Day 19 - Ode to a vegetable

Oh carrot when raw you’re a tasty treat
In the form of a cake you’re hard to beat
At the end of a stick you’re such a tease
Grated in salad you’re so quick to please
And as a juice you’re pretty drink-able
Smothered in butter you’re equally sink-able
But as a hair colour you’re pretty unthinkable
Because no-one wants to be ginger.

Day 18 - I need your brain

My imagination has run dry. I need your suggestions for recipes using only ingredients from the pound shop (list below).
You suggest it. I’ll create it. Maybe. And if you’re really unlucky I’ll make you taste it.

honey
tinned tomatoes
rice
potatoes
onions
chocolate of every variety you can imagine
muffin mix
lemon juice
tinned tuna
tinned crab
tinned ‘meat’
tinned sardines
tinned pink salmon
corned beef
white bread
olives
olive oil
dried chilli
garlic [...]

Day 17 - Waiter, there’s some dry shrimp in my paella

And now all the way from sunny Spain, via King’s Lynn, comes paella in a box! That’s right folks everything for that authentic Spanish flavour in one handy box: dehydrated vegetables, dried shrimp and everyones favourite Monosodium Glutamate. Hear the castanets, watch the swirling skirts of the flamenco dancers as you lift a forkful of that [...]

Day 16 - Corned Beef Hash

People who are scared of flying go on specially organised flights to help cure their fear. Those scared of spiders go to the zoo to meet tarantulas. I decided to make a dish out of corned beef to get over my tinned meat phobia.
The dish I made is Corned Beef Hash, the kinda thing people [...]

Day 15 - Don’t drink the neon fluid

 
When I think about about my top ten of places around the world I’d like to visit, most are cities famous for their neon lights from Tokyo to Las Vegas. Maybe its the city girl in me but there’s something irresistible about bright colourful lights. So when the opportunity came up to have my [...]

Day 14 - Tinned Fish

My recipe for Salmon Fishcakes. It goes without saying that I used tinned salmon but rather than this being a disadvantage, most recipes for fishcakes actually specify to used tinned fish. In fact the master of tasty and unpretentious dishes Mr. Nigel Slater has this to say:
Tinned-fish fishcakes
Lovely. Canned salmon and sardines make deeply flavoured fishcakes. [...]

Day 13 - Baked Bean Soup

 
Just don’t eat this before a date or there could be some embarrassing Blazing Saddles moments (video below).

2 cans of 400g baked beans
900ml chicken stock
2 medium onions
a little olive oil
some Worcestershire sauce

How to cook:
Cook the onions in a little oil till soft but not brown. Add the stock and baked beans. Bring to the boil then reduce the [...]

Day 12 - Irritable Jelly Babies

Jelly Babies - enjoy all the pleasures of cannibalism without the social stigma.
I spent the day feasting on sweets (the pound shop is never short of these) rather than try and cook today. I’ve become addicted to sugary foods over the past 12 days and as a result increasingly irritable. God help you if you [...]

Day 11 - Soup Attempt #2 (with coffee creamer)

One 400g tin of butter beans 
one medium onion
2 garlic cloves
500 ml water mixed with about 20 or so tablespoons coffee creamer
500 ml of beef stock
some olive oil

How to cook:
Mix water with coffee creamer until the water is as creamy as possible. 
Heat a little olive oil in a pan. Thinly slice the garlic and onions and add [...]

Day 10 - Non-refrigerated margarine

Chef and cookery writer Anthony Bourdin got it right when he picked out butter as an essential ingredient in cooking:
In a professional kitchen, we sauté in a mixture of butter and oil for that nice brown, caramelised colour, and we finish nearly every sauce with it (we call this monter au beurre); that’s why my [...]