Anyway, back to the food, this was the first time I’ve tried real crab before, or at least, in recent memory. It tastes, oddly enough, of Crab Sticks, but the texture is slightly hairy. The dark meat has more flavour and more of a pate type texture. I wasn’t in love with it, texture wise, but the taste was right up there. I was expecting almost a prawn/lobster type taste, and although it wasn’t too far off, it wasn’t the same.
If you know someone who likes a bit of crab, this is a nice one to show off a crab’s crabbiness.

What You Need, enough to make for two.

• White crab meat and/or a ‘dressed crab’.
• Some pasta, I used Fusilli, but I think something like a linguini would work well too.
• A glass of white wine.
• Garlic, Chilli, Ginger and Parsley.
• Some Single Cream
• A drop of olive oil.

What you need to do.

• First up, boil the kettle for the pasta
• While that’s going, chop up the chilli, garlic, parsley and grate the ginger. Keep the seeds if you want a bit more heat; it’s the white coating on the seeds that are the ‘hot’ bit. I found the parsley very stalky, so chop this one up fine. I found the best way to do that, was to roll it up and do a rough-chop on it.
• Heat up some oil in a frying pan and add the chilli and ginger, then a few minutes later, add the garlic.
• By now, the kettle will be boiled, so boil up some pasta according to the packet, don’t forget to add salt and oil to the water, it stops it sticking and flavours it better.
• Add a big glug of white wine and let it reduce down to basically nothing.
• Add the crab, cream and parsley, let it simmer and reduce.
• I found it needed more ‘oomph’ to it, so I added juice from ¼ of a lemon, some salt, and some more wine, so I added that and let it reduce.
• Pasta should be done, taste a piece and if it’s the way you like it, drain it and add to the crabby creamy goodness.
• Serve and enjoy =)

Frozen white crab meat and pasta.

A nice bottle of plonk.

Chop the chili and garlic, great the ginger.

'Dressed Crab' - The mix of white and brown meat works well.

Fry up the Garlic, Ginger and Chilli.

Pasta ! Tip Top Tip: Fill up about 2/3 of your bowl to get the right amount.

Add the crab: It looks rank, but won't end up like that =)

Add the cream and wine, let it reduce.

Plonk in the Parsley: chop it up finer than this though.

That's more like it, give it a taste, add some salt or whatever you think it needs.

Stir in the pasta to the sauce.

Look. At. That.... Lovely.

Crabtastic Creamy Pasta: DONE.

Finished

I’ll admit to it, I hate cooking with rice. I can never get it quite how I like it, it’s either over or under done. I’ve not gotten around to buying a metal strainer either. I like eating it, just hate cooking it. I was sitting at the doctors, going through the “20 minute meal” Jamie Oliver app, and he showed me how it’s done. It looked a bit of a palaver, but I was determined to try it, and it turned out good (the second one, the first one I wasn’t keen on.)

What you need for two people…..

• 200g Arborio Rice
• A glass of White Wine
• An onion
• Some frozen peas
• Asparagus
• Some butter
• A pint of  Chicken Stock (Make your own, pre-made or stock cubes/gels are all good)
• Parmesan Cheese (get Flaked or fresh if you can, not sawdust).
• Same garlic
• Olive Oil

What you need to do….

• Put the stock in a pan and on the hob, if you’re using cubes/gel, add one cube/gel to boiling water. Let it simmer and stir.
• Chop the Asparagus tips into 3 pieces.
• Chop up some garlic and an onion, shallow fry ’till translucent in butter and a bit of olive oil
• Pour in the rice and cook it for a few minutes (the point if this is to break the rice’s shell and let the stock and wine get in)
• [For the next few bits, keep on stirring every few minutes]
• Pour over the wine, and let it evaporate.
• Keep on adding a ladle full of stock when it all gets evaporated. Over the 15 or so minutes this takes, add the Asparagus, the thick end after 5 minutes, the middle after the next 5, and the tips right at the end. On the last one, add the peas too
• Once the stock is absorbed, if the consistency is too stodgy, add some water, or cook it for longer, use your judgement. Remember though, the Parmesan will thicken it.
• Add a nice nob of butter and the Parmesan, stir it all in, take it off the hob and leave it for about 10 minutes.
• Serve and enjoy =)

All the bits you need

Simmer the stock (using Gel here)

Sweat down some garlic and onions in butter.

Add the rice and let it cook.

Thick bits of aspagous first, then thin bits. Let the stock get absorbed into the rice.

Once all the stock and stuff is in, it tripples in size.

Serve and enjoy =)

A lovely christmas prezzy.

Have I come up trumps, or have I come up trumps. Oh boy, this is a great recipe. There was a bit of flaffing about, cutting up all the vegetables (and braving ASDA a few days before Christmas), but I think this one is worth it, and it makes so much that if you give 3/4 of it away as a gift, you’ll still have enough to last you a good while. There is a Sweet Chili sauce I buy from the local butchers, “So!Go sweet chili”, it’s about £4 a bottle, and although it lasts a little 200ml bottle. It’s great stuff, but if I was charging that for this stuff, I’d be a millionaire after the 5th batch, and let me tell you, it’s a damn sight better.

This is the first time I’ve made a Jam/chutney/thinggy. If It sets, then I’m calling it a jam, if it doesn’t, it’s a sauce… I’ll let you know in the morning.

What you’ll need….

• 8 ‘pointer’ red peppers (they’re nicer than normal peppers)
• 10ish Red Chilis (don’t worry, it won’t blow your head off)
• A bundle of Spring Onion.
• Two red onions
• A bottle of Red Wine Vinegar (350ml)
• 1kg of Preserve Sugar (or I hear you can use Golden Caster Sugar).
• A nice thumb of ginger
• A haa-aaa-UGE pan.
• Some jars to keep it in.
• Two ‘things’ of Cherry Tomatoes… about 500g.
• Hand Blitzer

What to do

• De-seed the Chilis, you can just cut the top off, slice them in half and use a spoon to scrape out the seeds.
• ‘Rusticly’ fine-slice all the various vegetables, (if you’ve got a blender, it’ll make life easier, but I don’t, so I did it by hand)
• Shove half of all the veg, sugar and vinegar into the pan and mix it about. If you do it in that order, the vinegar will melt the sugar, rather than taking up so much room.
• Do as above with the second half, in the same pan. There is to much there to stir around if you do it in one go.
• Put the heat on under the pan, and let it boil, then put the heat down at let it simmer for 50 minutes, making sure you give it a good stir every 5 minutes.
• After then, give it a little taste, if needs a little bit of this or that, add it. Personally, I thought it tasted perfect.
• Let the mixture call down a little bit, about another hour.
• Get a hand blitzer and blitz it down a bit, but keep it slightly course, it’s about getting a good mix.
• Get some jars, I needed 4 coffee jars and two bigger ones.
• The idea is to sterilize them, so you fill them half way up with water and microwave them for about 2 minutes, making sure that you’ve removed all the labels as in the ones that I used had metal in them.
• Fill the jars up if the Sweet Chili goodness, and enjoy =)

Cut off the top, slice in half, use a teaspoon to scrape out insides

8 Chillis, but mild and not hot.

Use a rough chop on everything, or even better, a food proccessor.

It's a lot of Red Pepper, but it's good.

Bung it in, in two halfs, to make life easier (I did it in one and it was too much)

oops, forgot the tomartoes, never mind, they'll break down when cooking so don't bother chopping... to much hassle.

Ok, I made a mess, i'll clean up in the morning.

Use the blitzer to get the consistancy you like.

A lovely christmas prezzy.

CHICKEN SCRATCHINGS !

It was cheaper for me to buy chicken fillets with the skin on, than to have them with the skin off. I didn’t need them in what I was cooking, and didn’t what to just chuck them away. When having a roast chicken, the best bit is the crispy skin… so can I do this by itself?

I covered them with some sesame oil and a sprinkling of sea-salt, put them on some tin-foil*, and put them in a low oven (about 150ish) for about 10ish minutes to crisp up. This is when I forgot about them and turned the oven off, without turning the fan off… I’m not sure if this effected things. When I did remember about them, about an hour later, they came out as the pictures show. They were a little too dry, but I think if I took them out at around the 12-13 minute mark, they would have been perfect.

* I’m going to tell you that it was to reflect the heat to the underside, rather than me being lazy and wanting to save on some of the washing up.

sesame and a sprinkling of sea salt, on tin foil.