Burgers, Bullring and Birmingham

As I was staying in Warwickshire for longer than usual, I had to squeeze in a visit to the Bullring in Birmingham. 

I spent many years wandering around the shops here when I was a teenager and it was great to pop back this time with my Auntie Jill.

A Restaurant worth waiting for...Mildred's, Soho

There's lots of reasons why I like my friend Frankie, our shared love of yoga and JC (Jonathan Creek) to name a few, but it's her expert knowledge of London restaurants that really puts her high on my friend list.

When we met up a few Saturday's ago, she suggested Mildred's, pre warning me that it might be bit busy. That was a bit of an understatement. It was literally bursting at the seams. I really hate queuing for ages, so we decided to abandon Mildred's for rose lychee Martinis at Ping Pong instead.

However, my curiosity had been stirred and I always knew that I would one day return to Mildred's to see what all the fuss was about.

Fast forward to yesterday, where by some good fortune,  I ended up going on a year 8 matinee trip to Wicked at the West End. As much as I love teaching my year 11s, this was definitely an excellent alternative.

Food: A vegetarian week

I don't eat an awful lot of meat, but I'm a bit of a sucker for really awful processed meat like sausages and bacon (they're just too tasty). So this week, I've been trying to eat far more vegetarian food. Veggie food tends to be healthy and pretty inexpensive so win win all round.

On Sunday, I followed one of Jamie's 15 minute meal's recipe and made a very healthy falafel and wholemeal wrap complete with homemade salsa. The falafel was practically dry fried which makes it far healthier than its deep fried alternative.

Falafel - makes 8
1 large tin of chickpeas
1 large tin of mixed bean
1 tsp all spice
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp Harissa
1 tbsp plain flour
stalks of a bunch of fresh coriander (use the leaves to make a salsa; recipe below)
vegetable oil

Restaurant Review: The Beano - Guildford Institute

The Beano - Guildford Institute

Martin and I were going to a party in Guildford last Saturday night and we were super happy about it, because it meant one thing, another visit to Beano - Guildford's best kept secret.

Cookbook Review: The World Food Cafe

The World Food Cafe Cookbook

I love cookbooks. Buying me a new cookbook is a failsafe birthday present. I read them like novels; from cover to cover. Inevitably, however, I only ever end up make 3-5 recipes from each book and then I remember them as old favourites and return to them again and again. I always seem to forget that all the other recipes exist. It's probably because I've got distracted by another cookbook. Do you find that the same thing happens to you? For any specific recipe or method I need (e.g. how to make homemade buttermilk), I'll just search for it on BBC Good Food rather than check out my encyclopaedic recipe books. Bad I know, but it's just so much quicker.

The World Food Cafe cookbook finally arrived from Amazon. It cost £9.59 (link) and, reassuringly, it's very highly rated. It's really the diary of a married couple's travels around much of the world. They don't attempt to comprehensively list all the recipes from a particular region - they merely give their particular favourites. The book itself is complemented by Chris Caldicott's beautiful photography of particular areas e.g. local tribes men in Africa. If I had to have one negative, it would be that I would prefer more photos of the dishes themselves. Most of the recipes are unfamiliar to me and I would appreciate a photo of the end dish so I know what I'm aiming for.