Sweet Chilli Chicken Noodles

After watching the BBC series Exploring China: A Culinary Adventure, with Ken Hom and Ching-He Huang (or, as Billy calls, "that dad and the girl"), I was inspired to do a bit of Chinese cooking myself. Well, I say "Chinese" but I'm in no way claiming this to be a traditional Chinese recipe. It's just something I thought would work well.

Not all Chinese cookery involves strange long list of ingredients. This recipe certainly doesn't, and can be cooked in 5 minutes flat.

Beef Biryani

This is a rice-based curry dish that is cooked all in one pot. So there's not much washing up to do afterwards. A totally good thing when I've got a week off work to do other things...

Yesterday we went to Winchester, where I did my Fine Art degree. This would've been made a great little picnic meal, but our decision to go was only made first thing in the morning, so there was absolutely no time to do anything.

Thai Red Chicken Curry

Today's been a busy day, with eating a hog roast barm and buying ox cheeks at the Southsea Food Festival to watching the Olympic torch go past my flat. The hog roast was run by the same people that do the farmers' market... I get one every time and the lads recognise me now. I'm hoping that means I'm now a regular and get extra crackling.

Almond and Chocolate Tartlets

Last week I bought myself a Kenwood Chef. Not as good looking as a KitchenAid, but it's performance is better (I realise that may sound a bit bias). And, after giving it pride of place in my kitchen I was itching to use it.

Now, I've got loads of ground almonds in the cupboard, so the challenge was to find a recipe that meant I could use both the almonds and the Chef. Luckily, my Mum and sent me some food magazines that I subscribe to, but hadn't changed the delivery address yet. In Delicious., happened to be a recipe for Amandine Tart - basically a fancy Bakewell Tart without the jam.

Homemade Pizza

I definitely need to make pizza from scratch more often. Making pizza dough is just about as satisfactory as making bread, but without the long wait. As far as toppings go, you can pretty much choose what your heart desires. Next time, I thinking of cracking an egg into the middle.  

My recommendation for toppings? Keep it simple. Don't overload it. Use mozzarella.