CHRISTMAS DINNER RECIPES

Are you guys aware that Christmas is literally only one week away? How?! This month has absolutely flown by... I'm only just starting to get my Buble fix, and up my intake of hot festive booze. I am behind!

I'm assuming that most people will have their Christmas presents sorted by now (and if you haven't, here's a gift guide to point you in the right direction!), but even more important than present shopping is food shopping! Christmas dinner is the very best meal of the year - you've got to get your menu sorted! This year I'm roasting a pheasant on Christmas Day with Joshua, and then we're cooking a goose with our pals on Boxing Day. I realise that makes me sound massively middle class, but holy moly, if you've never roasted a goose (and roasted potatoes in the goose fat), you are missing out!

If you're in need of some festive feast inspiration this year, never fear. I've found some pinterest picks for you...

Sides

Rosemary roasted carrots | Bacon wrapped avocado | Roast pumpkin with feta

Mains

Pheasant with cider and bacon | Spiced roast goose | Roast chicken with garlic and lemon

Puddings

Teacakes christmas puddings | Christmas puddings | Winter pudding bombe

Ah, I can't wait to eat, drink and be merry!

RECIPES TO TRY

One of my not-quite-a-resolution New Year's Resolutions is to try and do things that will give me more energy... and part of that plan is to cook good food, from scratch, using wholesome and healthy-ish ingredients.

I've been getting better at cooking recently, but I can be a bit wimpy about trying new things, so this year I'm going to change that! I've been pinning food inspiration on pinterest for a while now, and here's a few of my favourites so far. I can't guarantee that my versions will be anywhere near as pretty, but hopefully they'll taste nice!

Top row 

Courgette and lemon spaghetti

Roasted eggplant with spinach, quinoa, and feta

Beetroot and feta tart

Bottom row

Herb roasted chicken and wild rice

Spicy thai noodle soup

Spicy fish tacos

Follow Ever So Juliet's board Cooking on Pinterest.

HOW TO: Leek & potato soup

It's winter, which means it's time for soup! Here's a super easy recipe that is made even more easy because I did it all in my brand new soup maker*, that was kindly sent to me by Tower.

What's a soup maker, you say? Well, it's basically a blender that can also heat things up. Kind of ridiculous? Yup. Pretty perfect for lazy/busy/hopeless cooks? Yup!

I had been pretty sure that I would mainly be using my soup maker as a blender (as I'm currently obsessed with smoothies), but it came in totally handy when I was doing loads of baking (making this cake, in fact!), and my oven and hob were covered in cake tins and pans of icing. It was surprisingly handy being able to just chop some stuff up and then leave it to simmer away in a different part of my kitchen (although, I'm not going to lie - a simmering blender still seems weird to me!).

Anyway, my soup was delicious! Here's how you make it in my futuristic mega-blender.

You'll need the following:

• 500g potatoes (peeled and diced)
• 2 leeks (chopped)
• 1 onion (chopped)
• 150ml double cream
• vegetable stock cube (crumbled up)
• salt and pepper
• boiling water 

Chop everything up, and throw it in the soup maker. Blend until it's at the consistency you like (you can keep it fairly chunky if you're not a fan of totally blended soups). Then turn the timer on for 45 minutes, leave it to simmer away and that's it! Serve with a bit of parsley and some nice bread.

How to: bake a squirrel, venison and bacon pie

As I've grown up, weekends are revolving more and more around cooking lovely food (that's a normal thing, right?). My ideal Sunday now involves an early trip to Stockbridge Market (with a stop off at the Wee Pie Company stall for breakfast), and then a mooch around the stalls to plan what's for dinner that night.

A few months ago I bought rabbit meat from one of the stalls which was made into the most amazing bunny pie (it's probably one of the best things I've ever cooked!), and I've been thinking of what my next unusual pie adventure could be. And then one day, the stall had squirrel and roe deer. It was an obvious choice.

Squirrel has quite an unusual taste, but balances out the gamey venison beautifully. This is quite a rich pie, and probably suits being more of an autumnal dish (I live in Scotland though, so winter food is a year-round treat!). I served it with roast potatoes and green beans sautéed in garlic butter. YUM.

To make this pie (which I promise is good), you will need:

• one squirrel
• several thick rashers of bacon
• roe deer meet
• mushrooms
• leeks
• garlic
• onion
• pine nuts
• chicken stock
• corn flour
• red wine
• herbs (rosemary, thyme, a bay leaf)
• puff pastry for the lid (I cheated and bought ready made stuff)
• shortcrust pastry for the base (there's a good recipe here)
• one egg

Turn your oven on to about 170 degrees.

Start by frying the venison and squirrel in some oil in a large pan, until the meat has browned. Take this off the heat, add a wee bit of butter, and fry the onion and garlic for a minute or so. Add in the bacon and chop up your vegetables as this cooks.

Add the mushrooms, leeks, pine nuts, and meat to the pan. Add in one large mug of chicken stock and one large mug of red wine. Add salt, pepper and your herbs, stick on a lid, turn the heat down slightly, and let it simmer for ages - leave it for 30 - 45 minutes (just check in on it, give it the occasional stir and go by taste). When it's all cooked and smelling amazing, you can thicken up the sauce by adding a little bit of corn flour (do a tablespoon at a time) until it looks thick enough for pie gravy.

Prepare your pie dish by lining the bottom with shortcrust pastry. Spoon in your pie mix, and layer puff pastry across the top. Decorate with adorable pastry decorations (obviously optional, but when else are you going to get the chance to eat a pastry acorn with antlers?). Brush the pastry with egg, and pop it in the oven for 20 - 25 minutes.

When the pastry is golden brown, it's ready to go! Enjoy (and look forward to the weird looks you get when you tell people you had squirrel for dinner).

How to: make chicken noodle soup

Spring has officially sprung (although it hasn't really shown itself yet), but the nights are still dark enough to enjoy some comfort food.

This is such an easy recipe that, at first, I actually felt a bit guilty about blogging it. Then I remembered how rubbish I used to be at cooking (and the shamefully basic recipes I would google), so I no longer feel bad. Ha! This is for you, rubbish cooks. You can do this. Learn how to make tasty chicken soup from scratch, and enjoy wholesome food that is super cheap, super easy, and uses up all of your leftovers!

To make this you'll need:

• leftover chicken carcass
• vegetables (I used leeks, carrots, swede, onion, celery, spring onions & parsnip)
• garlic
• chilli
• udon noodles
• nice herbs (rosemary, thyme, parsley)

This is a perfect just-had-roast-dinner-and-have loads-of-leftovers soup. To make the stock, take your half-eaten chicken and pick off the meat into a bowl (and stick this in the fridge). Put the bones and skin and leftover bits that look a bit weird into a saucepan, chop up some vegetables, add enough water to cover it and simmer. Add salt and pepper and herbs, stir occasionally, but leave alone for as long as you can.

If I'm making soup on a week on a weeknight I'll have it all going by 6pm, and leave until I'm going to bed. That gives it enough time for a really rich flavour. Mmmm.

Once you're happy it's simmered for long enough, drain the stock and set aside for later. Bin the vegetable/bone leftovers... they have fulfilled their flavour mission.

Now you're ready to make your actual soup! Stick a big chunk of butter in a saucepan, add some onion, garlic, celery and carrot, and sauté for a few minutes. Then add the stock, chop up whatever vegetables you want to add (plus chilli if you want it to be a wee bit spicy), and simmer.

Once the vegetables have cooked for a bit (10 minutes maybe) add in your chicken, then add noodles. Taste your soup to see how it's getting on, and add salt, pepper and herbs to taste.

Once the noodles are cooked, it's ready! Enjoy with bread and butter, and enjoy your super wholesome tea.

How to: cook a simple vegetable stew

I've got a pretty good recipe for you all today - it's warm and filling (perfect for the rainy dark nights we're still having), and is super cheap, healthy, and quick to cook.

To make it even cheaper I've also teamed up with mySupermarket - a site that recommends the cheapest place to shop online for groceries by comparing prices from Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Ocado and Waitrose.

I'm in the pretty lucky position that I live near six pretty massive supermarkets (the benefits of living on the edge of town!), which is a huge step up from my student days relying on the tiny co-op by my flat... so in theory I should be in a great position to pick & choose my local shop based on who gives me the best deal! The reality is that I am super lazy - especially when it comes to the weekly shop, so I was intrigued to see how mySupermarket would shape up.

First, get your list of ingredients. Here's what you'll need for the stew.

• 1 onion
• 2 carrots
• 2 parsnips
• 1 big leek
• 2 celery stalks
• 1 smallish swede
• mushrooms 
• 1 pint of vegetable stock
• 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• small tin (200g-ish tin) of red kidney beans
• small tin (200g-ish tin) of chickpeas

On mySupermarket it asks you to select a supermarket (I went with Tesco, as that's where we normally end up shopping), and as you add items into your basket it makes suggestions when multi-buys & cheaper items pop up - letting you compare prices for all supermarkets at once.

As I'm lazy I just copied and pasted my list into the Shopping List bit at the top & tweaked it a bit (apparently "1 smallish swede" isn't compatible with computer search engines, ha) until each item was in my basket. It turned out that Asda was £1.24 cheaper than Tesco... which yeah, is a fairly small amount, but this is just one recipe - I imagine if you used this site for each big shop you'd save quite a bit within a year for the same food!

Once you've picked the best shop for you, you can either checkout online (it directs you onto your chosen retailer's website, with the basket all filled up & ready to go), or if you'd rather buy instore, you can print off a shopping list with your chosen items (some deals are online-only though, so keep that in mind!). It's pretty cool & definitely one to bookmark if you are thrifty minded!

Once you have your ingredients in hand (which have only cost you £6.21, hooray), here's how you make the stew.

First, put some olive oil in a large pan & fry the onions slowly for five minutes. While they are cooking, chop up all of your vegetables into smallish chunks. Add them to the pan, cover with a lid and fry it all over a medium heat for five minutes.

The vegetables will have started to soften up at this point. Add in the tomatoes and vegetable stock, bring to the boil, then pop the lid back on and simmer for ten minutes.

Add in the beans, give it a good stir & simmer for another five minutes. Then sprinkle with a handful of parsley and enjoy. The vegetables are really nice and tender, and it's such an easy way of filling yourself up with good food. Yum!

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post.  

Christmas fun!

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a very merry Christmas - I had planned to schedule a post to go up yesterday, but my last week has been very, very busy (in a good way!) and this is the first chance I've had to sit down with the laptop. I just wanted to share some photos from our day yesterday... I love this time of year!

Riley & our lovely Christmassy living room 

As this was our first Christmas in our new home, earlier this year we very enthusiastically invited my parents & Craig's parents round for Christmas dinner - not worrying about actually making it (or the fact that I had only just started to learn how to cook!). So I think it's fair to say I was a wee bit nervous about cooking a massive meal for six people, but I really shouldn't have been!

We had a really lazy morning (opened presents then watched the Muppets - perfect!), and I started prepping food around 3pm. I cheated for a lot of it (ready made cranberry sauce, turkey crowns instead of a full bird, etc) so my main mission was just making sure everything was cooked, hot and on plates at the same time!

I ended up serving food 14 minutes behind my "official schedule" (ha) but I think I did good! Everyone seemed very happy, plates were cleared & my mum said that it was the best turkey she had ever tasted (!!!) - high praise from my mum, the best cook I know!

I'm a much more confident baker than cook, so I couldn't resist making some sweet treats too! I made some Christmassy cupcakes (this recipe plus decorating inspiration from the Lily Pink bakery!) and a gingerbread house (this recipe plus tonnes and tonnes of sweets!). It took ages to decorate the gingerbread house because I'm a bit of a sweet perfectionist, but I really love how it turned out!

Today I've just been chilling out with Craig - Christmas is for spending time with the ones you love, and I am doing really well on that front so far!

Hope you're all having lovely days and are tucking into leftovers right now! x

How to: cook thai green curry

It's been a little while since I've posted a recipe, but never fear, I am back with a belter! I really really love thai food but was a little daunted by the idea of trying to cook it myself, thinking you need a million different spices and what not. Luckily supermarkets cater for the lazy (and novice) chefs, so you can just buy thai paste in jars - no mortar required!

Here's my recipe for veggie thai green curry. This is a vegetarian version, but it's really easy to add in chicken if you're poultry-inclined.

Ingredients:

• quarter of a butternut squash
• 2 peppers
• baby corn (about half a packet)
• mushrooms
• green beans (a handful)
• green curry paste (look for a vegetarian friendly version that doesn't include fish sauce!)
• tin of coconut milk
• 1 lime
• rice

Preheat your oven to 190 degrees. Now get your butternut squash, cut in half & de-seed, then chop a quarter of it into big chunks. I'd never cooked with butternut squash before so I hadn't realised how MASSIVE they are! & tough - you'll need a fairly sturdy knife to do your chopping.

Chop up two peppers into chunks, then put them in an oven dish with the squash. Pour a little olive oil over everything, then roast in the oven for about 25 minutes until everything is looking nice and golden.

Add some oil to a large pan or wok and let it heat up (& put the chicken in at this stage if you fancy!). Then pop the baby corn in the pan add the green curry paste to taste (I used three tablespoons). Let this cook for about a minute at a fairly high temperature, before adding the coconut milk and reducing the heat to a simmer. Chuck in the green beans at this stage too and let it bubble happily for about a couple of  minutes.

By now the squash and peppers should be nicely roasted. Add these to your pan, and chuck in some mushrooms too, and leave for a few minutes more (basically until the mushrooms cook). Add the juice of one lime and you're done!

Serve with boiled rice! This recipe makes LOADS, so feed your pals too. Yum.

How to: cook roasted stuffed peppers

As I've been teaching myself to cook I've also tried to learn things that Craig (the lovely vegetarian in my life) can eat too. I was struggling to think of something that would suit a veggie Sunday roast (that wasn't nut roast - far too Christmassy!) and saw pictures of stuffed veg online. Mmm.

Stuffed peppers are SUPER easy and tasty and good. Here's the recipe. 

You need:

• peppers
• an onion
• a garlic clove
• mushrooms
• white rice
• vegetable stock
• mozzarella

(I basically just put this together from stuff that was in my fridge - as long as you've got rice and some veg stock then you can wing it from here, I think!).

First dice the onion and garlic and fry them in a pan. Then add the chopped mushrooms (I added a bit of pepper because I thought it would be fun to stuff a pepper with pepper. I need to get out more). Let this all simmer in olive oil at a low heat for a little while.

Chop the top off your peppers (put the tops to one side) and clean out the seeds. Pop them in the microwave for five minutes - this will get them all soft and nice. 

While the peppers are microwaving make up some vegetable stock and rice, and mix this with the fried onion & mushroom combo. Then stuff the peppers with the rice mix, add a layer of mozzarella on top and pop them in the oven for 15 minutes. I had been roasting potatoes at the same time, so I just put the peppers on the same tray, but otherwise you want your oven heated to 180 degrees.

Serve with the tops (and stalks) on, with roasted vegetables... yum. 

Craig said "they are tremendously tasty". That's good enough for me.

How to: cook veggie spaghetti bolognese

When I said I couldn't cook before this year, I really meant it. Which meant even the SIMPLEST things that most people know (like spaghetti) seemed a bit scary to me. It's embarrassing. And had to change.

So here we go! Here's spaghetti bolognese for vegetarians (and people who like vegetarian food. And healthy people. And people who just fancy a change from mince. And anyone else I've not mentioned - honestly, it's nice & is worth a go. Have I covered enough groups? Phew).

Ingredients:

• packet of Quorn mince
• an onion (diced)
  
• a clove (or two) of garlic (diced)
  
• mushrooms (chopped)
• can of chopped tomatoes
• jar of tomato pasta sauce (the last two are cheating. You can easily make these yourself but we were lazy)
• spaghetti

Start by frying the onion and garlic in a wee bit of olive oil in a pan. I've only cooked with garlic once before and am impressed - it smells so nice! Then add the mushrooms and let these all fry for a couple of minutes. Once everything has browned a little, add the veggie mince, chopped tomatoes and pasta sauce. Turn it to a lowish heat, and leave to simmer, just stirring occasionally. Mmm.

Now stick the spaghetti on to cook (as per packet instructions). This will take about 15 minutes, during which your bolognese will be gently bubbling and looking lovely.

Dish out onto a plate, add the bolognese and a wee sprinkling of cheese if you fancy. I used too much in cheese-grating excitement.

This massive pot of bolognese was enough for six main meals! Cheap, easy and dead good.

Chicken pesto burger challenge

One of my favourite places to go in Edinburgh for a burger is the Holyrood 9a - it's an ace wee pub/restaurant that's just round the corner from my work and the food is amazing.. all fresh and mmm and good!

Last week I had such a craving for one of their chicken burgers, but because of our spending-ban (need to save money for the house!), impromptu meals out are out of the question. So I decided to try and recreate it at home. This was the apple of my (hungry) eye...

Not too hard, right? I got my ingredients...

Which were...

• Crusty white roll
• Chicken breast fillet
• Tomato
• Pesto
• Mozzarella
• Rocket (aka argula)
• Mayonnaise

I started by mixing about two tablespoons of mayonnaise with one and a half of pesto. I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to mayonnaise, and a bit of an addict when it comes to pesto, so I'd recommend just doing this to taste. 

Then I grilled my chicken breast (Craig had quorn burgers instead), and just before it was ready I added mozzarella to melt on top.

Then assembled with salad and pesto-naise and served with chips.

GOODNESS ME. What an incredible dinner. This doesn't feel like real cooking as it's just assembling a few things together.. but it was massively tasty and gave its inspiration a good run for its money!

How to: make a vegetable pie

Learning to cook continues with dish number two, a massive puff pastry vegetable pie (this was dish number one). Craig is vegetarian (luckily a very relaxed one that doesn't mind me preparing & eating meat in the house!), so I want to learn how to make food that we can both eat (& he is learning how to cook veggie meals too!).

Here's the recipe (it's totally worth it!).

You'll need the following ingredients:

• root vegetables (I used two carrots, one massive leek, loads of potatoes and one parsnip) - cut these into large bits
• a packet of ready made puff pastry
• some milk for brushing over the pie

For the sauce:

• 175g grated cheddar cheese
• one onion, finely chopped
• 40g butter
• 40g plain flour
• one pint of milk
• one tablespoon of mustard

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees.

Start by boiling your vegetables to soften them up. I just shoved everything in the pot at once, but this was a bad idea as potatoes obviously take more time to cook than leeks! I got round this by spooning out the leeks, carrots & parsnip after 10 minutes, and left the potatoes for another 10 minutes until they were tender. Put all of your vegetables in a bowl and leave them to cool.

Make the sauce by melting the butter, adding the onion and leaving on a low heat for a couple of minutes while the onion softens. Then add in the flour, and give it a good stir to mix with the butter. 

Slowly add in the milk, little by little. Stir between each addition to keep the sauce smooth and stop any lumps forming! Once it's all in, keep stirring for a few minutes while the sauce thickens up. Add the mustard and cheese and mix it all together.

Mix the sauce with the vegetables, and then spoon the mixture into an oven dish.  

Cover the mixture with the puff pastry (I used pastry sheets which meant minimal faff!). Trim the excess mixture around the sides, and sort of smoosh the edge of the pastry to the side of the dish (you can use a fork or your fingers for this bit). 

Make two slots in the lid (for steam to escape) and decorate as you wish! I used the lovely mini heart cutters I got from Ingrid in the bloggers secret santa. Brush the pastry top with milk (this will make it turn a lovely shade of golden brown.

Pop in the oven for about 20 - 30 minutes, or until the pie is bubbling and puffed up! 

Mmmm. Hello! 

This is what it looks like on the plate. This recipe made two MASSIVE pies (two oven dishes worth) so we lived off large portions of this for days! It is really, really delicious. I definitely recommend giving it a go!

How to: roast a chicken

For someone who is quite a good baker (ha, this sounds so big-headed!), I am THE WORST at cooking. I can't do it. I don't even try. I know how to make pasta and er, grill things on my George Foreman, but that's about it. If I want anything more complicated I'll probably buy the separate bits ready-made and just assemble them (that's awful, I know).

But this must change! We're moving out of the city centre in just a few months, and won't be surrounded by shops. So I reckoned learning how to cook would be a pretty good new year's resolution.

I thought I'd jump in the deep end and try to roast a chicken. Here's how I did it.

First, find yourself an amazing recipe blog! I stumbled across a Wee Bit of Cooking, and I'd definitely recommend having a read of this if you are looking for food inspiration (she also likes dogs, bonus). I used the roast chicken and root vegetables recipe and tweaked it a little bit.

Gather your ingredients!

• one small chicken (mine was 1.2 kg)
• 6 - 8 smallish potatoes, cut in half
• couple of carrots, peeled and chopped into large bits
• couple of parsnips, peeled and chopped
• one onion, chopped into sixths
• one lemon, cut in half
• olive oil

I think you are meant to use salt, pepper, thyme and garlic, but I didn't have any of those, so just winged it.

Preheat your oven to 190 degrees and look out a big oven dish! Prepare your chicken by squeezing the lemon juice all over it. Once it's totally covered, pop both halves of the lemon into the cavity, and put the chicken in the middle of the dish.

Now lightly cover your vegetables with oil (I found the easiest way to do this was popping them into a separate bowl, so I could just use a little oil and stir it around). Arrange the vegetables around the chicken and try to space them out as much as possible (I may have got a little carried away with potatoes).

Pop into the oven for 1 hour 20 minutes. I opened the oven twice to turn the vegetables (as there were so many!), and cover them with the juice that was nicely bubbling in the bottom of the dish.

& that's it! To check if the meat is ready you can either use a meat thermometer (I didn't) or give it a wee prod to check if the juices run clear. If it's cooked, move the chicken to another plate, cover with tinfoil and leave for about 15-20 minutes (this apparently lets the meat settle and makes for a nicer dish). I put my vegetables back in the oven while this was going on to get them nice and crispy.

Carve up your chicken, serve with veg & voila! I didn't attempt to make gravy on this occasion (I will next time), but I didn't even notice it was missing. I'm so pleased that my first roast was a success! The chicken is really soft and has lovely lemony undertones, and the vegetables were crunchy on the outside but nice and soft on the inside.

Here's hoping that the rest of my cooking attempts in 2012 go as smoothly!