Pork chops in a cider sauce.

As usual it's been quite a while since we eat this one, but I remember it was so easy to make. Fry the chop, let it rest and then make the sauce in the same pan, with cream and cider and a few herbs. Yummy. I like dishes where you can stick the potatoes on to cook and make everything else in the time it takes them to cook. I did let the sauce reduce a bit too much this time, but that seems to happen a lot in our house with so many distractions and a toddler crying with hunger and clutching at your trousers. Thankfully Zoe is getting really good at distracting him in times of need and he seems to find anything she does hilarious. This will be a make again, just need to encourage little ones to eat pork!

Salmon and Sweet potato cakes.

These are quite a nice lunchtime meal although it does have a little work involved. Everything needs to be cooked in advance and then you fry it off as a cake. I have to be honest, I wasn't keen on these, They were really wet when putting them together but I didn't like the flavour. I like sweet potato but I found it too rich with the salmon too. As to them being a bit sloppy but that is probably my fault because I couldn't take the time to squeeze the water out. Not a complete success and we have other fishcake recipes that we usually use so to be honest I think we'll go back to them. Not a criticism just not for us! (Well Mark liked them)

Paella

Just like curries and stir frys we love Paella. I think anything that can be cooked in one pan is the best type of food. This one is pretty similar to our regular recipe, chorizo, chicken prawns, rice and saffron. Can't go far wrong and it was tasty. We had this one last week and have eaten paella again since, but we have reverted to our usual. Probably because Mark just does it, it's his recipe he always makes the paella. It just doesn't taste right whenever I make it. So it gets the thumbs up from us, but we love Paella anyone, so it was never going to be a problem.

Thai Green Curry

When I first read through this recipe I was really shocked: SHOP BOUGHT CURRY PASTE. I couldn't believe it, surely homemade is best. So I closed the book and of course, it's called Home Cooking Made Easy. Doh, why make a paste when you can buy really good ones. There are a couple of additions to make it a little bit more special. Not just paste and coconut milk here. There are peas and basil to start with. All in all a really good curry and now we have the rest of the curry paste for next time which is never a bad thing in case of emergency.

This will be a quiet week for me, not in terms of work but cooking. I've been almost forced not to cook anything from the book this week. It's due to a mixture of professional work load along with my daughters first christmas fayre and I have committed to making an inordinate amount of cakes and cake pops. But it does mean that I can catch up with past makes on the blog, as I've mentioned before I am really far behind. You can probably tell, it's been a while since I made the curry and I can't remember much of the make!!! But it was easy and it was tasty.

Chicken Kiev with roasted carrots

I have to be honest I've been putting this one off for a while now, not because it didn't taste good but because it looks horrendous in the picture. All that orange!!!! In terms of dishes this one includes a whopping three, not including the potatoes. It has the kiev as well as the flavoured butter inside which are separate recipes in the book. The roasted carrots are also another. The kiev is pretty straight forward, bang out the chicken, place a slice of garlic butter in the middle, roll it up and cover it in flour, egg and breadcrumbs. The breadcrumbs caused me problems. They are specified as dry breadcrumbs so you can't just whiz up an old crust out of the bread bin. I spent ages wandering around Tesco looking for panko crumbs, which I had definitely seen there (anyone who watches Masterchef Austrailia will know what I'm talking about) . But of course in Tescos ultimate wisdom of what the shopper really wants, they have moved everything around, and in the strangest way and combination of products. It drove me insane, it used to make sense all the things they had together, it's almost as if someone in an office got bored and decided just for fun, lets screw with the people of wrexham......aarrrgghhhhhh. Ok rant over, didn't/couldn't find them. But then I had the most ingenious cooking idea I think I've ever had, anyone with small children will have a box of breadsticks in the house, my house is no exception and for some reason my children wont eat them anymore. But they make the best crispy coating ever!!!! Honestly they were brilliant. They made the dish.

Roasted carrots, well what can you say, put in roasting pan and bake in the oven, done. I also sliced potatoes in a similar way to the chicken recipe because they were yummy. So it may not be pretty but it was pretty tasty.

Butternut Squash Soup with Pain d'epi

In the past few days I've been in contact with a fellow blogger who is making her way through Mary Berrys Baking Bible. I have the upmost respect for both the Lady Berry and also the blogger for what she is undertaking http://risingtotheberry.blogspot.com/. She has over 250 recipes to get through and I think all of them are sweet. When I was making my way through the first book the biggest problem I had was to somehow get rid of all the sweet stuff so that I wouldn't have to eat it all myself. Thank fully I have lots of very willing friends who are prepared to sample my bakes, but what amazes me most is she makes everything look so pretty. Just looking at the photographs of my food, I'm just so pleased to have got another out of the way that I just grab the photo and tuck in.

So as you can see from the photographs above, I don't suddenly have a new career direction when it comes to photography. Thankfully though I do enjoy my labours and I got the chance to make bread. Since watching the bake off I've been desperate to make bread again and there's always a reason not to. Children being one, planning to do for school, laminating, cutting out, report writing etc. But by undertaking a project like this it means you have to do it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being forced into this I really enjoy it and I loved making the bread. Apart from the very pointy ends I was quite pleased with it too. So often I think I've killed the yeast in the past but after a top tip from Paul Hollywood I'm getting past the salt/ yeast fiasco.

As for the soup, well it was really yummy, warming and tasty with a hint of ginger, even Zoe lapped it up so it must have been ok. So to work on for the next few weeks are my presentation skills. Been a bit lacking, won't see the results for a while as I'm so behind on updating the blog. This whole back to work and lots of cooking is not always a great mix.

Shepherds Pie

You can't beat a decent shepherds pie on a cold autumn evening in my book. My problem is the amount of time it takes to cook them. For most people midweek meals need to take less than 30 minutes from start to finish, well in my house they do. The problem with shepherds pie is you spend all that time making the meat sauce, boiling and mashing potatoes and then after all that you still need to spend at least 30 mins baking it! I'm sure there are people out there who spend their weekends preparing for the mid week situation and have a pie ready in the fridge just to stick in the oven when needed. Well I'm sorry I'm not that person. It's similar to a lasagne really all that work just to get half way there. Saying all that though, I do really like Shepherds pie and this is a pretty good one, very tasty. It's just all too much hard work for my liking.