This, that and homemade pasta...

So my Bank Holiday weekend was as wild as anticipated! I delved into Gordon's 'Great Escape: 100 of my Favourite Indian Recipes' and made a delicious (in my humble opinion) Badami Chicken Curry and Sag Aloo. Badam translates to Almond in English but the curry had a very different flavour to a Korma, less sweet. Both recipes turned out well although I would modify the curry slightly the next time by adding some extra chillies, it was spicy but a bit mild for my taste. The book seems great so far though. There are a number of other recipes I'd like to try and many that are a bit different from what you might find in a standard Indian cookery recipe book.

The other culinary adventure of the weekend was totally instigated by the OH who bought a pasta machine (this one actually) from a charity store which we were browsing for books. I was, it has to be admitted, a little unenthusiastic. I love cooking of course but it just seems so much easier to buy pasta from the shops. But we followed (well the OH followed and I observed) the recipe in the recent Guardian article 'How to make perfect pasta' and after a bit of trial and error with the rolling and the folding it turned out wonderfully, although we made far too much. Served up tagliatelle-style with a carbonara sauce the pasta was honestly so different from shop bought that it was well worth the effort (probably not for every occasion on which I fancy pasta though). Next we are going to use home made pasta in lasagna and I have a feeling it will be a bit special.

Leaving food matters aside, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my Liz Earle shampoo and conditioner. I have pre-ordered their new haircare range which officially launches today. Finding a decent shampoo that contains no sodium lauryl/laureth sulphate can be a struggle for natural beauty product fans so I am excited to see whether the range lives up to the Liz Earle high standards which I have always found with their face and body ranges.

Wild weekend plans...

I am the proud owner of three new recipe books, and as recipe books are firmly in my list of 'favourite things' I am rather excited. Sad but true! So my crazy bank holiday weekend plans are to generally potter around my kitchen and make some yummy meals. Reviews on the below to follow:

Kitchen Clickalong....

The OH and I have participated in few of Allegra McEvedy's kitchen clickalongs on the Guardian website. It's kind of a no-brainer that it would appeal to me, lover of food and recipe books! What makes these particularly interesting is the unknown element. You don't see the recipe as a whole so it is very different from following a recipe in a book....but it's also lots of fun.

Allegra also focuses on seasonal food and tends to use a lot of fresh produce which is great. Last night's was one of the best yet, especially because it was the first in our lovely new kitchen which has a breakfast bar counter perfect for the person on calling-out-the-instructions-from-the-laptop duty...which the OH did fabulously while also managing to make some amazing fresh raspberry and chambord based cocktails (more on them later as I think they are deserving of their own post!). We made English quiche of new season garlic, asparagus and new potatoes with lemon curd pots for pudding. I managed to use pretty much every utensil and container in the kitchen....but the end results were absolutely delicious! For anyone interested in cooking, I suggest you keep an eye out for the next one and join in....

Flowers...you can eat...yeah!

I know that it is incredibly girly of me but I love the idea of eating flowers. I went to Saf, the vegetarian, organic, generally virtuous restaurant a few weeks ago for lunch (food was great, service was not but that's another story) and had, among other things, the 'greens and flowers' salad which made me even more excited about my nasturtium seedlings growing in the garden. I planted them from seed and they've been completely hassle free. The vivid orange flowers can be used in salads or added to vinaigrettes and they have a distinct spicy/peppery flavour as well as looking beautiful. They don't even need to be in the garden but can be grown in medium to large containers. A pack of seeds cost about a quid so in keeping with the current spirit of thrift and grow-your-own I would recommend adding this to your next list of things-to-do....

How green is a barbeque?

After a lovely, sunny bank holiday weekend consisting of 3 barbeques, 1 hosted by moi and 2 by friends, my boyfriend gave me a mild rebuke regarding my love of barbeques considering that they 'are not exactly environmentally friendly'.

I must confess that I do love bbqs, mainly just because of the fact that I get to spend more time outside, chilling in the sun with a beverage, which seems a much more pleasant way to cook when the weather is warm and the evenings are long. However, I hadn't honestly considered the 'green' concerns. As always, the internet saves the day with some useful information on how to green your bbq. Thankfully, I've not come across any sites which have vetoed them outright which is encouraging, as I'm not sure I could manage that.

Ethical Super Store stock 'BioRegional HomeGrown FSC Certified Charcoal' which is a good start, ie making sure that the charcoal you use is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified. I was quite chuffed to come across a tip on Planet Green's 'How to go Green: Barbeque' pages which my family have always done, not because it's green but because it's very effective and that is to use a raw onion sliced in half to clean the grill rather than a chemical spray of some sort.

Sierra Magazine's website also has some great green bbq tips in their article, The Green Life: Get your grill on.

So it seems that bbqs are allowed, which is cool as I've already been to 3 and Summer has only just begun....

Update: The Telegraphs' eco-friendly barbeques articles states that the following sell charcoal with the FSC logo: Waitrose (Big K brand), Morrisons (own label 'Instant Light' only); Co-Op (own label), Asda (own label). This is quite an old article though so there are probably more available now. Waitrose definately still sell the Big K Brand, which is still FSC certified.