sweet nothings...

We put our little christmas tree up tonight! The christmas lights were turned on in Edinburgh town centre this evening, we were going to see this happen, but because it started raining and was cold and dark, we decided to just go home and put our own tree up instead, the street lights can wait for another night

Cheesy christmas music was played in the background as we wrestled with assembling the various fiddly parts of the tree, and hung as many decorations as we could each before they all ran out (it was done very quickly!)

This year we have much nicer decorations on the tree than when we were in Salisbury, we even have solid lindt chocolate decorations! Some lights were put up around the kitchen window too

My boyfriend ordered a batch of twelve pies from the 'pie minister' shop down in Bristol/Oxford, and after much excited anticipation they finally arrived today. He staggered down the hill from work this afternoon, clutching his precious box of meat pies to his chest with a big happy grin on his face

They have now been lovingly installed in the freezer, filling up an entire drawer Tonight dinner was pie and mashed potato...I had a vegetarian mushroom one, he had his favourite minty lamb one. I can't understand why he insists on plonking his pie on top of the mash and drowning it in gravy though, I much prefer it just the way it is! Much less messy!

I'm not normally much of a pie person, but I make an exception for this lovely wild mushroom and asparagus one. It reminds me of my occasional day trips to Oxford when I lived down in Salisbury! Nostalgic pie




this is actually how they serve the pies in the pie minister restaurants!

I have been wearing last year's gloves until now, they were all full of holes and with half the fingers hanging off. I finally found a pair I liked today though! A magnificent purple and red striped pair with bright orange fingers I fell in love with them immediately, and pounced upon them with a squeal, despite the strange 'finger flap' fashion that I have ben stubbornly refusing to give in to until now!
I thought this fashion was just a bit silly, and that when they were covering my fingers mitten-style I felt like I was wearing socks on my hands. But these ones were extra woolly, and just so colourful and lovely I couldn't resist

Tonight my mum invited me and my boyfriend over for dinner. She made us lovely baked trout with rosemary sliced potatoes, roasted cherry tomatoes, with horseradish sauce and salsa verde. It was great We even got chocolate cake for pudding

That's my (hungry) boyfriend's hand sneaking into the top of the picture My voice is in the background of most of my foody pictures saying "wait! not yet! just a minute! I just want to take one more picture!"

I made baked fish for our dinner tonight I couldn't find the recipe for a spanish one I have made before, so I made a Jamie Oliver one instead, throwing in a few extra ingredients.

I made a nice tomato, onion, garlic and basil sauce first. I used lots of fresh basil, and added some mushrooms and a courgette I found in the fridge. Then I put my bits of fish on top of the sauce in an oven dish, sprinkled it with some black olives and capers, and baked it for 15 mins at 220'C.
While it was cooking I made some mashed potato, and some peas to make it look pretty





It was really good!

Last night I had a little halloween dinner party for four I chose what to make, went food shopping, prepared all the ingredients, roasted my butternut squash and set the table with all the candles I could find. My very helpful and apparently multi-talented boyfriend bought and carved a little pumpkin for my table's halloween centre piece (pretty magnificent specimen of a pumpkin it was too, especially for a first attempt!) Pumpkins certainly look a lot easier to carve than a turnip, which is what I used to use when I was a kid! I can see now why they are used so much in America!

When my friends arrived though, all I really wanted to do was sit with them and catch up on all their news, so my boyfriend gallantly volunteered to make my butternut squash and feta risotto for me! (it was his own recipe I was using though, so he would make it so much better than me ) It was so sweet of him to do that for me though and I was very grateful I didn't even make my own pudding!
I bought a ready made apple pie and a tub of really nice ice cream from a fancy supermarket instead!

I really enjoyed the meal though, and it was great to see my friends again, and to finally show them round my first flat Next time I have a dinner party though, I am going to choose something which I can make in advance and just shove in the oven before my guests arrive! That way I can join in with the fun and gossip, instead of spending all my time cooking in the kitchen!

I made this lovely spicy garlicky mushroomy creamy pasta tonight for my boyfriend, as he has been all bunged up with a cold today, and I thought a bit of garlic would do him good. Also, it might help to prevent me from catching it too!!

I used two whole roasted bulbs of garlic, so I don't think there will be any vampires coming near our flat anytime soon! I have a lemon and nutmeg rice pudding cooking at the moment too, for a late night comfort pudding






rice pudding!

Tonight was the first brandy-feeding night of last week's xmas cake!
http://my.opera.com/kirstycat/blog/2009/10/15/christmas-cake
It only gets a tbsp once a week, so we took turns to feed it with half a tbsp each

really really nice! I liked this one a lot!

On Thursday night my mum threw an Indian diwali 'festival of lights' party The real diwali doesn't actually start until the weekend, but me and my boyfriend both had a day off, and seeing as we're only wanting an excuse for a big curry, it was decided that it would be moved forward a couple of days (a bit like having a christmas celebration on the 23rd of December!)

I have never seen such a magificent curry, there were so many lovely things! I only had some of the vegetarian curries, but even with just those there was more choice than I could ever dream of in my wildest foody dreams! We filled the room with all the candles and tealights we could find (twenty eight altogether!)

Here is a list of all the lovely things my mum made: (most of my pictures were a bit blurry due to the low light of the candles!) I can't remember the proper names of most of the things, so I will describe what they are made of instead
cobra beer!!
popadums and mango chutney
naan
fluffy basmati rice
grated carrot with black mustard seeds
yogurt with cucumber
chopped raw onions and tomatoes
sweetcorn curry
my favourite coconut lentil daal
wild mushroom curry
potato and aubergine curry
(lamb curry)
(beef curry)
(chicken curry)
pistachio and almond kulfi for pudding




It was great!