Stuoobs' kitchen delights

I always thought I was an OK cook. From an early age I've needed to be able to use a cooker, a pan, a knife and a microwave. The first attempts were not so great and included the Iceland microwavable kebab (thanks Mum!), making egg toasties by cracking an egg into the bread and closing the toastie maker and not forgetting the disastrous deep fat frying bacon incident. All part of the learning curve I suppose and all took place while at school or university.

Up until recently I did think that I was getting better at cooking, but all it really amounted to was cutting meat up, albeit with a knife now and not cutting it with a pair of scissors, and putting it in an Uncle Ben's sauce - not really cooking, but a lot better than some people I know. And that did me for about 8 years.

You're probably wondering where I am going with all of this.

Last Sunday we decided to have Cazzie's parents over for a Sunday roast. I have done roast beef dinners in the past I'm pretty good at it. My chili and garlic roast potatoes are something I pride myself on. But this Sunday lunch was different. We decided that we would cook everything from start to finish and the menu was......

French Onion Soup

Roast Topside of Beef
Jamie Oliver Carrots
Peas, shallots and ham
Roast Potatoes
Yorkshire Puddings
Cauliflower Cheese

Apple Crumble
Dead Good Custard

I'll be honest - we were both a tad nervous. Our main concern was getting everything to be ready at the same time but with good planning and preparation we hope all would be ok.

Cazzie's parents turned up and all the food was ready exactly when we wanted them to be - it couldn't have worked out any better!

It may seem as if I am blowing my own trumpet and you'd be right. It was a great success and very tasty. My favourite was the apple crumble and custard (which Cazzie took care of). This was the first dessert I'd ever made and I was well chuffed.

I guess the whole point of this blog is to tell those people that are the ready make sauce and microwavable rice generation, that cooking good food is easy - even I can do it. It's all about taking the time and putting in the preparation and anyone can cook a really tasty, excellent meal. Also, all the recipes came from the BBC food website, which are tried and tested methods and are not too difficult to follow.

I have linked in the recipes to each of the ones we used, but I want to include one more that we tried 2 weeks ago when the Forbes' came along.

Roast Rack of Lamb

I hope you find this useful!

Love

Stuoobs
xxx

p.s. If you want my chili and garlic roast potato recipe - just ask!!