas selection is the word Feast in the title, I got two because I was extra hungry today and because they seem to have the exact same ingredients. Also, I got both of these toasted, so the packaging was removed and the photos make it look like I fished them out of a bin.
Turkey Feast Panini
-The overwhelming sensation here is not a flavor but a texture, mushy. Dry heating it makes the filling steam the bread from the inside and since the slice of turkey included is so flavorless there isn't much to experience.
-There's bacon in it, but I can't taste it.
-After a few chews the slight scent of sage from the slice of stuffing begins to come through. There is also mayonnaise, some kind of green leaf and a little bit of cranberry sauce, the combination of which must have made the sandwich so wet, but not much flavor therein.
-The distribution of ingredients is not very good, but since they don't taste of anything that's not a bad thing.

Turkey Feast Sandwich
-OK, this is interesting, the sandwich has exactly the same filling as the panini but the combination is a lot more successful. Maybe it's the victory of the granary bread over the white panini bun. The mushiness of the inside of this sandwich is actually quite pleasant
-The strongest flavor in this sandwich is the cranberry, it's not too sweet and quite tart.
-The spinach is wilty and not nice, a little bitter and stringy
-There is a lot of bacon in this sandwich, but I couldn't taste any of it. I found this so intriguing that I lifted out a piece to try on it's own, and it was tasteless. Normally bacon is plesant, crisp and salty, this was pale, soft and had no discernible salt on it, so wierd.

Overall, 5/10. The only reason it wasn't lower is because you have the option to toast or not to toast

Christmas Pudding

It was Stir Up Sunday a week ago, the day when it's traditional to make your Christmas pudding and cake. I've enjoyed doing this for a couple of years now, but don't really have a definite recipe. It's usually full of whatever I have on hand - I think the year before last I spent some kind of crazy amount of money on single use ingredients and then had random dried up fruit hanging around my cupboards until I could justify throwing them away (in the move). Last year I made my own candied peel. This year I dried some grapes from out grapevine into raisins and soaked them in vodka for two weeks.
I'm sure it will end up being fine, really, don't trust cookbooks when they tell you that you absolutely must put 4 teaspoons of barley water in your pudding or else! After eating (and drinking) the biggest meal of the year, nobody will be able to tell what's in the sliver of brown stuff they force down, Mr Creosote style, before they fall into a coma. Ratios work much better. Here's what I did.
1 part flour
1 part nuts, chopped (hazlenuts and pecans for me)
1 part egg (weigh the egg and use your best judgement)
2 parts suet
2 parts breadcrumbs (all I had was Panko)
2 parts dried or dehydrated fruit (figs!!)
2 parts brown sugar
4 parts raisins/currants/sultanas soaked in
4 parts alcohol for 2 weeks (I used sherry and um... vodka)
And now for every 100g of flour you used put in one of each of these:
Small grated apple
Zest of an orange
Shot of booze
Teaspoon each of your favorite Christmas spices grated (nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, ginger and cardamom)
If the mixture is too solid add more booze, if the mix is too liquid add a couple of spoons of flour.
Mix it all up in a big bucket, pour into a pudding dish, cover with a layer each of greaseproof paer and foil (or a pudding cloth, obv), and then steam.
Delia Smith recommends steaming a 1-2 pint pudding for 8 hours (I usually do it for 6).

Who do I think I am with my laissez faire attitude to recipes? Lets face reality, this is something that cooks for hours and then ferments for at least a month, if you put nice things in, it will taste alright. You only eat it once a year, you won't remember what it tastes like by January (but it will taste good)
Oh, and I would really appreciate it if you would meet me half way with the following photo.

Buckwheat

Buckwheat is a trigger food for me. If I was born in a James Bond film that would be my trigger to KILL! But I was born in Moscow and so it reminds me of granny, my childhood and all that good stuff. Buckwheat is very rich in iron and zinc, so if you don't have a lot of money, or are a vegetarian, it's a good energy food to balance out your diet. And it tastes really good, nutty but not too strong.
The kind I buy is from Eastern European shops and the grains are a darkish brown, but you can also get it from healthfood shops and some supermarkets - I saw a bag in Waitrose a few weeks ago, and it was greenish, almost untoasted. This is probably better for you, but I grew up on the shelf stable stuff, so that's what we're going to cook.
The method is very similar to cooking rice - for every cup of buckwheat you need two cups of water. You must wash it to stop it from turning mushy, but instead of putting it in a colander and running water through it, just pour it in a bowl and swirl it around with your hand, then drain. Bring to the boil and turn the heat down so it cooks very gently. I always use a pan with a glass lid for it so that I can spy on what's happening without opening the pan up and letting all the steam out. When there is no more liquid left on the surface, switch the heat off - it needs to steam to completion. What I do at this point is sprinkle it with salt and put about two tablespoons of butter in to slowly melt and trickle in, this flavours the buckwheat and gives a light fluffy texture.
Oh and I take back what I said about foraging a couple of weeks ago.
Serve with a giant creamed Bolete your dad found in the forest. Yum yum

Christmas sandwiches - Cafe Nero

Another reminder, in case anyone has forgotten, I love Christmas. Not so much the Jesus part of it, but the chintzy kitsch is right up my street.
Here's a thing I've been doing for a few years now, and now that I'm taking this blog further away from cooking from cookbooks and more towards random things that pop in my head, I think it's appropriate to write about it. I go and get Christmas sandwiches from all the different sandwich places and rate them. Rate them in my head, there's no point to this, it's stupid.
My favorite all time seasonal sandwich would have to be Eat's venison baguette, but I haven't seen it for a few years, last year's winner was M&S for some reason that I now don't remember. But today I'm starting with Cafe Nero.
I'm not a big fan of food at Cafe Nero, maybe my opinion is coloured by a fierce loyalty to Pret a Manger, or maybe it's because I've never had a local branch, but our new office is very close to one so it's the first thing on my map.

Cafe Nero Turkey, Cranberry and Stuffing (horrible photo, I had already started to eat it before I took it)
-It's very dry, there doesn't seem to be a good ratio of meat to sauce.
-The stuffing is in little cubes as opposed to slices, not a bad thing, but a little curious
-There is a very small amount of cranberry sauce, not nearly enough, especially since the sauce is plesantly tart and not too sweet, with whole cranberries in it
-There is a nice piece of radiccio in the sandwich, much better than the ubiquitous handful of rocket.
-The bread seems to be from some kind of seeded loaf, which I like.

Final score: 6/10 It would be a good sandwich if it wasn't so overwhelmingly dry

Best drinking game ever!

I thought I was a real pro at drinking games, I had me the Deborah Meaden (watch Dragon's Den, take a drink every time Deborah says 'I just don't understand it'), the Nigel Slater (watch any one of his shows, take a drink every time it sounds like he's talking about sex. This one will put you in a coma, it's chronic, this is him talking about rhubarb "It comes easily if you pull it"), the electronic scale (pour a drink and put it on the scale, you and a partner have to take exactly 10ml sips until the drink is gone, whoever comes closest wins another drink); but this is the best, I'm so excited I can barely keep my pants on (do you drink with your pants on? la-di-dah, look at Mr Fancy), you type in what you're listening to and this site tells you what to drink! I tried with with some really obscure bands and it's pretty knowledgeable. Truly a game changer in the world of drinking.

Which food magazine has the best Christmas issue 2011

I have an absolute Christmas fetish. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with it (in Russia New Year is the big meal holiday), I can have an 'ideal' set up in my mind that is purely practical and visual rather than emotional. Instead of some traditional great great granny's Spam stuffing I can focus on food that is, at least to me, the epitome of this Christmas I've heard so much about. Basically I want the Hollywood version of the holiday, and this year I'm doing as much research as I can. So, which food magazine has the best December issue this year?
Here is the round up, I bought every big magazine so you don't have to. I know a lot of people have a favorite mag they get every month (full disclosure, I like Delicious), and won't buy another publication ever, so for all you loyalists and undecideds, here is my guide to this years offerings.

Delicious Magazine - £3.60
+ 'Free Guide to Relaxed Entertaining'
178 pages of which 56 are adverts
Back page - there is a 4 page Tesco spread at the back, but the real back page has an interview with Angela Hartnett.
Famous chefs featured - Antonio Carluccio, Nigella Lawson, Heston Blumenthal

Recipe breakdown (not including the insert)
Meat - 25
Fish - 6
Vegetarian - 18
Vegan - 5
Dessert - 15
Vegan Dessert - 6

Things I liked:
-Delicious Magazine has a page towards the back of tips on how to use up leftover ingredients that they've urged you to buy, like a tin of wasabi powder or a bunch of marzipan.

Things I didn't like:
-One of the questions Angela Hartnett was asked was how she feels about getting older, this kind of got my back up because I doubt they would have asked a male chef about his age, and who cares anyway, this is a food magazine!
-The insert is a bit feeble, there are a couple of recipes and some stuff about cheese, all of which would have been included in the main magazine.

Cook Vegetarian - £3.50
+'Easy Veggie Christmas, 25 recipes'
106 pages, 30 of which are adverts
Back page - Showstopper risotto pie
Famous chefs featured - Heston Blumenthal, Gino D'Acampo, Jean Christophe Novelli, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, Simon Rimmer.

Recipe breakdown (not including the insert)
Vegetarian - 23
Vegan - 29
Dessert - 9
Vegan Dessert - 0

Things I liked:
-Hugh Fernley Whittingstall's recipe for a dessert pie made with chard
-Gino D'Acampo's recipe for pannatone, I've never seen a pannattone recipe anywhere before and always assumed it was meant to be beyond the skills of a home cook
-History of the nut loaf

Things I didn't like:
-Hugh Fernley Whittingstall's beetroot tart tartin, probably because I watched the episode of his current veg show where his assistant comes up with the recipe.
-There are no vegan desserts, I found this so wierd, every single other magazine had at least a couple of options. I know that most recipes can be adapted, but why do vegans have to do that themselves?
-The insert had some traditional Christmas recipes, but again I didn't see why these could not have been absorbed into the magazine itself. I'm sure there was a a good reason, but in my cynical mind it's either printing budgets or an attempt to make it look like you're getting a special free gift

Sainsbury's Magazine - £1.60
+ 35g Lindt 70% Chocolate
274 pages, of which 20.5 are adverts
Back page - Win a mini break to Cornwall
Famous chefs featured - Raymond Blanc, Nigel Slater, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Yotam Ottolenghi, Rachel Allen

Recipe breakdown
Meat - 19
Fish - 13
Vegetarian - 14
Vegan - 8
Dessert - 24
Vegan Dessert - 2

Things I like:
-This is the cheapest of all the magazines and there are a lot of coupons in it, which makes it a complete bargain.
-There is an article about different kinds of gin. Love gin
-The food ideas and photography are very modern

Things I don't like:
-This is not just a food magazine, it's also a lifestyle magazine so it has some human interest stories and stuff like that - fair enough. What I don't need is a set of the most bizarre social tips I've ever heard. Like a tip on how to show empathy, and another about how to redirect a conversation that is boring you - if someone starts talking about how sad they are that their car was stolen take their mind off it by telling them how much you enjoy going for a drive! What?!?
-The front cover looks almost exactly like the Lakeland Christmas advert which is a bit odd, the advert features inside (as well as in most of the other mags) so they really should have been able to spot that.

Vegetarian Living - £3.50
+ 9 Bar. Dairy, Gluten, Wheat free carob coated nut bar (this was delicious)
98 pages of which 17 are adverts
Back page - an article about quinces, I think, and a cookie recipe.
Famous chefs featured - Gordon Ramsay

Recipe Breakdown
Vegetarian - 21
Vegan - 5
Dessert - 17
Vegan - 5

Things I liked:
-This is clearly the most vegan friendly Christmas magazine, I was beginning to wonder what vegans did for Christmas. Almost all of the vegetarian recipes have a note on the bottom about how to convert it to a vegan recipe.
-Some appraiser recipes look amazing (lentil balls)

Things I didn't like:
-Gordon Ramsay's recipes are labeled on the cover as 'posh', that is recipes for things like mince pies! I found this to be be quite off in a vegetarian publication. There seems to be almost an apologetic tone to this, almost as if it's saying 'sorry you have to have vegetarian food to eat, but look, even you're allowed to have a treat'.
-There's something very humorless about this magazine. I know animal cruelty is a big important issue but for a food magazine to be peppered with ads for pet adoption and against animal testing is a bit too blunt.

Great British Food - £3.99
+ 'Festive Feasts'
130 pages of which 26 are adverts
Back page - Interview with Rachel Allen (questions about food, not her age!)
Famous chefs featured - Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal

Recipe Breakdown
Meat - 15
Fish - 8
Vegetarian - 3
Vegan - 3
Dessert - 9
Vegan Dessert - 1

What I liked:
-Interview with Clarissa Dickson Wright, she's such a crank and an abrassive character but I think that's why I like her. She talks about how much she hates Heston Blumental and a few pages later there is a spread of his recipes, it's pretty brave for a magazine to feature both.
-There is also a article about Bompas and Parr, they're so wacky that I can't believe that a magazine would dare to feature someone with so little mass appeal in their most important issue of the year. Quite exciting.
-I love that they give a British alternative to the ubiquitous chorizo in their recipes.

What I didn't like:
-This is the most expensive magazine in my selection and has fewer pages that all but one of the others. Again, the insert just features recipes that could have been included in the body of the magazine, but the paper they use is so heavy and expensive feeling that I wouldn't be surprised if that was out of budget.
-The font of the articles is very thin and tiny (like a mix between Arial Narrow and Agency FB). I'm a young woman with good eyesight but I found it a bit hard to read.

Good Food - £3.60
+ 2012 calendar sponsored by Dr. Oetker and a cheesecake recipe card
210 pages of which 86.5 are adverts
Back page - 4 pages of Tesco adverts and Hairy Bikers Dundee cake recipe
Famous Chefs featured: Paul Hollywood, John Torrode, Rick Stein, James Martin, Bill Granger, Hairy Bikers, Lorraine Pascal, Raymond Blanc, Michel Roux Jr, Nigella Lawson.

Recipe Breakdown
Meat - 39
Fish - 21
Vegetarian - 32
Vegan - 10
Dessert - 30
Vegan Dessert - 3

Things I liked:
-Recipe for Hanukkah biscuits, the only acknowledgement in this whole marathon of magazines that there might be something other than Christmas happening this time of year.
-A lot of reader special offers, like 40% discounts on utensils, stuff like that.
-A lot of recipes of what to do with leftovers, way more than other magazines. One or two of the magazines I looked at had planned their next issue around what to do with leftovers, Good Food is a bit more generous.

Things I don't like:
-This magazine was available with two different covers, one with a picture of a turkey and one with a picture of a pudding. I really don't like this because it makes me feel like I'm missing out on something by not getting both. And what is the point? It's not like doing different Beatles covers, sheesh.
-Next to each recipe, instead of a symbol indicating whether it vegetarian or not, there's a symbol indicating whether it's freezable or not. So you have to read the whole recipe to see if bacon or goose fat is in your apparently vegetarian side dish.
-This is entirely my opinion, but I think the picture of Gregg Wallace and his wife is creepy and unnecessary. I have almost a repulsion for Gregg Wallace, I have to steady myself with a stiff drink before I can watch him shoveling in the food on Masterchef, and I found the extensive coverage of his courtship and marriage gratuitous, so don't really want to be reminded of it.
-The last point, I'm not sure if I like or dislike this, but there seems to be a great deal of emphasis on whether the food on offer is freezable or not. I have a tiny freezer so I don't really care about this, but I suppose others might want to make things weeks in advance and store them for the big day.

Olive - £3.60
+ 2012 Diary
170 pages of which 58 are adverts (including 4 pages of Tesco adverts)
Back page - Food quiz
Famous chefs featured - John Torrode

Recipe Breakdown
Meat - 24
Fish - 11
Vegetarian - 15
Vegan - 17
Dessert - 18
Vegan Dessert - 2

Things I liked:
-Quiz! Answers are going to be in the January edition.
-Vegetarian Mains were inspired by restaurant dishes which I think gives them a bit more credibility.
-I think this is probably the best all rounder. It tries to be everything to everybody there are Christmas, healthy, one-pot, seasonal, 30 minute, party, budget and show off recipes.

Things I didn't like:
-Again, no markers next to the recipes to indicate if they're vegetarian or not.
-It's very innocuous, there is nothing outstanding or offensive about it. I was going to compare it to an ice cream flavor, but that's boring, so lets say if this magazine was a skirt it would be knee length A line.
-The diary is a bit feeble

Good Housekeeping - £3.80
+ 89 Easy Christmas Recipes
This is not strictly a food magazine so I'm not going to do a page count. But just like the other magazines I've looked at I'm not going to include the insert in the recipe count.
Famous chefs featured: Gino D'Acampo, Angela Hartnett

Recipe Breakdown (not including the insert)
Meat - 10
Fish - 4
Vegetarian - 18
Vegan - 5
Dessert - 11
Vegan Dessert - 1

Things I like:
-All in one potatoes and Brussels sprouts recipe, this is roasted so that the sprouts don't become mushy and overcooked.
-Cranberry souffle, looks beautiful and I might try it this year.
-Overall the recipes are quite classic, we're not trying to set the world on fire here

Things I don't like:
-There are a few wildly unseasonal recipes like pea and spinach salad
-There is a calorie count next to every recipe, I don't like this but I see how others might see this as a necessity.
-There is a very odd emphasis on cheating. Good Housekeeping is a magazine for older ladies (I'm an old bag at heart so I actually quite like to have a read of it when I'm at the boyfriend's mum's), these are family women with busy lives so I see how shortcuts might be appealing, but I find it a bit sad, as if it's meant for women who hate cooking but are pressured into doing it at Christmas.

And that's that. I think if you have exactly the same personality as me you will find this guide useful. Let me know if I missed anything. Kisses!

Clam pizza

Well well, how low can we go?
Horrible, plastic supermarket pizza. Don't judge!
Add some clams, king prawns, mascarpone, tomatoes, garlic and basil from the window sill. And suddenly something happens, you close your eyes and you're transported... almost to Pizza Express!!!
I kid! It's delicious.

How to motivate yourself

Running a blog is really hard when you're quite a lazy person. You want to be lazy and sit in your living room watching Valentine Warner, and every time someone asks you what you're doing you can say it's 'research' and that almost makes you look non-lazy and you can pretend you've fooled everyone.
The trick is to surround yourself with people who have get-up-and-go, my brother came by last night, he was on his way home from jiu jitsu and told me he had an hour before he had to go and watch some Guy Fawkes Night firewors in the park. This is the kind of schedule productive members of society have. I made him a sandwich and started moaning about the redesign of my blog which I was kind of thinking about doing in the next couple of weeks or so, 'No, lets do it right now', he said.
What a cool guy.

Eating at your desk at work

Apart from the ubiquitous 'desk lunch', I also tend to have the 'desk breakfast', 'desk snack' and once, the dreaded 'desk dinner'.
Our company moved into a new building a few months ago and I was furnished with my own office and a brand new wood desk. Wood desk that is unvarnished because only losers apparently seal the deal. Yes, there are people out there who worry about meeting deadlines, keeping clients or getting that end of year bonus, but for me the biggest stress at work is how to keep food from staining my desk. It's obviously my own fault for choosing to sit and read blogs while I eat - observe:
I'm going to stick it out until the stains become very very obvious and then flip the table top over. When the other side gets dirty I should probably start looking for another job.