Week three, visibly fatter already.

Anyone would say, from watching her and reading her, Nigella really has a love for food. Has anyone ever ever heard Nigella say 'calorie' or 'saturated fat'? No. Im scared to say her attitude is rubbing off on me, something I never thought would happen, being a careful calorie counter and breakfast skipper. Having exams coming up as well, im eating my stress! Therefore, I'm making my recipe this week for someone other than myself. It's my Grandad's Birthday this week, and being a stingy, borderline skint young lady, I'm using up the ludicrous amount of chocolate and crap in my house after christmas. Grandad loves anything that isn't good for him at all. Honeycomb, Dark Chocolate, Cream and salted peanuts being his major food groups, outside of meat, meat and meat that is. So, when initally I read the recipe for 'sweet and salty crunch nut bars' I thought 'scooore, birthday present sorted!'. Nigella says this is the Kitchen equivalent of crack cocaine, and despite my limited experience with crack cocaine,I think I agree. I actually, amazingly managed to multitask and make Ribo his tea whilst doing this. It's a bit of a doss recipe, just melting a load of chocolate and butter and syrup and then putting the crunchy bits in. Crunching up crunchies is oddly satisying, nice stress relief following a bad driving lesson (nearly hit a Porsche, think I had an Aneurysm) and really hard exam (Can always retake a retake). Nevermind, I have a big beautiful present for a very hard person to shop for. I haven't licked a spoon in a long time, but this warranted it. We'll just have to wait and see if it's appreciated.

Week Two

Mexican Lasagne
One week in and I've already cheated Nigella. I'm sorry. The recipe states 800g (two tins) of black beans. I got the black beans, drained on tin, put it in a bowl with the pre drained Sweetcorn and thought bleugh. No way was I putting the second tin in, so I swapped it for a tin of kidney beans, which looked way more appealing. Bright purple beans will always look better as well. The salsa was hugely easy to make, and so was the filling, which was just mixing beans and cheese ( a lot of cheese- a lot of lot of lot of cheese). The hardest bit was assembling the whole thing, even Nigella admits it's 'snug' in it's little dish. I had an even littler dish than Nigella, the result being a little leaning tower of Pisa, I'm incredibly proud it didnt end up on the floor. Tricky as it is, it does taste insane, which may be due to the 250g of cheese on used throughout the recipe, it doesnt sound a lot, but it really is. The top goes all crispy and lovely, with the middle staying all soft and squishy. Haribo, my worst critic, called it Pizza pie, which describes it a lot better than lasagne. It is, a six inch deep pizza. I ate a piece in my lunchbox the day after I made it, and it was just lovely cold too. Nigella states she eats it with an avocado salsa, but I didnt make this, mainly because I really really really hate avocado. REALLY hate it. Maybe I'll get over it by the end of the year.

First Week!

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

Nigella says this has a 'palate-clagging heaviness', which frankly, sounds like a medical condition. It is however, a desert which contains both peanut butter and chocolate. As a Reeses cups addict, I did not need much persuasion to get this one underway. It does need a lot of ingredients, it became clear once I started making it that Nigella does not do half-fat cream, or skimp on filling. I may end up a lot 'curvier' a few weeks into this year. This Cheesecake was in essence really easy to make, I've never done a baked one before, but I'll make one again! It's just a case of crushing biscuits, peanuts and butter, as standard, beating all the soft fillings together and baking it for about forty minutes, then sticking it back in the oven with a chocolate topping on. Putting chocolate in the oven never seems right, but it works. Perfectly actually. Putting sour cream in the mix makes it just a little bit less heavy, although this isnt something you'd eat a fat slice of. I did, the leftovers in the fridge were too tempting when I couldn't be bothered to have something proper to eat. Don't eat too much, you can physically feel how unhealthy it is. That doesnt mean it's a wonderful thing, I was sceptical of putting nearly a whole jar of peanut butter into the mix, but it goes. I dont think it's something I'll be making for the fam again, I got such a whining at from Harry, my youngest brother and peanut phobe because I didnt tell him there were peanuts in it until he'd eaten and liked it. I think hurt pride more than disgusted taste buds. My Dad also threw his toys because he didnt like it. But we did have a tiff earlier in the day. Mumma liked it!

My brilliant idea

Here's the deal with this blog. I started to write this in a notebook, intending to write it up as a blog eventually. So here are my first three weeks, as written in a scabby book. Much more accesible here:
I am sick sick sick of making the same meaningful New Years resolutions, then being miserable at the next new year, having not made any effort to stick to it. So, on Christmas day, sat reading my brand new copy of Kitchen by Nigella, genius struck. I'm moving out in September, going to University and I am absolutley positivley NOT going to live on beans on toast. I hate beans on toast anyway. SO, as my resolution, I am going to learn to make something new out of Kitchen every week of this year, come exams, coursework and disaster, I will be cooking. This way, I'll be an independant culinary genius by the time I leave home and my mumma's beautiful cooking. It'll be incredible! I'll be throwing six course dinner parties in freshers week!