May the 4th be with you.

Ahh the royal wedding, what else could bring such joy to so many people? I can’t say I am much of a royalist and so took the opportunity to do a bit of shopping and it warms the cockles of my heart to think that whilst the happy couple were saying “I do” I was in the chilled section looking at cheese. Nice cheese, mind, it was a posh event after all.

Royal nuptials aside, today I was taught a valuable life lesson. If you have one of those new-fangled smartphones that are all touchscreen and you’re out and about reading an important email do not, under any circumstances, fail to lock the screen before crossing the road. Why? Because if you don’t what may happen is that by the time you’ve crossed the road the email that, if you recall, really was quite important will have disappeared into the ether without a trace. This actually happened to me today and I experienced a mild panic somewhat akin to having a near-death experience  before eventually finding the email buried so deep in my email folders that I practically needed a ladder to get it back out.  How the palm of my hand managed to do this without the assistance of my fingers is beyond me. Clearly I’ll have to keep an eye on the sneaky git.

Now it has come to my attention that although I find some of the rubbish I’ve been eating recently entertaining in an almost masochistic way not everyone shares my feelings and that I should probably cook something proper for my dinner for once. Some have even gone as far as to offer to buy me a book if I send them my address but I think this is more a thinly veiled attempt to stalk me rather than genuine concern for my well being. I’m looking at you, Debjani…

Far be it for me to defy public opinion so tonight I will be cooking this:

Roasted Onions with Marmite Sausages.

Ingredients:

• 8 medium onions
• 50g dried prunes, stoned and finely chopped
• 350g good quality sausagemeat
• 2 teaspoons marmite
• 1 level teaspoon chopped rosemary
• fresh black pepper
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 25g unsalted butter

Ok, so I may have lied just a tiny amount about my intentions to reform immediately but in my defence this recipe was already picked out for me before peoples’ opinions became clear and it is actually rather intriguing. Just take a look at how pretty all of the ingredients look:

Guess how much the sausage meat cost me.

Alright, not actually that pretty (especially not the prunes) but this recipe is genuinely interesting and involves doing things that I wouldn't ever have considered doing in a million years. Take a look at what I’m supposed to do:

1. Bring a large pan of water to the boil and cook the whole and unpeeled onions, for 15-20 minutes. Drain the onions and allow them to cool until easy to handle.
2. Put the prunes, sausagemeat, marmite, rosemary and black pepper into a bowl and mash thoroughly - using the back of a spoon is an easy way to do this.
3. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Cut of the lid of each onion and scoop out the middle third of each onion with a teaspoon - you can always use this for a soup - and fill the hole with the sausage mixture. Drizzle with the olive oil and roast in the oven for 30-35 minutes. Great served with a leafy salad and some good crusty bread.

See? I get to boil onions and fill them with sausage.  Now who could resist such a thing? Ahh come on, you know you want to! No? Shame.

Cooking this, as you might imagine from a recipe with just three steps is easy-peasy and it's genuinely amusing to watch the water slowly turn brown as the onions are boiling. The only thing I would say is if you're hungry do not under any circumstances wait for the onions to cool on their own. Get some cold water action going, your stomach will thank you. Oh and the butter that's in the list and the picture of the ingredients? Mentioned once and never used. Typical.

Bless, they look like tiny pumpkins!

The verdict:

Although these took quite a long time to cook and were really quite fiddly to make at points the results were actually good and opening them up was pretty exciting. Admittedly they are a bit 70s and the prunes are in no way necessary (the onions are sweet enough) but I kind of liked them. Maybe I'll inflict them on make them for my friends.

Lessons learned:

• Trying to take the middle of an onion out is a lot more difficult than it sounds. Use a knife.
• Sausage meat is like evil glue that sticks to everything. Handle only with wet hands.
• Waiting for food is boring but a nice Gin & Tonic helps pass the time.

The cost:

• Sausage meat: £1.
• Prunes: £2.85

Grand total:  £3.85 (I really couldn't find a smaller packet of prunes)

Righty, I'm off and will return in two weeks!

Laters!

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It’s not very often that you see people wearing bowler hats these days, they seem to have faded into history along with large moustaches and smoking pipes, and I can’t really say that it’s a terribly bad thing. I’m not a huge fan of hats in general as they all make me look stupid (it’s the hat, honest!) but the bowler really is one of the more stupid looking hats available (not including intentionally comic hats, that is). So imagine my surprise when I saw on my way home today a fairly young chap wearing, without even the slightest hint of irony, a bowler hat and a pinstripe suit. He looked like a banker from the 80s but was clearly only in his 20s, quite a mystery. Perhaps he was trying to distract the world from his lack of a chin…

In other news I still haven’t found a new set of books from which to randomly choose recipes. It’s not that I’m short of books (far from it) it’s actually because almost all of them contain huge tracts of waffle about one thing or another. I’m not against the authors giving their perspective on things and I’m sure many people love reading those sections. The real trouble is that I was spoiled by my previous books where I could simply get a number from someone and it would guarantee me a recipe. Nothing quite l breaks the fun of doing this as having the following conversation:

Me: “Random person, pick me a number between 0.312 and a million.”

Random Person: “69. Heheheh” (you’d be surprised how many people do this).

Me: “Hmm, nothing on page 69 other than a picture of a cowpat and a diatribe about arable land. Pick me another.”

Random Person: “Er… 999,999.”

Me: “OK, you got me, the book isn’t really that big. Try for something under 200.”

Random Person: “12.”

Me: “Nope,  that’s a diagram of a sheep’s stomach and what appears to be something on the transmutation of base metals into gold. Again. Pick me another”

And so on and so on and so on….

This gets very dull very quickly and has made me slightly phobic of the whole process so tonight I have chosen my own recipe. Not that I’ve been especially nice to myself. No, you might even describe my choice as vindictive. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve this:

Spaghetti with Marmite

Ingredients:

• 375g/13oz dried spaghetti
• 50g/2oz unsalted butter
• 1 tsp Marmite, to taste
• freshly grated parmesan, to serve

This is an honest to goodness recipe from an actual TV chef. Don’t trust me? Here’s the proof: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/spaghetti_with_marmite_06786

I really cannot explain why I’ve chosen this, I think it might be the fact that this cannot possibly work at all really drew me to it or perhaps it was that the majority of the ingredients ae yellow. Look.

I fear that my parmesan might be a little too posh for this.

Now this recipe is for 4 and there’s no way that I’m cooking all of it. The prospect of inedible marmitey left-overs is too chilling to contemplate so I’m going to reduce the amount of spaghetti in the recipe but leave the sauce as it is the quantities are small enough as they stand and I don’t have to use all of it in one go. Just think of the marvellous things I can pour it over. The drain springs to mind…

1. Cook the spaghetti in plenty of boiling, salted water, according to the packet instructions.
2. When the pasta is almost cooked, melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the Marmite and one tablespoon of the pasta water, mixing thoroughly to dissolve.
3. Reserve half a cup of the pasta water; then drain the pasta and pour the Marmite mixture over the drained spaghetti, adding a little of the reserved pasta water to amalgamate if required.
4. Serve with plenty of grated parmesan.

Pretty simple, no? Here’s the result:

A pile of spaghetti, what more can I say?

The verdict:

I think it's fair to say that I was surprised by this dish. It really wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be and as far as quick meals go it's pretty good. According to the recipe this is a cheat version of an Italian dish and really should be done with proper stock and some rosemary which is something I will definitely be trying in the future. I'm going to label this as a qualified success.

Lessons learned:

• I have far too many glasses and a horrible habit of using them all. I had to wash 27 of them today...
• I hate washing glasses.

The cost:

Actually, I had all the ingredients at home so for the first time ever (in my recollection anyway) this was totally free! Excellent.

Righty, time for a glass of wine and Masterchef.

Laters!

There was a young man from Nantucket.

Ding dong the witch is dead! Which old witch? The Wicked witch Microwave for one! Not, you understand, dead and buried. More like retired to a small village in the Cotswolds. I’m still pondering some form of Viking funeral for it, mind, but if I never, ever read it again then I’m sure I’ll be able to resist my more inflammatory urges. Maybe.

One small problem, however, is that I’ve totally failed to find any book to replace it. Now I know that you’ve all been very helpful and suggested lots of lovely books and I’m not saying that I’m short on options. No, what I’m saying is that I’ve totally failed to shop for a new book. Given my normal background level of Amazon-powered purchases (which can be anything in the range of “excessive” to “frenzied”) it’s a bit of a puzzle as to why I haven’t managed to get anything but there it is.

In the absence of a new book to work with I pondered, briefly, returning to the Good Food books and I even went as far as to pick a recipe at random. So am I cooking that one? No. You may well wonder why and the reason is very, very simple: it was for six people.

Six.

Clearly I was being taunted and/or mocked. One of the main reasons I’d given up was the leftovers and here I was being offered a recipe that might as well have been for 11 with the amount of leftovers I would end up with. It wasn’t even as if I could use less ingredients as it asked for whole cans of things so even if I didn’t cook as much I’d be left with a load of half-full tins that I would never use and would eventually throw out. This would never do.

Eventually I hit on a solution to my dilemma and that was to go to the Good Food website itself, limit the search to recipes for one and hit go. You’ll see why it’s an imperfect system in a moment but at least it gave me something to cook. Here’s the first result:

Shepherd’s pie potatoes

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp butter
• ½ onion , chopped
• 140g lean minced beef
• 250ml beef stock
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• 1 large jacket potato , baked
• small handful grated cheddar

OK so I’ve got two issues with this recipe. The first is one of nomenclature. Now I’m not an expert and I could well be entirely wrong but I am convinced that shepherd’s pie has lamb in it and not beef (in fact I’m sure I’ve covered this one before briefly). Sure I could go look it up to find out for certain but I’ve already typed this paragraph out and I’ll only have to go and replace it if I prove myself wrong.

The second is really my fault. You see I glanced very quickly at the recipe last night and thought to myself “cool, that’ll take about an hour to cook, that’s about OK”. Trouble is I didn’t notice that the recipe wants a potato that is already baked. How this is going to affect the timing is beyond me. I never usually bake potatoes so I’ve absolutely no idea how long this is going to take. This could, potentially, be another midnight posting…

Anyway, here’s a lovely family shot of the soon to be cooked and eaten ingredients:

Cheese and stock omitted for no good reason

What you can’t see here (because I hid it) is the second potato that I cowardly bought for microwaving if this all looked like it was going to take too long.

As you might imagine, this is hardly complicated stuff. Here’s how it works:

1. Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Melt half the butter in a non-stick pan. Cook the onion for 3-4 mins, then increase the heat and add the mince. Fry for a further 3-4 mins until the beef has browned. Stir in the stock, Worcestershire sauce, tomato purée and some seasoning. Gently bubble for 15-20 mins until the mince is tender and the sauce has thickened.
2. To assemble, cut the jacket potato in half lengthways and scoop the flesh into a small bowl, leaving the skin intact. Mash the potato with the remaining butter and season well. Divide the mince between the potato skins, then cover with the mash. Transfer the potatoes to a baking dish, sprinkle with cheese, then bake for 15-20 mins until golden. Serve with your favourite veg.

Now it may not seem like this would take a long time but trust me when I say this took ages. Possibly the fact that I was tired and hungry didn't help but I didn't get to try it till 9pm. Which, for me, was far too late.

Still, I made it and here's how it looked:

Hmm...

The verdict:

Well what can I say? Overall this thing took too long and was extremely disappointing and I think I might have liked it more had I made an actual cottage pie out of the ingredients. It all seemed like a lot of effort just to make something that is a well known recipe in some way different and new. Not something I will be trying again.

Lessons learned:

• Sometimes presentation is just that and nothing more.
• Extra mature cheddar does not melt well (in my defence I bought it by mistake).
• Three is a pleasing number and I should endeavour to learn more things.

The cost:

• Steak mince: £1.40
• Baking potato: 32p
• Onion: 16p
• Tomato purée: 43p

Grand total: £2.31 which is OK, I guess.

Time I should be went.

Laters!

Thora Hird

It’s not very often that a group of people will simultaneously turn on a book and decide that they hate it (ok, I’ll admit it happens a lot) and I really wasn’t expecting the backlash that Microwave for One has received. I think it was the idea of putting Marie Rose sauce on lemon sole that truly made people turn. After all, who cares about turkey?

It’s with this in mind that I have decided that this will be the last week I’ll be using this particular book. From next week I’ll move on to something better. I’m not yet sure what it is I’ll do but I’m sure I’ll think of something (or one of you kind people will come up with a suggestion).

So seeing as this is Microwave for One’s last hurrah I, of course, decided that I would choose the best thing the book had to offer in the hope that it might be able to redeem itself, right? Wrong. I simply couldn’t be bothered to read through it and any attempt soon left me feeling nauseated. Bugger it. Let fate decide.

Fate chose page 63 which brings to us the culinary delight that is…

Soy Chicken

Ingredients:

• 75g soya sprouts
• 3 spring onions
• 2 chicken thighs
• 1 rounded teaspoon stock or gravy granules
• 2 tablespoons boiling water
• shake of pepper

Now if you, like me, were expecting this to be something lovely involving chicken, Asian spices and soy sauce I’m sure that you’re feeling rather disappointed by this recipe (if you’re a lot like me you’re also feeling a little queasy at the prospect). This recipe makes no sense at all. For starters it’s got soy shoots and gravy in it for crying out loud. I’ve got absolutely no idea what this is going to taste like and I’m more than a little scared.

The second (and possibly most worrying) aspect is that it calls for chicken thighs. Hold on. Before you start shouting that chicken thighs have more flavour than chicken breast and that I’m a philistine for complaining about their use just think for a second. Imagine hot chicken thighs with the skin on fresh from the microwave. Have you got a mental picture of pallid, greasy skin and unrendered fat? I have and I don’t like it. Therefore I will be removing ALL traces of skin and fat from the chicken before it goes anywhere near the microwave. Seriously, I feel slightly ill now.

Anyway, onwards. Here’s my haul from Tesco:

Gravy...

You’ll observe that I’ve gone for bog standard beansprouts rather than tracking down actual soy shoots and I’ve assumed that the gravy is chicken. This is because I am bone idle and couldn’t be bothered to work at this. That and I really, really didn’t want to invest more time shopping for this than it would take to cook. Clearly I was pressed for time…

Here’s how the magic happens:

1. Wash and drain soya sprouts. Trim and chop spring onions.
2. Put into a 1 pint round cooking dish.
3. Wash and dry chicken. Place on top.
4. Mix together granules and water. Add pepper.
5. Pour over chicken mixture.
6. Cover with cling wrap. Puncture twice with the tip of a knife to prevent a build-up of steam.
7. Cook on full power for 6 minutes.
8. Stand for 4 minutes. Uncover. Serve.

Now this dish is described as having a “crispy texture” and I’m having a hard time believing that this is at all possible given that this is cooked in a microwave. Still, it’s cooked now. Check it:

Hmm, this doesn't look all that bad...

Verdict:

Fate is definitely messing with me. As soon as I decide that this book is a total waste of time it throws me a recipe that I quite like. I'm serious! This was actually quite nice. OK I could taste the gravy and because it was made from granules it didn't taste all that nice but there was something about this dish that I liked. In fact I liked it so much I ate it all. Promise...

Lessons learned:

Nope, I learned nothing other than the fact that fate has a twisted sense of humour but I'm sure I already knew that one.

Oh alright here's one:

• Chicken thighs can actually be quite nice microwaved. Much nicer than I was expecting.

The cost:

• Chicken thighs: £3.05
• Beansprouts: 50p
• Spring onions: 72p

Grand total: £4.32 which seems like a lot for one meal but I did have to buy a giant pack of chicken thighs which will do for other meals.

Righty, time for a G&T and Masterchef on catch-up.

Laters!

The Sole of Discretion

Today I have been working from home. Which for those of you not fortunate enough to have experienced usually means that clothes are, at best, optional. But not today. No, today I was waiting for a plumber to come and prod my boiler and pronounce it safe for another year so I had to actually get out of bed and make myself and my flat at least vaguely presentable. Cue me frantically doing the washing-up and trying to hide the worst of it at 8am so that when he arrived at 9am he wouldn't judge me too harshly. Sadly 9am came and went and there was no plumber. Same at 10am and again at 11am. No plumber. When he eventually turned up I was dangerously close to running out of milk and beginning to panic slightly that I wouldn't be able to offer him a cup of tea. It turns out, however, that Russian plumbers don't drink tea, perhaps I should have got some vodka in...

Tonight was to see the return of Microwave for One and I had a recipe picked out and everything. Last week I failed to mention that Turkey in a Wood is on page 72 and today's is on the inverse of that, page 27:

Sole in Rose Marie Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2 level tablespoons tomato ketchup
• 2 rounded tablespoons thick mayonnaise (not salad cream)
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon medium or sweet sherry
• a shake of Tabasco or cayenne pepper
• 1 lemon sole (225g)
• 2 slices of lemon for garnish
• parsley or watercress for garnish

Ahh, garnish, how we have missed thee. How are the 80s? I'm also amused that the author decided that it was vitally important that we don't somehow become confused between mayonnaise and salad cream. I guess that this was a common mistake back when shoulder-pads and big hair were viewed by many as attractive. Clearly it was a mixed-up time.

Now, the more observant of you probably noticed that tonight was to see the return of microwave cooking but I've hit a slight snag. You see that my local Tesco Enormo doesn't have any sole of any description. I spent a good 10 minutes looking for the stuff and just couldn't find it (it's not all bad: I did find shampoo with a picture of Jenson Button on it so from tomorrow I'll have go-faster hair). This means that I can make the sauce but have nothing to put it on. I did, briefly, toy with the idea of putting it on prawns just to see what it tasted like but this blog has made me eat way more than my fair share of pink commas so I'm refusing.

Before anyone starts leaving comments about how stupid I am and that I could easily have substituted a different fish I would like to inform you all that I have already been told of the alternative fish and that I will cook using a different one if necessary. However it's my belief that changing things is not in the spirit of this blog so I'm determined to find lemon sole if it's the last thing I do.

Sadly this means that I'm going to have to stop here for the moment. Expect a second post soon.

Laters!

Oh and I apologise for the terrible pun in the title, I couldn't stop myself.

The Bagel of Despair

I'm fairly sure that I've discussed in the past how certain things are out to get me and today it's my netbook. I'd written three fantastic paragraphs detailing the reasons that I'd stopped writing this blog (essentially the reasons were work and leftovers, but I'll come back to them) and I reached a point where I had to open my bag to check a name (Sonia Allison, not that the name means anything to you at this point). Now to get into my bag I had to shut the lid on my netbook as it was resting on top of my bag. No problem, when the lid shuts it should save its state to disk and go into hibernation and the first bit of that went really well. The netbook shut down and the power light started gently flashing. The second part didn't go quite how I planned it, however, and unfortunately no matter what I did it didn't want to wake up at all.

Problem...

Eventually I chose to shut it down completely and reboot in the vain hope that somehow my document might get auto-recovered and I would miraculously be saved. As you're reading this i'm pretty sure you can figure out how well that went...

But anyway, to put it briefly the reasons I stopped writing were twofold, one that hasn't really improved and one that I think I have a solution for. Let's deal with the insoluble one first, ok?

Pathetic excuse #1:

It's that old chestnut: work. Yes, I am once again blaming (partially) my employer for my absence. To be fair they're an easy target and I'm sure at least one of you is still buying that excuse...

Pathetic excuse #2:

Now this one genuinely did bother me and that was the sheer quanitity of leftovers I was generating. There came a point where I simply couldn't fit anything new in my freezer and I was forced to start throwing things away. Throwing food away always makes me unhappy so I took a break to try and work my way through my frozen food. I've only just finished, honest...

There is a cunning way to make PE#2 go away and that is the genius move of cooking much less food and I think I've found the recipe book that's going to do that for me. It was recently named “The Saddest Book in the Universe” by one Reddit user here but I know it by its more common name “Microwave for One” by Sonia Allison...

So lonely...

You'll notice from the not quite cutting-edge styling of the cover that this book was first published quite some time ago. Presumably when microwaves were new and cool and people viewed them as little miracle cooking devices that could do anything and although we know better these days there's such a sense of optimism in this book that I can't help but get excited. Having said that, the fact that the person on the cover (presumably Sonia herself) looks positively unwell probably means that I should perhaps temper my enthusiasm with a healthy sprinkling of cynicism.

This little gem of a book contains a myriad of 80s culinary horrors recipes (well, I say recipes but one of them is cooking a potato waffle) and is a little light on photographs so I've absolutely no idea what today's recipe is supposed to look like, see what your fevered imaginations make of this:

Turkey in a Wood.

Ingredients:

• 175g turkey breast fillet
• 125g trimmed leek
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 can (220g) prunes in syrup
• ¼ to ½ teaspoon salt

Yes, prunes, I've absolutely no idea what the author was thinking when she wrote this and it appears  that fate has decided that my first recipe from this book is straight from the “challenging flavours” section. No matter, I'm ploughing ahead regardless and found everything I needed in my local super market:

Well it's simple, I'll give it that.

Sonia helpfully decided to add a difficulty rating to all of the recipes in this book and this one is listed as “fairly quick and trouble-free” here's how it goes:

1. Cut turkey into small cubes
2. Put into a 1 pint round cooking dish. Slit leek, thouroughly wash and cut into thin slices.
3. Stir into turkey with flour.
4. Cover with...

Oh bugger it, I really cannot be sitting here typing out this horrible thing. If you're really that interested you can buy the book! In reality the recipe should read like this:

1. Cut turkey into small cubes,
2. Do unspeakable things involving a microwave and prunes.
3. Order pizza.

But I'm not allowed to do that and so had to cook this thing according to the recipe, here's what it looked like:

There's more than enough for seconds...

The verdict:

Well it wasn't as vile as I'd imagined it being. The turkey was moist and went fairly well with the leeks and the sweetness of the prune syrup. Not as vile, but still pretty horrible, if you want to imagine it then I'd suggest starting with sweet and sour chicken and making everything worse. Luckily for me I have back up food that I can eat instead because there's no way I am ever going to eat that!

Lessons learned:

• Turkey isn't a brilliant meat at the best of times and microwaving it doesn't improve things
• A lot of things happened in the 80s and some of them should definitely stay there.
• Prunes.

The cost:

• Turkey: £3.00
• Prunes: 77p
• A leek: 30p

Grand total: £4.07. I've got to admit that I thought it was going to be cheaper than that...

Righty, I'm off to watch Masterchef, who's going to put the kettle on?

I think I have pre-senile dementia.

Ahh Tuesday, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways... Zero, absolutely nothing. Many years ago I decided, through an unnecessarily convoluted thought process, that Tuesdays were the worst day of the week and as such should be abolished and unfortunately I think I may have repeated this conviction on a Tuesday sometime in the past and ever since Tuesdays have been out to get me, it's still the worst day of the week but recently it's seemed personal.

Not that this has anything to do with the reason I didn't write anything last Thursday, apart from them sharing a number of letters, so why mention it? To be completely honest I've no idea but I'll give you a run down of how last Thursday went and I'm sure you'll start to see some definite Tuesday characteristics.

So this Tuesday Thursday started early (as most do), well I say early but it was actually late. More specifically I was late, 2 hours late, when I finally roused from my slumber to find that I was due to be at work in 4 minutes time. Swearing myself out of bed I slung some clothes on and grabbed my, mercifully already packed, bag on the way to the door. The train ride was uneventful but it was on the Tube that the next bout of Tuesdayness occurred when the train driver informed us that the stop I use was closed “due to staff shortages” now I've no idea how many staff it takes to run a Tube station but I'm willing to bet that it can't be many. Surely they could have coped with one or two but apparently there's a minimum number of people required and they were under that number...

Actually, this is going to take an age if I try to list everything that went wrong on that day, let me summarise the rest:

• Had to walk to work with bag full of rather heavy ingredients.
• My work computer blew up suddenly and unexpectedly
• My glasses broke
• As it was the end of the month and the end of the quarter everyone and his dog wanted our attention

and finally, after all that:

The class was cancelled due to a lack of hot water in the classroom.

Yep, the reason that there was no blog from my course last week wasn't because I got caught trying to surreptitiously take photos of the ingredients, nor because someone thought it suspicious that I should be writing quite that much in a cookery course. No, it was for the most mundane of reasons and not even my protestations that it was OK because I didn't really want to do the washing up anyway would sway the powers that be. Class was cancelled. Go home.

What else could I reasonably do but go home and sulk over a pizza? I even ordered it from the train so I wouldn't have to wait too long when I got home. Sad isn't it? Frankly I by and large gave up on cooking for the entire weekend and existed on meals out and pizza leftovers.

Gave up, that is, until last night when in a fit of madness I decided that cauliflower, cheese and Marmite were a genius combination and that I had to cook it immediately. This is why I give you:

Cauliflower with Cheese and Marmite

Ingredients:

1. 
   
   A cauliflower.
2. 
   
   Some cheese (I used about 120g)
3. 
   
   Marmite.

Now I feel that this is a recipe that is going to generate some derision and will probably be utterly hated by at least half of the people reading this but stay with me on this. You see what I was thinking about was something that had been served to me on Sunday and that was cauliflower that had been cooked in the microwave and then finished off in the tray that a chicken had been roasted in with cheese scattered over it. The taste was absolutely inreadible and I was desperate to recreate the sensation without having to roast a whole chicken every time I fancied it. This, my brain decided, would be best achieved by using Marmite. Told you I was delusional...

Anyway, making this is easy-peasy:

Steam the cauliflower using a method of your choice (I was lazy and used the microwave but you can use a steamer if you're really that bothered). Meanwhile grate your cheese and pre-heat your grill to a high heat. Once the cauliflower is done, drain and place in an oven proof dish. Drizzle as much Marmite as you feel you can handle over the cauliflower and cover with the cheese. Grill until golden brown.

This is what you should end up with:

The verdict:

So did I really manage to recreate the taste that I was aiming for? No, no I did not. For some reason I utterly ignored the voice in the back of my head that was trying to tell me that even though I'd drained the cauliflower it probably still had a load of water trapped in it and that I should give it a few minutes to dry. As a result the water dissolved the Marmite and formed a thin brown liquid that sloshed around as I removed it from under the grill and almost burned my hand. I am a muppet but in my defence it had taken me 2 ½ hours to get home due to yet another Tube strike and I think my hunger made me rush.

I don't think, however, that this concept is a total loss and I'm convinced that I can get it right. Stay tuned.

Lessons learned:

• Marmite + steam = tasteless brown water.
• Pizza stays edible for a surprisingly long time.

The cost:

I'm going to take a guess at the prices here as I can't find the receipt but I reckon that the cauliflower cost about 35p and I used roughly 75p worth of cheese. Marmite is, of course, a limitless resource so trying to give it a value would be meaningless.

Righty, I have just been given a bucket-sized coffee. If you need me I'll be the blur in the corner.

Laters!