Final Thoughts - I Did It!

Well 2010 is drawing to a close and whilst I didn’t stick to my original ‘one new recipe a week’ resolution, I’m thrilled that overall I managed to create an entire 52 new recipes. It has been an interesting and useful experience for me. I have learned some new cooking skills and flavour combinations, which I’m using regularly now, and I have also discovered some brilliant new recipes that are now made regularly. I’m also pleased to have made some things that would have terrified me in the past – my personal highlight being the venison. It was something I was very nervous about cooking, but I managed to cook it exactly as I wanted, and felt very proud of myself.

I started this resolution in the hope that I would get out of the rut of making the same food all the time, and I definitely feel I have accomplished that. However, this has also given me more. Those who know me will know that I have had a difficult year with stress and anxiety, and whilst initially these difficulties stopped me cooking and completed sapped all motivation I had to get into the kitchen, cooking was one of the first things that helped me get on the track to recovery. The kitchen is where I feel confident, and where I can create happiness out of a few ingredients and some time and effort. Being able to immense myself in this world helps me feel like me again – and having 52 recipes to make certainly gave me the time to immerse myself!

I started this blog as a way to keep track of what I have cooked over the last year – and it’s done exactly that. Over the next year, I hope to keep trying new recipes to further my cooking skills, but I also want to revisit things from the year and cook more of them again. My other aim is to try and have one place where all these recipes are saved with easy access so that I always have plenty of options for what to cook.

Finally I would like to say thank you to those who have been following my progress. If anyone would like any of the recipes, then please let me know!

Recipe 52 – Bubble and Squeak Cakes

My mum and I always cook far too much food at Christmas, and there is always plenty of leftovers. In previous years, the leftover turkey and stuffing always gets eaten in sandwiches (or by the dog!), and my mum and I are both particularly to a cold roast potato (or five) later on in the evening. However the leftover veg always ends up in the bin, which I’ve always thought was a particular shame.

This year the veggies didn’t end up in the bin however! I had found a recipe for bubble and squeak cakes to use up the left over potatoes and veg from your Christmas dinner. We mashed up the leftover veg (we had sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, parsnips and sweetcorn), and then added some left over roast potatoes and croquettes. These were all mashed for a while until everything was nice and mushy! We then fried an onion and some bacon rashers chopped into small bits, before adding this into the potato/veg mix along with some cheese and seasoning.

Once everything was fully mixed, I shaped some cakes with my hands, and popped them on a greased baking tray. Finally we brushed them with melted butter and let the oven do the rest of the work.

The cakes were fantastic – very tasty, and I was really pleased that I had finally found a use for the leftover veg. We ended up with about 20 out of the whole batch, and have frozen some too, so that nothing has gone to waste.

Recipe 51 – Suet-Free Mince Meat

Last year I had made mince pies for the first time – though with a cranberry studded mincemeat, that was very different to the normal kind. This year I repeated my cranberry mince pies, but also wanted to make something more traditional, though without the hassle of having to make mincemeat ages in advance. The suet free recipe was perfect as it only took about half an hour to pull the mincemeat together, and tasted delicious!

The mincemeat consisted of currants, raisins, grated cooking apple, port, brandy, honey and lots of Christmas spices, with the ingredients just being mixed together and simmered on the stove until they formed a paste.

I really enjoyed having two different kinds of mince pie this year, and for the first year ever didn’t buy any pies from the shops!

Recipe 50 – Pan Seared Saddle of Venison with a Red Wine Jus

This was the main course in our Christmas Come Dine With Me parties. I was looking to create something Christmassy but different. A few months ago I had attended a foodie event where we had been given venison, and I had found it absolutely delicious. Since then, I had been looking forward to trying to cook it myself, and this seemed the perfect occasion. The venison was marinated in a mixture of red wine, herbs and vegetables for 24 hours in advance of the meal to ensure that it was nice and tender. It was then seared on all sides in the frying pan, before transferring it to the oven to cook for 20 minutes. After resting, it carved beautifully, and was served with goose fat roasted potatoes and honey glazed carrot and parsnips. A red wine jus was also added to the meal by reducing some red wine and beef stock with some herbs.

The meal went really well, and when it came to the results time, my night won our little competition (mostly thanks to the venison I think!)

Recipe 49 – Goats Cheese and Cranberry Parcels

My friend Hazel had suggested that we hold our own Christmas Themed Come Dine With Me parties with another two friends. Normally I have soup as the Christmas starter with my family, so I wanted to try something different, and found a recipe online for these parcels.

They were very simple to make – cut a sheet of filo pastry in two, cross one sheet over the other and brush with melted butter. I then added a dollop of home made cranberry sauce and a dollop of goats cheese to the pastry before folding the parcels up. These were then brushed with melted butter again and cooked in the oven.

The result was delicious fruity, cheesy and crunchy bites, that went down well with my guests!

Recipe 48 – Paprika Chicken and Pepper bites

Another Christmas Party recipe – this time I marinated some chicken and peppers in paprika, oil and lemon juice before quickly stir frying. Individual bits of chicken and pepper were then put onto cocktail sticks, with the left over juices from the pan poured over the tray for additional flavour.

Whilst these were nice, overall they were my least favourite Christmas party recipe, and not something I will rush into making again.

Recipe 47 - Chilli and Soy Glazed Cocktail Sausages

Yet another Christmas Party recipe. I used a mixture of sweet chilli sauce, soy sauce, cranberry sauce, sugar, lime juice and Clementine juice to marinate some cocktail sausages, before oven cooking them.

The result was lots of little sticky and spicy sausages.

Recipe 46 - Chilli Cheese Crostini

These were another Christmas Party recipe, and probably my personal favourite. I mixed some cream cheese with finely chopped red jalapenos, paprika, sour cream and Worcestershire sauce. A little dollop of this mixture was then placed on a chilli tortilla chip.

They were incredibly simple but the combination of flavours was excellent.

Recipe 45 - Cheddar and Stilton Rolls

My fiancé and I decided to host a Christmas party this year – mostly because I was looking for an excuse to cook some new canapés. I had seen the idea for the Cheddar and Stilton rolls in a magazine – basically think homemade sausage rolls filled with the two cheeses, red onion and rosemary.

These ended up quite fiddly to make, as it was difficult to get the mixture to stay in the pastry – particularly when I cut it. However, it was worth the effort as they all went quickly at the party!

Recipe 44 – Homemade Basil Pesto

Can anyone guess where this recipe came from? Yep – Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals again. My fiancé and I were celebrating it being exactly a year until we got married, and I had made a special Italian meal of tomato, mozzarella and basil salad for starters, followed by Cannelloni. Although the basil pesto recipe was part of another recipe in the book, I thought it would go well with the starter.

It was simple to make – just putting pine nuts, basil, oil and garlic in the food processor and blitzing. It tasted incredible – must better than the normal store bought pestos, and did go very well with the starter.

Recipe 43 – Indian Style Steak

Now this was a great recipe – again courtesy of Jamie Oliver’s 30 minute meals. Two of my favourite foods in life are a good steak and a good curry – and this recipe combined them both, and was so easy to do.

The steak was marinated in some Patak’s curry paste (Jalfrezi for me) and cooked as normal. I also made a curry sauce to accompany it – again using the Jalfrezi paste. The recipe was to add some coconut milk to this, but as I prefer tomatoey curry sauces I just added chopped tomatoes instead, and cooked it for a while to allow all the flavours to come together.

The steak and sauce were then served with some naan bread – done in well under 30 minutes and seriously delicious! Thank you Jamie.

Recipe 42 – Piri Piri Chicken and Dressed Potatoes

There may be a theme developing here as this is another 30 minute meal (although I missed 2 of the components of this one out, as I didn’t fancy them!). I first tried piri piri chicken in Portugal years ago, and instantly fell in love. I’d tried in the past to replicate the spicy chilli sauce here but had never managed to get the taste quite right, and whilst the restaurant version is nice it still doesn’t quite replicate what I’d tasted in Portugal.

The sauce in this recipe was about the closest I’ve come to a true Piri Piri sauce. It had a really spicy kick and was the right consistency. It was incredible even when I tasted it raw before pouring over the chicken!

I also love the dressed potatoes which went with this recipe – a mixture of regular and sweet potatoes were cooked, crushed and then mixed together chilli, coriander and feta cheese. I’d never thought about this combination with potatoes in the past but it was fantastic, and a great accompaniment to the chicken.

Overall this has actually been one of my favourite meals this year.

Recipe 41 – Jerk Chicken, Rice & Peas with Chargrilled Corn, Salad and Yogurt Dip

This is another of Jamie’s 30 minute meals and was excellent. There were quite a few parts to this recipe – cooking the chicken, making the sauce, getting the rice right, sorting out the salad and dip, but again I did manage it in 30 minutes. The jerk sauce was fantastic – it had a real killer kick, even with an ingredient missing as I couldn’t find any cheap golden rum in the supermarket, and this was brilliantly balanced with the cooling coriander yogurt.

I’m not normally a big salad fan but the dressing for this recipe really inspired me to try it, as it was made from grated red onion, mixed with lime juice, olive oil and coriander, and gave a really lovely extra flavour to the salad without the overpowering taste of onion. I also really enjoyed the chargrilled corn – something I’ve never tried before despite sweetcorn being one of my favourite veggies.

Recipe 40 – Spinach and Sweet Potato Curry

This is a recipe I’d been wanting to try for a while, as I really enjoy spinach in curries, and I wasn’t disappointed with this.

This was a very easy recipe to do – boiling some sweet potato chunks and onions in some stock, and then adding chilli, curry powder, tomatoes, coriander, garlic and spinach was all that was involved. It was ready very quickly and was absolutely delicious. This is something I will definitely be cooking time and time again when I want a curry quickly!

Recipe 39 – Tray Bake Chicken, Crushed New Potatoes and Creamed Spinach

I’d really been enjoying the new Jamie Oliver programme – ’30 Minute Meals’, so had splashed out on a copy of the accompanying book. This is the first recipe I’d tried, and I did make it in exactly 30 minutes, although the time was very hectic.

The chicken was simple but tasty, and just flavoured with oregano and paprika. The crushed potatoes were my favourite part of the recipe – the potatoes were boiled, and then crushed into a frying pan with some garlic, and cooked until golden and crispy over the outside – absolutely delicious! Finally the spinach was made a bit more interesting with some cheese and spring onions and the recipe was done.

I really enjoyed this way of cooking, as it was great to see a lovely combination of food in such a short time. The rest of the recipe book looks good too, so I look forward to trying a few more things out.

Ooops

Well I have to confess to being very behind on this. After my last post I had kept up with the recipes for a while - I just didn't have time to post them, and then some personal circumstances stopped me from making anything new for quite a few weeks, but now I am back on the cooking wagon, and starting again.

From what I can remember, I will add the following new recipes to the list which I have made since the last post. I'm pretty sure this won't be a full list, as I've not been noting down what I've been cooking, but at least its something.

Chicken Jambalaya
Roasted vegetable couscous
Chicken in a red wine and chill sauce
Pilau rice
Bombay potatoes
Lentil, tomato and bacon soup
Potato and spinach bake
Home made sausages with ale gravy and mash
Mousakka
Eggy tomato and potato pie
Lemon, garlic and white wine chicken
Mexican scrambled eggs
Chunky roots ratatouille with basil potato dumplings

That's all I can remember for just now, so that makes it another 13 recipes to add to the list, which currently contains 25 recipes. This gives me a total of 38 recipes for the year so far. I make it that I should be on week 41, so I'm only 3 recipes behind to average out one new recipe per week. Hopefully over the coming weeks I'll be able to make this up. I've got a few new recipe books that I'm really looking forward to trying things out from.

Week 25 – French Onion Soup with Gruyere Croutons, Beef Bourguignon and Crème Caramel

One of the my friends had suggested doing a Come Dine With Me style set of dinner parties, and I hosted mine last Wednesday. In order to get some form of inspiration, I was flicking through a new recipe book (Jamie Does), and spotted a Crème Caramel recipe. It reminded me that there were a few recipes that I wanted to try out in order to recreate some of the delicious meals I’d eaten in Paris last month, so I decided upon a French themed menu for my party, and then chose to make 3 recipes I’d never tried out before!

My starter was French Onion Soup, sometimes I’d had most night on holiday. I managed to find a recipe in a Soup recipe book I have, and thought I’d bought all the ingredients. However, on Wednesday I discovered half way through that I’d forgotten some Sherry vinegar, so ended up finding a second recipe on the Internet and combining the two! The key seemed to be cooking the onion in olive oil and butter for as long as possible so that they were soft and creamy. And overall, the soup was relatively easy to make. I also made my own croutons for the soup by toasting some baguette slices in oil and garlic. Finally once my guests had arrived, I added the croutons to the soup, grated some Gruyere cheese on top and grilled under the cheese was bubbling. My two guests both finished their bowls, and seemed to enjoy it!

My main course was beef bourguignon and I found a recipe for the beef on the Internet, courtesy of Delia Smith. I’d had this a couple of times in Paris, and really liked how winey it was. This was another slow cooker job – I popped some onions, shallots, garlic, bay leaves, pancetta, beef, flour, thyme and a bottle of Bordeaux in the slow cooker in the morning before work and then came home to some delicious smells, and everything bubbling away nicely. I served this with some cheddar mash, and it seemed to go down very well with the guests – particularly Andrew, who had a second plateful!

Finally came my desert, which I’d been panicking about all day. I’d made this on the Tuesday evening so that it had plenty of time to set. It felt quite a challenging recipe. I hadn’t made caramel before, so I was a bit worried about that. As it was cooking I wasn’t completely confident what it was meant to look like, but when I thought it was ready I poured it into some ramekins. I then made my custardy mixture, again something completely new, but it seemed to taste ok as I poured it on top of the caramel. The ramekins were placed in the oven in a ban marie and on a low temperature, and once cooled popped in the fridge. When the time came to serve the desert I was very worried that they weren’t going to come out of the ramekins – however once the first one had came out onto the plate looking as it should I relaxed a little, and again my guests all seemed to enjoy them.

I was really pleased with these three recipes overall, and I felt they made a nice French themed meal. It was challenging doing 3 new recipes at once, but at least it has got me back up to date, with 25 new recipes this year so far!

Week 24 – Pork loin and chorizo with balsamic roasted vegetables and crushed new potatoes

This was a recipe of my own creation, designed to use up things from the fridge. I stuffed the pork loin steaks with chorizo, and then roasted them, on top of some peppers and onions with some balsamic vinegar, a little olive oil and some sage.

I had some lovely Jersey Royal potatoes, so boiled these, crushed them a little with my potato masher and added some butter. I then served the roasted pork steak on top, with the veggies on the side.

Overall I was slightly disappointed with this. The potatoes and veg tasted great, and the balsamicy sauce was delicious, however the pork steaks had ended up a little bit too tough.

Week 23 – Nothing

No excuses this time – I just couldn’t be bothered cooking anything new, so it was back to my tried and tested old recipes!

Week 22 –Steak, Cheese and Guinness Pie and Mexican Chicken Risotto

The first recipe this week was one that I had been wanting to try for a few years. It was another Jamie Oliver recipe – this time from the Jamie at Home book. I hadn’t tried it in the past because it sounded far too unhealthy with all the Guinness, cheese and pastry. However, I was still in holiday mode at this point, so decided to finally give it a go!

I deviated slightly from the recipe and made this in my slow cooker. I always find slow cooking stews like this works well because the meet is always tender and the flavours all pull together really well. It also means I can pop all the ingredients into the cooker in the morning, and then forget about it! And this was exactly what I did here, with the exception of the cheese, which was stirred through at the very end once off the heat.

This was a really different steak pie to the ones I have made in the past. The Guinness and cheese combination added a velvety richness to the gravy, and made it quite a bit thicker than normal. Overall it was very nice, and another recipe I will be making again.

The second recipe this week was a Mexican Chicken Risotto. Risotto is something I’d never made in the past, as I’d been a bit scared that it would all end up mushy and horrible. However, after a delicious risotto at a friend’s house, I decided to give it a go.

In followed a basic risotto recipe I found on the internet, so that I knew how to cook the rice, but decided on my vegetable and meet combination myself (precooked Mexican chicken, red onion, leek, tomato and spring onion). I was very pleased with the results. The risotto was a lot easier to make than I expected, it felt very healthy with all the veg I’d crammed in, and it was very creamy and tasty.

Risotto has now become one of my regular recipes, and I have already made it another 3 or 4 times, each time with different veggies and different meats. My favourite flavour combination so far has been a Mediterranean inspired one with peppers, chilli and chorizo.

Weeks 20 and 21 - Nothing

I spent most of these two weeks on holiday – first in Paris, and then in Aviemore, so didn’t have much opportunity to try out any new recipes.

Week 19 – Vanilla Cupcakes

The first Friday in May saw the next Baking Group, and the challenge this time was cupcakes. After mentioning this at work, one of the girls I work with suggested trying the vanilla cupcake recipe used by the Magnolia Bakery in New York, and very kindly lent me her recipe book.

Aside from having to work out what the American cup measurements meant in grams, the cupcake mixture was easy to make, and the cupcakes came out perfectly formed! To ice them I used another Magnolia Bakery recipe for some vanilla buttercream. I’d made plenty of buttercream icing before, however this was a bit different because it involved mixing the icing for considerably longer than I had done in the past. The results were very good – super creamy icing! Whilst my cupcakes didn’t win the challenge (Hazel’s white chocolate ones did that), I did get a couple of comments about how good the icing was.

Week 18 – Lemon and Herb Chicken with Mash

This week's recipe was a ’20 Minute Meal’ from the Jamie Oliver iPhone application. I chose it for something quick after work, and whilst it took slightly longer than the 20 minutes promised, it was definitely easy to make, and I could probably get it made within 20 minutes with a bit of practice.

The Chicken was simple – chicken breast with lemon zest and thyme, stir fried for a few minutes. To this, I added a tomato relish, made up from tomatoes, spring onion, chilli, basil, red wine vinegar and olive oil. I was really pleased with the tomato relish as the flavours combined well, and when added to the lemon chicken it really came to life.

Finally the chicken was accompanied by some mashed potato – however the mash also had sweetcorn in it – something I’d never tried before but found incredibly tasty, as it added extra flavour and texture to the potatoes.

I was really pleased with this recipe overall, and it’s something I definitely will be making again. However, I also liked the individual components of the meal, and intend to use both the tomato relish and sweetcorn mash ideas for other recipes.

Week 17 – Pork Loin Steaks with Apple and Basil Sauce

I’d picked up a recipe card for Pork Loin Steaks with Apple and Basil Sauce in Waitrose. It looked good on the card, and I wanted to try it as it sounded a bit different.

The recipe was incredibly simple – pop the pork steaks under the grill, and whilst they were cooking make up the sauce in a blender by adding a chopped apple, some basil, chilli flakes and olive oil. Simple!

I had a quick taste of the sauce whilst waiting on the steaks to finish cooking, and while it didn’t taste awful, I wasn’t convinced I could eat a lot of it. However, I spooned it over the pork when it was ready, and proved myself right! I ended up having to give up on it completely and make some pasta. It’s hard to say exactly what was wrong, but I just didn’t enjoy the dish at all.

Week 16 – Tagliatelle Carbonara and Chicken Cacciatore

It was Stephen’s birthday this week, and I wanted to cook him a nice celebratory dinner. His favourite dish is carbonara – something that I’ve never cooked before, and that I’m not a huge fan of myself so rarely eat. However, I decided to go ahead and give it a go anyway and one of the girls at work provided me with her recipe.

I was very nervous about cooking it, mainly because the recipe involved mixing raw egg yolks mixed with cream into the hot pasta, just enough to cook the sauce but not too much that the eggs scrambled. However, it looked like a normal carbonara when I served it up, and Stephen really enjoyed it – so much so that he wants me to cook it more often. Unfortunately my enthusiasm for it wasn’t quite so strong, and I ended up giving up half way through and munching on the garlic bread! As I said before, I wasn’t expecting this to be my favourite dish!

Since I’d missed out on cooking a new recipe the previous week, I wanted to make up for it and fit two recipes in. The second recipe of the week was Chicken Cacciatore. After the creamy naughtiness of the carbonara, I wanted something a bit healthier, and found a recipe for the Chicken Cacciatore is my Slimming World magazine.

The recipe came together well – chicken, some vegetables and bacon, all stir fried before being added to some tomatoes and simmered for a while. The end result was very tasty, and another one that I want to try again.

Week Fifteen - Nothing

Week 15 was the first week I didn’t manage to cook a new recipe, as I’d caught a nasty stomach bug, and didn’t have much of an appetite or the energy to cook. It was disappointing to have not quite made the challenge, but it couldn't be helped.

Week Fourteen - Sweet Chilli Chicken

I’m really late updating this time – but a few weeks ago, my recipe of the week was Sweet Chilli Chicken. This week was the beginning of a very busy time for me (hence the lack of updates) so I wanted something incredibly quick to make. I love my spicy food, and I’d seen this recipe in a slimming magazine.

This was probably the easiest recipe I’ve done so far – all that was required was mixing a few things together in a bowl (soy sauce, sweet chilli sauce, crushed garlic and harissa for those who are interested), pouring this over some chicken breasts and then popping it in the oven for half an hour.

As I was making up the sweet chilli sauce, I wasn’t particularly hopeful as I really didn’t like the smell of the sauce. However, after it had cooked, that had completely changed, and the chicken was really good. This is now something I’ve cooked quite a few times since, and I’m really enjoying having discovered this recipe.

Week Thirteen - Chicken Mole

I'm very late updating this, but I made last week's recipe last Thursday - Chicken Mole. I'd been flicking through a magazine, and saw a recipe for this. It had been something I'd been meaning to try for a while, so decided to give it a go.

I decided to give the recipe a go in my slow cooker. I needed a quick dinner because I was going out afterwards, so using the slow cooker meant I could have it on all day, ready for me getting home from work. It also made the whole process very simple. I prepared my spices and veggies the night before, then on Thursday morning just added them to the slow cooker along with some diced chicken, stock and chopped tomatoes.

The results were pretty good - a nice spicy chicken dish, that was easy to prepare!

Week Twelve - Paprika Pork and Peppers

Sometime last year I’d been in Waitrose, and happened to have a look at their recipe cards. One stood out – for Paprika Pork and Peppers – so I took the card home with me, put it in the cupboard and forgot about it, until last week when I had some pork to use up and didn’t know what to do for my recipe of the week!

The recipe was very straightforward: pork, garlic, casserole veg, peppers, paprika and chicken stock, all put in a pot together and cooked for 2 hours. At the end the card said to add some sour cream, but I left this out to make the recipe a bit healthier.

The end result was very good. Pork isn’t something I cook with very often, because I don’t know what to do with it. This recipe was easy to do, and really tasty, so definitely something I want to make again. When I originally read the recipe I thought about doing it in my slow cooker, to ensure the meat was tender, and although I achieved this anyway, I’d still like to try the slow cooker method just to see if I could get it tasting even better.

Week Eleven - Chicken Schnitzel with Bacon and White Wine

I’m a bit late updating this but I tried last week’s new recipe on Monday night. It was back to my Nigella Express recipe book, and a Chicken Schnitzel with White Wine and Bacon.

The recipe had appealed to me because it was something that sounded simple and fast – something that I like on a Monday for dinner after my dance class. All it involved was frying some bacon until crisp, frying some chicken and garlic until cooked through, then adding in the bacon and white wine. I planned to serve it with some mashed potato and spring onions.

However, things didn’t go quite as easily as planned! The book had assured me that my chicken would be cooked with just 2 minutes on each side, and whilst I was sceptical I accepted the timings and had my potatoes ready accordingly. The chicken was no where near cooked, and took a lot longer so the potatoes ended up a bit cold. When it was eventually all served up, it was nice enough, but absolutely nothing special, and not something I’m desperate to try again!

Week Ten – Chocolate and Sweet Potato Torte

It was baking group time again on Friday evening, and our host for the evening, Sarah, taught us all how to make a Chocolate and Sweet Potato Torte. The idea of having sweet potato in a chocolate cake intrigued me and I really wasn’t sure how the cake would turn out but I was happy to give it a go.

The recipe was easy enough to make, but it did take a while. We started with the icing – melted dark chocolate mixed with sugar and crème fraiche, which was delicious enough just to eat on its own! Then we made our sponges – including adding in the mashed sweet potato. Once cooked and cooled, the cake was iced with the icing from earlier, and I decorated it with a few mini eggs.

I absolutely loved this cake, as it was really moist and really chocolatey. Definitely what I’ll be making next time I need a chocolate cake!

Week Nine - Minestrone Soup

I'd been struggling to decide what to make this week, mostly because I've had very little time to do much cooking, so had to come up with something I could make quickly and that didn't require shopping for lots of new ingredients. Eventually I decided to try out a recipe in my Nigella Express book - Minestrone in Minutes.

This was an incredibly simple recipe - stock, a tomato pasta sauce, a can of mixed beans and some pasta, and it was ready in about 15 minutes. However, I wasn't too happy with the results. The soup tasted ok, but was nothing special and isn't something that I want to make again.

Week Eight – Cheesy Potato and Broccoli Bake

I’d received a free recipe calendar with one of the diet magazines I bought at the start of the year, with every month having a new recipe. The calendar has been hanging in my kitchen, but I’d ignored January’s recipe as it was a beef stew – something I already knew how to make.

February’s recipe was entitled Cheesy Potato and Broccoli Bake and the picture looked delicious! After admiring it since the beginning of the month, I decided to make it for dinner on Tuesday night. Whilst the picture on the calendar looked great, I wasn’t convinced I was going to love the recipe, as I’m not a huge fan of vegetarian food, but I was completely wrong.

The recipe consisted of some cubed and boiled potatoes, par-boiled broccoli florets, cherry tomatoes, onion and peas stir-fried together. These were put in a casserole dish. I then made the ‘bake’ mixture by mixing together some eggs, quark, crushed garlic and dried chilli flakes, then poured this over the stir-fried veggies. Finally this was topped with a little grated cheddar cheese, and baked in the oven.

The end result was something like a quiche, without the pastry, and I was really amazed at how well all the flavours came together, and how tasty the whole thing was. There was also plenty of leftovers for another night’s dinner.

This has actually been one of my favourite recipes that I’ve tried so far this year, and has really showed me that I do need to try completely new things, even when I’m not convinced I’m going to enjoy them.

Week Seven - Millionaire Shortbread

I had decided that for Valentine's day this year, I would bake my boyfriend something. I asked him in advance what he wanted, and whilst he gave me a list of different kind of cakes he enjoys I couldn't find a recipe that I liked for any of them, and so decided to go with my gut instinct and try out making some millionaire shortbread. It also meant I had the chance to surprise him!

The recipe came from my £1 Chocolate Recipes book again. Making the shortbread base was simple, as was the melted chocolate topping. The trouble came from the caramel part. Despite following all the instructions, it burnt slightly, and wouldn't thicken up as much as I'd hoped, however after a quick taste I decided to try it out anyway.

The results weren't bad. As I'd suspected, the caramel had been too runny, which meant that when I cut the millionaire shortbread up into squares, the caramel was oozing everywhere, and the whole thing looked a bit of a mess. However, it tasted good - and my boyfriend really enjoyed it, which was the main point for this week's recipe.

Week Six - Marbled Chocolate Cheesecake

At the start of the year, one of my friends decided to start up a baking club, where we all go round to each others' houses and teach everyone new recipes. As well as being a fun idea, it also seemed to fit in well with my resolution!

The first meeting was last Friday, and to kick things off we were all tasked with making a Chocolate Cheesecake. I'd made Chocolate Cheesecake once before, but it was a diet recipe, and didn't really turn out too well. This time I decided to forget about the calories, but only make a small amount so that there wasn't lots of leftovers for me to eat afterwards!

I knew I wanted a new recipe for it, but on doing a quick google search there seemed to be a lot of options out there, although none of the ones I looked at really grabbed me. I had a bit of a think about what I wanted to do, and liked the idea of doing some sort of marbled milk and white chocolate version, but couldn't find a recipe. However, when I was buying my £1 cookbooks the weekend before last, I found a chocolate recipe book, and in it was the exact thing I was looking for a no bake marbled chocolate cheesecake!

Aside from forgetting to buy caster sugar, and having to leave work early on Friday so that I could get home early to make and set the cheesecake before heading to the baking club, it was very easy to make - a standard digestive/ butter mix for the base, and then philadelphia, cream, sugar and chocolate for the toppings. I made 2 bowls of chocolate topping - one white, one milk, and then just spooned them on to my base one over the other, before swirling everything together with a knife. Simple!

There were four of us at the baking club who had made cheesecakes, and all of them were totally different. As well as mine we had cheesecake cupcakes, a more traditional baked chocolate cheesecake and a chocolate orange cheesecake with a pastry style base. All were delicious! We had a bit of a competition to pick the best out of the bunch, which was a very difficult decision. In the end I came out joint first together with the more traditional style cake, and was very pleased with the results!

I think this has been my favourite recipe so far, definitely one to make again, although not too often given the major calorific value!

Week Five – Beef Stifado

I was shopping this weekend and discovered a local discount book store was shutting down and was selling most of its books off at £1 each, so after spending a while browsing, amongst other things I came out with 4 new recipe books – perfect for giving me some extra ideas for this challenge.

One of the books I discovered was by a chef called Sophie Mitchell, who I had seen before on Channel 4’s Cook Yourself Thin a few years ago. After a quick flick through, the first recipe that caught my eye was Beef Stifado – something I’d tried years ago whilst I was on holiday in Zakynthos. I’d never thought about making it myself before, but seeing the recipe reminded me how much I’d enjoyed it, and if I left out all the oil it was actually a very healthy recipe.

Overall I was pleased with the results. There was a really nice combination of flavours, and it was simple to put everything together. However, next time I make this I would probably try cooking it in my slow cooker, as I do with other stews, to give the flavours more time to come together, and also to make sure the beef goes nice and tender.

Week Four - Pot Roast Meatloaf

I’m a bit late in getting around to updating this, but my week 4 recipe was made on Sunday. It was back to one of my Jamie Oliver recipe books this week, and a pot roast meatloaf with a tomato sauce. Again, it was something I’d been meaning to try for a while, but just hadn’t got round to.

It was a simple recipe to make, with very little effort required – perfect for a lazy Sunday! The results were ok. I really liked the sauce surrounding the meatloaf – simple but very tasty and full of flavour, and something I definitely want to use again with other meals. However, the meatloaf itself didn’t really hold together well, and I felt it tasted quite bland. I had the leftovers for dinner again on Monday night, and it had improved slightly after sitting in the fridge overnight, but it was still lacking something.

This is a recipe I’d like to try again, but add some extras to the meatloaf mixture this time – definitely some garlic, and possibly some fresh rosemary through it too.

Week Three - Potato Ravioli

One of the presents I received for Christmas was a small recipe book for using potatoes in lots of different ways. It looks a good book with quite a few nice sounding recipes in it, and given that potatoes are one of the free foods on my diet I looked to the book this week for my latest recipe.

The first thing that caught my eye was a potato ravioli, something I'd never considered making before, but looked nice in the pictures, sounded simple enough to make and wouldn't break my newly started diet. I tried to make it last night, and it turned into a bit of a disaster. The ravioli filling mixture was easy to make and tasted fine, however the potato dough to make the ravioli just didn't work. The dough was far too sticky, and when I tried to parcel everything together, it all just broke apart.

I had hoped that presentation may not matter, and that the end product would still taste ok, but that wasn't to be. It just tasted bland, and not at all like I imagined. In the end I gave up, cooked some penne and stirred that through the remaining ravioli mixture, which was at least edible! Definitely not a recipe I will be trying again!

Week Two – Hazel’s Chocolate Chip Birthday Cake

My second new recipe of the year was made yesterday and was a birthday cake for a friend. I’m more of a cook than a baker, so haven’t really made too many cakes before. I wasn’t entirely sure what sort of cake I wanted to do, and after flicking through a birthday cake book I still hadn’t been inspired. I had an idea in my head that a chocolate chip style cake might be nice, and managed to find a recipe I liked the sound of through Google to use as a starting point.

I made two chocolate sponges, with white chocolate button chips, following the recipe, and then decided to add some vanilla butter cream icing in between the sponges. On the top I melted some more chocolate and decorated it with some smarties.

The cake was eaten at Hazel’s birthday night out last night, and seemed to go down well.

Week One – Minced Beef Wellington

I’m a few days late posting this as I’ve been ill, but week one’s recipe was completed earlier this week! A minced beef wellington was my first choice, mainly so that I could enjoy the puff pastry before the diet starts tomorrow!

I’d used a Jamie Oliver recipe from one of the books I have, only modifying it slightly to avoid the nasty mushrooms, and overall I was pretty pleased with the results. Although it took a while to prepare and cook, it was very simple to make. The only downside was cutting it when it came out of the oven – some of it sliced up nicely and held together, but most of it crumbled into bits. However, I served it up with some mashed potato and gravy and thoroughly enjoyed it.

It’s definitely a recipe I want to try again, though next time I think I’ll make some smaller individual wellingtons so they can be served whole on the plate, rather than having to go through the difficult slicing again.

My Resolution

I've always loved cooking, and whenever I get a new recipe book I devour it, marking up all the recipes I want to try. However, many of these I never get around to trying out because I'm too busy. By the end of last year I was feeling in a bit of rut, continually making the same old food every week, and wanted this to change. Then came the brainwave - my new year's resolution for 2010 would be to cook a new recipe every week for the year - the recipe can be anything at all such as a main course, a soup, a cake, even a side dish, just so long as it is new!

The first couple of recipes are just about decided - week 1 will be a beef wellington, a recipe I've been wanting to try out for a while, and then in week 2 I've promised to bake a birthday cake for a friend so I'm going to find a completely new cake recipe and give it a go.

The other part of the challenge is to do this in a healthy way. My 30th birthday is only a few months away and I want to lose a bit of weight beforehand, so the diet starts on January 11th. From then on, until I get to target I want my new recipes to be ones that I can eat without worrying about piling on the pounds.

This blog is going to be my record of the recipes of my challenge, and report the successes and failures, as well as making sure I keep on track and get to the 52 new recipes!