Nigella Express - Quick Chilli

Come and join me at Lili in the Kitchen for a delicious Chilli recipe taken from Nigella Express!!

Sweet & Simple Bakes - White Chocolate & Orange Cookies

I discovered the lovely Sweet & Simple Bakes blog a month ago and couldn't wait to try the October recipe. Every month readers are invited to try a sweet recipe, blog about it and send an e-mail link so that results can be included in the monthly round up.

I was a little apprehensive about using the orange/chocolate combination as I'm not a fan of Terry's chocolate orange! I shouldn't have worried though as I discovered that I do like orange with white chocolate, especially when combinbed in a melt in the mouth cookie.

Easy to make, and a delight to eat, these went down very well with everyone who tried them.

The recipe can be found here and here is the end result:

Weekend Eats

Bitching in the Kitchen has moved to Lili in the Kitchen! Please come and join me here!

A New Me!

After a little time away, I have decided to change the name of my blog so that it is a little more "me". Lili is my family's nickname for me and has become the "online me". Sorry for being away so long, I haven't lost my passion for food and cooking, just not had time to write down my thoughts for a while. I also tend to follow a lot of other blogs and get a bit distracted by them as some are just too good!! I have been inspired by quite a few recently, and thought it was time to come back. I sometimes wish I had a different job which would allow me more time to do what I love doing, but as I am lucky to have a job at all right now, I will save that wish for some time in the future.

While I try to find out how to import/export/merge blogs (help!), please join me at Lili in the Kitchen where normal business will resume shortly. Thank you for all your lovely comments in the past, they are what makes me want to carry on!

La Belle France

So, before i get back to talking about food, here are some shots of my other holiday (which is now also a distant but wonderful memory..).

I spent a week with my wonderful parents, lovely sister (Claire) and gorgeous 7 month old nephew (Ben), in a beautiful house in south west France. It was a very chilled out holiday, although Claire and i managed to fit in some running, lots of swimming (very cold pool) and a little bit of yoga to start the day. We visited food markets, Bergerac, St Emilion (where we had a lovely lunch here and enjoyed some wine tasting) but mainly hung out at the house, being entertained by Ben, preparing nice food and drinking good wine.

The Dordogne

Lovely food market

Stopping for refreshments

The house had a few cookery books which we flicked through for inspiration, this being my favourite and I might have to get my own battered copy now...

Home made tortilla

Tarte Noir from the Patisserie

Monsieur Cyrano

It was so lovely spending quality time with my family and a week wasn't really long enough. But there's always next year...

Granada 2

I'm still here and following lots of your lovely blogs... just don't seem to have time to write much these days! Life is good, a little too good really so i can't complain. Before i tell you about my latest holiday, i promised to post photos of Granada, so here are some of one of my favourite places in the world, the Alhambra...

Being a bit of a novice with a digital camera, i managed to lose some stunning shots that i'd taken during the first couple of days of my stay. It goes without saying that i won't make that mistake again! Still, i know i'll be going back again next year so i'll just have to try recreating some of the shots i lost.

Granada really is a stunning city and if you ever get the chance to visit, i can assure you that you won't be disappointed.

My latest trip was to south west France where i had an equally lovely time, more on that to follow.

And i've still found time to cook and eat (they'll never replace food you know!) so will also be sharing more recipes soon!

Thank you for all your lovely comments while i've been away! :)

Granada

One of the reasons for my recent absence was a holiday to Spain. Many moons ago, I studied Spanish and had the joy of living in Granada in Andalucia for a year. During this time, I became fluent in Spanish, learnt to dance Sevillanas, visited the Alhambra on a weekly basis, became obsessed with Spanish food (tapas in particular), developed more than a liking for vino tinto and hence managed to put on at least a stone before coming home to finish my degree...

I hadn't been back to Granada for over 20 years and unfortunately had no imminent plans to, until getting back in touch with a very good friend last year. Suzanne and I went to the same school and college, and spent our year in Granada together. After nearly 20 years of no contact, last year we discovered we were living in the same town and a revisit to Granada was one of the first things we talked about. The holiday became a bit of a road trip, with six like-minded girls driving from Alicante to Granada for Las Cruces festival. Suzanne had booked fantastic apartments in the Albaicin, which had views of the Alhambra and the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. We revisited old haunts, enjoyed delicious tapas, danced Sevillanas and decided that we would definitely be back next year.

Whilst much of the juerga* has moved on, one of the mainstays of the traditional tapas scene is the Trastienda. This gorgeous place looks like typical shop from the front, with legs of ham hanging in front of the counter, but behind the scenes is the cutest little tapas bar with tiled walls and low tables. Nice to see it mentioned here. We enjoyed a plate of aged pata negra ham and some tapas, before heading here for lunch, where we had traditional Moroccan food and the most beautiful views of the Alhambra.

Photos to follow...

* juerga = the good time (ir de juerga = to go out on the town)