The Alice

I feel a bit like I’ve lost my cooking mojo recently; bad news and tiredness have a way of impacting on what I eat (I most certainly did not eat a whole bag of crispy calimari with garlic mayo for dinner last Wednesday… ahem…). We are dishwasher-less at the moment and after cooking a meal the last thing I want to do is washing up, so with Will (my dish washing man) working away I’ve been eating a lot of things-on-toast.

However, my kitchen counter and storage space will increase threefold when we move back to Nottingham so I’m looking forward to getting stuck back into my cooking, and I will certainly have no excuse with the welcome return of a dishwasher. I decided to ease myself back into the kitchen this weekend, my parents came to visit to help us with some packing and I thought a pavlova for pudding would be a nice treat after a good old Pizza Express take-away.

I forget how utterly easy pavlovas are to make; only 6 ingredients and I was able to leave the meringue to cool in the oven whilst I took a nap.

Easy Pavlova

5 medium egg whites
250g caster sugar
1 teaspoon white wine or malt vinegar
1 teaspoon cornflour

400g fruit (I used 300g hulled and chopped strawberries and 100g frozen raspberries)
350ml double cream

1. Set the oven to 160 C (fan), mix together the vinegar and flour to form a paste. Lightly oil baking parchment on top of a baking tray and set to one side (I use vegetable oil).

2. Whisk the egg whites in a very clean bone-dry bowl until they form stiff peaks. Add the sugar 2 tbsp at a time, whisking all the while. Use an electric whisk, it’s not worth the hand cramp otherwise.

3. When the mixture is lovely and stiff and shiny, whisk in the flour and vinegar paste until combined. Spread the mixture onto the baking sheet into a circle approx 20cm in diameter. Make a shallow well in the centre and use a tablespoon to make peaks around the outside.

4. Put in the oven and turn down to 140 degrees. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour.

5. Turn the oven off and open the door a crack. Leave to cool completely while you nap (not necessary but it’s my preferred method!).

6. When the meringue is completely cool, whisk the cream until stiff and spread in the shallow well. Scatter the fruit on top.

Tastes really good for breakfast the next day!

Yuck, I woke up at 5am this morning with a migraine and it has not let up all day. Yet another thing I can blame my hormones on; I had a couple of migraines when I was undergoing Prostap hormone treatment for endometriosis a few years ago and haven’t had one since then. Fingers crossed they’re not back for good.

One highlight of the day was that a pack of baby clothes I ordered from eBay came! I’ve discovered these ‘baby bundles’ you can buy – such bargains. 30 items for £9 inc p+p? Yes please. They are all lovely quality and I will be trawling eBay for more bargains in the coming months.

Mum also took a trip to her local NCT nearly new sale today for some bargains (like Mother like Daughter) and found Childbirth Without Fear for 50p, as well as a couple of toys. So in terms of baby H accumulating more things, it’s been a good day.

I’m trying very hard to get over my money worries. I think the issue is that I want to be able to spend the absolute maximum time with our baby without feeling the pressure to have to go back to work. I would rather not go back to working in an office at all and have been looking into freelance options so I can be WAHM, but what if nobody wants me and I don’t have a choice? I’m sure this won’t be the case but going from having a dual income to relying on one salary will be a massive shock to the system. About a year ago we reached a point when we’d paid off the majority of our debts and were able to live without money worries, it feels very strange to almost go back in time finance-wise.

Plus, I’ve been working for the last 7 years. How will I deal with losing such a big part of my life?

Anyway, I know I need to suck it up and get over myself. People raise children on a lot less money than we have, we are lucky to have a safe home, great friends and a wonderful family; we will never go hungry, cold or unloved and I need to stop my whinging!

Having spent the day in bed feeling sorry for myself I really wanted comfort food. Will’s working this evening so I needed something easy, and something that can be re-heated when he gets home at 6am. Macaroni Cheese had popped in my head earlier on in the day – I know it’s not the best diet food but it’s definitely delicious, and hey, I’m eating for 2! I use a roux-based cheese sauce and if I’m feeling virtuous I add tomato slices on top before baking, or even breadcrumbs for a bit of extra crunch:

Comforting Macaroni Cheese

25g butter
2 tbsp plain flour
250g grated cheddar cheese
300ml milk
250g macaroni pasta
300g bacon, pancetta or lardons
salt and pepper

Fry off the bacon until golden in a frying pan and drain on kitchen paper. Put to one side.

Cook the macaroni until al dente.

Melt butter in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over a gentle heat.

When it’s liquid, add the flour and stir in well. Add 1/3 of the cheese and 1/3 of the milk and stir in until melted and blended.

Add the rest of the cheese and milk bit by bit, reserving a small amount of the cheese to put on top before oven baking.

When it’s a smooth sauce, add the macaroni pasta and bacon. Pour into an oven dish and sprinkle the reserved cheese on top.

Bake in an oven at 180 degrees C for about 12 mins, or until crunchy on top.

PS: Having had a bit of an issue with comments on my blog lately, I’ve upgraded my Wordpress installation so hopefully this should have fixed the problem. Feel free to email me if you’re still experiencing an error message – alice at thealice dot co dot uk.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned here how much I like being at home. I think if we were in the USA, you’d say I like homemaking, but I’m not quite sure if there’s an equivalent word for it in the UK. I like cooking, cleaning, making my house a lovely place to be, looking after my husband… not very modern career woman of me I know, but I just adore it.

In fact, back when I lived in Nottingham I used this website to write about one of my biggest loves in life: FOOD. Recipes and restaurant reviews mostly, some photography too, but unfortunately when I moved to London I didn’t have enough time to give my food the attention it deserves.

Moving out of the city and cutting down on my socialising (and hangovers!) has meant I’ve can spend a lot more time in the kitchen, and I really want to share my recipes on my blog (not just for my readers, but so I remember what I’ve been cooking, too!). Our Sky+ box is full of cookery programmes and therefore tonnes of inspiration, and I picked up a couple of back copies of Olive from our hotel in Cheltenham last week and dusted off my recipe file. The cookery world is now my oyster! (hah)

I want to begin with a roast, it’s a weekly occurrence in our house and I think a lovely tradition to uphold :

Perfect Pork Belly

Pork Belly is one of our favourite cuts of meat. It’s cheap – the last piece we bought (pictured) was £5 for 1.5kg and lasted 2 of us for 2 meals (I’m sure it would have been more if we weren’t such greedy bastards). When cooked correctly it is one of the most meltingly tender pieces of meat you will taste, and it has the awesome addition of crackling!! Delicious.

I find scoring the skin of the pork the most boring and thankless task, so if possible ask your butcher to do it for you. If you are left with the hard graft of scoring the skin yourself you will need a very sharp knife indeed (a decent stanley knife will suffice if you don’t have one). Score through the skin into the fat but not into the meat.

This recipe is brilliant because it cooks for ages – you can forget about it and get on with your day. It also uses the pork dish to cook some of the veg, saving on washing up!

1.5kg Pork Belly
Sea Salt and pepper
Olive oil
5 large carrots, peeled and chopped into chunky rounds
2 red onions
500ml chicken stock

Score the skin of the pork and make sure it’s as dry as possible. Season the bottom of the meat, then place skin-up in a large cooking dish.

Season the skin with sea salt liberally, using your fingers to get in between the scores. Drizzle with a couple of teaspoons of olive oil and rub into the skin (messy but worth it!).

Pop in a very hot oven (260-280 degrees C) for 30 mins, or until the crackling puffs up nicely. Use your judgement with this as you don’t want it to burn, it should form a crispy layer that’s hard to the touch and almost hollow-sounding when tapped with a finger nail.

Turn the oven down to 160 degrees C and cook for another 45mins.

Remove the pork from the oven and baste with the fat. Take out the dish and put to one side; toss the carrots and onions in the pork fat. Replace the pork on top of the veg and cook for another hour.

Remove the pork once more and rest under foil for 10-15 minutes remove the veg (strain if necessary, reserving the juices) which should leave some lovely meaty liquid behind. Add the stock to this and bubble on a low heat whilst the pork rests until you have a nice rich gravy. You can use the roasting dish for this, using the liquid to scrape the tasty bits of pork off the bottom of the dish.

I like to serve this with potatoes roasted with parsnips, and peas.