You Know How to Make a Girl Smile

Goodness, I’ve been given another award! Can you feel the heat of my blush from over there where you’re sitting?? I’ve been feeling very warm and loved here in the Blogsphere lately and I hope you all know there’s a whole lot of love coming your way too. Thank you so much to Pinku for offering me this ‘Brillante’ award and for her very kind words; I’m truly honoured.

It’s getting harder and harder to choose bloggers for these awards as I’m discovering so many to add to the fantastic ones I already read. New ones are popping up on the UK Food Bloggers Association all the time and that’s just the British ones - I’ve been discovering lots of great blogs all over the world, particularly with all the new visitors I’ve been receiving. So I think this time I’m going to have to take the easy way out and offer this award to every blogger I’ve come across; you’re all brilliant!

P.S. It's just occurred to me how ironic this post is given that my last one said "The last week in August has the fewest references to 'I love you' on the internet"!

Romance is Dead

If the miserable August weather we're having isn't dampening your spirits enough here's some cheering news: today is apparently the UK's most unromantic day of the year.

This happy finding has been revealed to launch Accolade, a luxury new cooking appliance brand from Stoves, which is using today – the most unromantic day – to kick off a nationwide search for the UK’s most romantic recipe.

To find the date, first Accolade studied when we say "I love you" the least – analysis of web chatter for 2007 showed the fewest number of "I love yous" were expressed in the last week of August, possibly why September has the second-highest rate of divorces in the UK (January is top).

Meanwhile, Wednesdays have been pinpointed by Australian scientists as the day of the week when moods were at their lowest; whilst the post-August Bank Holiday gloom contributes to a phenomenon called 'acute post-Bank Holiday depression syndrome' according to UK academics. Well I can most certainly relate to that one.

If that's not enough, personal purchases of champagne drop in August, as do 'table for two' restaurant bookings, while a relationship expert identified August 27 as being the peak time for arguments.

To cheer things up a bit Accolade is asking the people of the UK to send in their most romantic recipe to romance@stoves.co.uk by 30 September. The winner receives £1,000-worth of Accolade integrated kitchen products from a range of 70 products across a wide range of sizes and specifications including ovens, hobs, hoods, coffeemakers and microwaves.

Jane Rylands, Accolade’s Marketing Services Manager, said "we're trying to inject a bit of romance by searching for sexy food and looking to give one recipe the accolade of the UK's most romantic. It's the perfect excuse to combine love and food, so there’s no need to wait for Valentine's Day!".

The UK's Most Unromantic Day was calculated by combining a series of factors:

1. The last week in August has the fewest references to "I love you" on the internet.

2. University of Sydney, carried out a study, on moods throughout the week found the people were at their lowest on a Wednesday.

3. Professor Cary Cooper from the University of Lancaster identifies 'acute post-bank holiday depression syndrome' based on the last bank holiday of the year, end of summer, little to look forward to in the way of sunshine, and forthcoming long winter nights.

4. Psychotherapist, Paula Hall suggests that August 27 is the day that most couples will argue.

5. September's high divorce rate – Leading online divorce resource divorceonline.

6. The sales champagne take a plunge in August, according to www.sparklingdirect.co.uk

7. A quarter of the most watched sports overlap during the last week in August: the football season has just kicked off, while the cricket, rugby Super League and F1 racing season has not yet ended

8. toptable.com announced a reduction of bookings for 'tables for two' in August by 11% compared to February.

Covent Garden Night Markets

Last Friday night I headed down to Covent Garden to check out the Night Markets, which are open for the second year running every Thursday and Wednesday night throughout August. Several fellow bloggers were invited to take a look around and it was really great to finally meet the people behind some of the blogs I read.

The market was smaller and with fewer stalls than you may expect, but it made up what it lacked in quantity with quality and variety. It was lively – as you would expect being in a location such as Covent Garden – with a good atmosphere. There’s an entertaining Kitchen Theatre each Friday with a good line-up. On the evening we attended The Hairy Bikers were cooking up a storm. My Mum and her Partner are big fans so I just had to get a book signed, much to the amusement of my fellow bloggers who took some convincing that the autograph wasn’t for me!



This coming Friday, 22nd August, you can be dazzled by Willie Harcourt-Cooze, the modern day Willie Wonka, and on Friday 29th August enjoy some nose to tail eating with Fergus Henderson.

After the show I headed straight for the McManus Oyster stall with Ros and Naimh where we enjoyed bubbly and delicious oysters. I highly recommend this stall, but make sure you get there early; they ran out quickly.



There was lots of tempting hot food on offer such as hog roast, paella, risotto and burgers. And there was plenty of food to take home to enjoy.











Other delights included gorgous iced biscuits and cupcakes from the Lavender Bakery.





Aside from the market there was the usual Covent Garden entertainment which at one point consisted of a near-naked man in hot pink pants getting to grips with a unicycle whilst armed with knives. I kid you not. I'll leave you with that thought. And that image.

Sunday Lunch: Roast Beef

Click here for the recipe



NOTE: I said I used duck fat for the roast potatoes when in fact I was showing you a tin of goose fat! It is goose fat that I was referring to, but you could use duck fat if you had some leftover from roasting a duck and that would be good too.

Win a £500 Dinner in a Top London Restaurant

Trustedplaces is a community site where real people review real places; sharing great places they know and discovering ones they don't. It's a fantastic site - I've been a member for a while now - and if you haven't visited it yet what better time than now, when you have the opportunity of winning such a great prize? Click here for details.

Sharing the Love

I’d like to thank Angela of Stressed out Mum seeks Inspiration for awarding ‘A Slice of Cherry Pie’ the Arte Y Pico award. In turn, I’d like to award it to:

Food Glorious Food

Hannah's Country Kitchen

Dabbles with Apples

Real Epicurean

Soy and Pepper

The rules of the award are:

1. Choose 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and their contribution to the blogging community.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name of and link to the blog that presented her/him with the award.

4. The award winner and the one who has given the prize has to show the link of Arte Y Pico blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5. Show these rules.


I'd also like to say a very special thank you to Lisa of Vanilla Bean. Lisa recently started her own, very lovely, food blog and credited me for inspiring her to do so. Lisa I'm so pleased you did feel so inspired and it's really made me happy to think that I played a part in that. I think it's really great that so many people are starting their own blogs and I hope it continues!

Pea and Pancetta Risotto

I was very encouraged by how you enjoyed my last video - thank you for all your lovely comments and emails - so I felt brave enough to do another one; in the kitchen this time! Unfortunately this hasn't come out so well - I'm disappointed by the quality of the video (I think I need a new camcorder) and I didn't zoom in for you to see what I was doing closely - but I hope you get the idea anyhow.

Pea and Pancetta Risotto

Ingredients
200g alborio rice
300g peas (weighed in their pods)
80g pancetta
1 shallot
A knob of butter
A splash of vermouth
1 ltr vegetable stock
A generous grating of parmesan cheese
Salt and black pepper

1. Heat the stock in a pan, ready to ladle into the risotto
2. Dice the pancetta and fry it in a dry pan over a medium heat until it’s cooked through. Remove it with a slotted spoon, leaving the fat that comes out it in the pan
3. Finely dice the shallot and add it to the pan, frying for a couple of minutes in the pancetta fat.
4. Add the rice and stir well, coating it in the fat, until it starts to turn translucent. Add a little butter if you need a little more fat.
5. Add the vermouth and stir for about 30 seconds while the alcohol sizzles and burns off.
6. Start adding the stock, one ladle-full at time, stirring continuously. Allow the rice to absorb each ladle-full before adding the next. Keep adding stock until the rice is ‘al-dente’, which means it isn’t totally soft all the way through but still has a bite in the middle, and the risotto has a sauce like consistency. Different rice absorbs different amounts of stock so you may need a little more or a little less. You can top up with water if you do need more.
7. Shell the peas and add them to the risotto along with the pancetta a few minutes before the end of the cooking time. Ensure the pancetta is heated through.
8. Take off the heat then season and stir in grated parmesan according to taste.

Serves 2

In the Bag: Cooking the Month of July - The Round Up

It's time for the round up of the entries from last month's 'In the Bag' event. The bag contained chicken breasts, cheese and parmesan cheese, and here are the dishes you cooked up:

Gemma from 'Dressing for Dinner' made us a delicious Garlicky Chicken served with Mushy Peas and Peashoots.



This lovely Chicken breast wrapped in pancetta, with pea, mint and avocado salad and parmesan mash came from the 'South East London Foodie'.



Tracey from 'The Modern Apron' entered a comforting Creamy Pea and Chicken soup.



My entry was this Pea Stuffed Chicken with a Parmesan Crust.



'In the Bag' is a monthly food event run by Julia from A Slice of Cherry Pie and Scott at Real Epicurean

Welcome to New Visitors!

Looking at my stat counter I see that I have a huge number of new visitors today as, incredibly, Blogger has chosen this as its blog of the day in the 'Blogs of Note' section!

I'd like to say a very big "hello and welcome" to you all. I really hope you enjoy reading this blog - which is all about home cooking and English seasonal food - and I do hope you'll visit again.

Thank you so much to the people at Blogger who chose this for their blog of the day; I'm really quite stunned and feel hugely honoured - you've made my day!

My First Video Blog Post!

Here are Amazon links to the books I mentioned in the video:

'The Naked Chef', Jamie Oliver

'The Return of the Naked Chef', Jamie Oliver

'How to Eat', Nigella Lawson

'Nigella Bites', Nigella Lawson

'How to be a Domestic Goddess', Nigella Lawsons

'Appetite', Nigel Slater

'The River Cottage Meat Book', Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall