A New blog!

Welcome to my new blog!  Obviously things are a bit sparse here at the moment but I hope that it won’t be too long till there’s plenty of interesting content and resources for you to enjoy.  My intention is to share information and anecdotes on the food I have been and will be eating and cooking as well as some of my recipes, reviews of places I’ve eaten and of the cookbooks and products I have tried. A little bit of everything!

To get the ball rolling I’ve posted three restaurant reviews of some places I’ve visited since I relocated to the Geneva/France area and I’ll add more as and when I can.

So what have I been up to lately food wise?  Well in the past week of so I’ve been trying to use up some of the various items that had been in my fridge for a while.  As a result I made what is possible my favourite one pot supper Chorizo and Lemon Pilaf (using up some chorizo) and a very quick and light pasta dish of Courgette and bacon spaghetti (using up half a pot of crème fraiche that was lurking around). 

I also used two slightly overripe aubergines to make a delicious dip which I snacked on for a few days (I used this recipe from BBC Good Food minus the dill and with even more garlic) and my left over tinned tomatoes from the pilaf whipped up into a delicious salsa to go on nachos (to go with more of the crème fraiche from what seemed a never ending pot).

Finally, I was quite amazed to find hiding at the back of my fridge a packet of 36 month aged belotta ham that I had brought back with me from a trip to Madrid last October.  I had tried a few slices of this ham whilst eating a tapas dinner at the amazing Mercado de San Miguel Food market and loved it that much that I decided to treat myself (it was a bit pricy) and bring a pack home for a special occasion. 

Well a special occasion never arose and I forgot the pack was in the fridge and upon rediscovering it I decided that it had waited long enough and I was going to enjoy with no occasion at all.  It was just as sublimely delicious as I remembered and didn’t seem to have suffered from either the plane journey or from sitting in my fridge for 10 months (does it now count as being 46 months aged I wonder?).  The ham fat on the ham was soft and creamy and the perfect foil to the deeply salty rich meat.  I managed to make the pack last for three meals all in all, enjoying it with bread, manchego and membrillo.  A treat indeed.