Chicken and Tomato Risotto

I overheard my parents talking the other day...they were wondering what they’re going to do when I leave home for good. Food-wise that is! I’m sure they’d love to have their house back; it would be clean, tidy and quiet. But they can’t deny one thing – they eat much better when I’m around!
We’ve nicknamed Mum’s cooking cordon bleu because it couldn’t be further from the truth! She’s well aware that she only has a few recipes in her repertoire that don’t involve packets of frozen food but having said that what she can cook isn’t half bad. When she's not cooking fish fingers it's probably a Chicken Supreme or a Bolognase!

Dad’s a much better cook and he’s probably where I get my cooking skills from. Every now and then he’ll decide to cook a Chinese feast from scratch, or whip up a curry. He’s also not half bad at puddings! It’s just a shame he’s not in the kitchen more often when I’m not around.

I don’t think my Mum is half as bad as we make her out to be. I think a lot of being a good cook is about having the confidence to try new things and the imagination to create something different when faced with the same old ingredients in the cupboard. A couple of weeks ago I cooked a sausage and asparagus risotto for the first time. It was completely unplanned and was based on what I could find in the fridge, but it worked so well we’ve tried it a few times and it now has pride of place on my blog. This recipe isn’t too dissimilar. Not only is it a risotto recipe, but it uses up all of those ingredients you usually have lurking at the back of the fridge; chicken breasts, tomatoes, stock, tomato puree and rice. Nothing here – bar the basil if you don’t grow your own – is special or fancy, they are every day flavours that when combined together make something really quite special!

Japanese Chicken Noodle Soup

Exams are slowly but surely taking their toll, this coupled with obscene amounts of birthday cake and birthday meals and takeaways meant that this evening I needed a pick me up! Something tasty, vibrant and healthy that would get me feeling revitalised and ready to jump back on to the revision train! Choo choo - all carriages terminate at the exam hall.

See revision really is driving me mad!











Whenever you have a cold or are just generally run down, most peoples go to recipe is a chicken soup. So today I decided to have a go at a Japanese inspired version with udon noodles and lots of ginger and spring onion.

It was exactly what the doctor ordered!

Two Ways with Trout

I love, love, love when things I can’t normally afford to buy are on offer in the supermarket! I don’t know why people don’t make more of reduced sections!!!

At the beginning of the academic year, as I did my first big supermarket shop I stumbled across a pack of two trout fillets for just £1. That’s right £1, saving me around £3.50!!! So with their best before date coming to an end I wacked them straight in the freezer!

Now, as the reading is piling up, and tutorials are kicking in, I’ve been in desperate need for brain food and I got my trout out to defrost...now all I needed were two delicious trout recipes to cook up a storm!

Here are my two ways with trout: