Turned out better than I thought it might. Did your guests enjoy it?

If at any time you would like another idea, just let me know.

Because I own a ⅛ michelin starred restaurant, I'm obliged to share a famous recipe of mine:

SKYLINE'S PEPPER PASTA THAT TAKES YOU (LITERALLY) TO THE SKYLINE
For four people, or two hungry hippos like me

* 500g of tube shaped parsta.
* 5 tbsp of olive oil
* one large white/red onion or 2 shallots, diced
* 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
* IMPORTANT: 8 birds eye chilis
* 4 red/yellow tomatoes, deseeded
* 100g tomato puree
* 2tsp salt
* 6 sprigs fresh thyme
* 2 tsp ground black pepper
* 2 tsp of assorted herbs, dried or fresh
* 2 tsp sugar
* My personal least favorite vegetable to chop - 6 spring onions (not sets!) or a leek
* ⅛ tsp of Asafoetida

And it's so easy to cook.

1] Prepare all the veg: Onions diced, garlic pressed, chilis finely sliced (and NOT deseeded, don't take the wuss way out), tomatoes ⅛'ed and deseeded, spring onions/leek finely sliced, thyme freshly ripped
2] Let oil fry for a bit.
3] Add the onions at the right time. The way I do it is to place a ring of an onion into the oil, and if it sizzled, put the onions in (and if you're me, eat the test onion.) Add the salt at the same time to taste.
4] Start to boil the water for the pasta - add salt, olive oil and some dried herbs to taste, or you can use a kettle (like I do) and put the herbs in afterwards.
5] When onions have been sizzling a bit, add garlic, and the chilis.
6] When onions are golden brown or less red (depending on which onion you used), add the deseeded tomatoes.
7] Right, the hard part has passed, so you just need to add the tomato puree (not too little so that it is dry and bland). Then, add the spices and herbs and sugar. The water should be boiled now, so add the pasta. Unless it's quick-cook.
8] The spring onions are the last vegetables to be added to the sauce, you can add it with the tomato puree, or at the end as a garnish.
9] Do NOT overcook the sauce otherwise it will be as bland as pie. When it's fruity, it's the best.
10] When the pasta has boiled, drain it well with a colander, and mix with the sauce, so the sauce coats the pasta.
11] Add some fresh thyme if you want (that's what I do).
12] Serve and enjoy! (Have water ready).

So, hopefully my wasted time's given you an idea.

Happy cooking!

FRIED CHICKEN ON A BED OF MUSHROOMS WITH WILD MUSHROOM SAUCE*

For one portion, double/triple/quadruple as necessary. I've lost my recipe for some of the measurements so roll with it.



1 chicken breast
Butter for sauce making
Milk
A drop of cream
Wild dried forest mushrooms
About 9 closed cup mushrooms

Heat some oil in a pan, vegetable oil is far more suitable than WD40, which is highly dangerous and is only suitable for things that need to run smoothly.

Once hot, about mid temperature on the hob, add the chicken and hear it sizzle. Turn every so often with an instrument like a fish slice or something rather than your fingers because they will burn unless you are Gordon Ramsey and have fingers like crackling.

Next, melt some butter with milk in a sauce pan and stir constantly. (sauces are saucy so work best when heated on low temperatures.) You should have no trouble if you have two or more arms, but get someone else to help if you only have one. Add a small handful of dried wild mushrooms and stir. It should thicken but add a small amount of cornflour if necessary, but not too much or you sacrifice the flavour, you fool!

With your third arm, and third eye, fry some mushrooms in a seperate sauce pan if you can because I don't want to be responsible for any deaths now. They are cooked before they burn.

Your sauce should be done when it goes an attractive creamy brown colour, and has bits floating in it. You can make it as thick or as liquidy as you like.

Test the chicken to make sure it's cooked. If you jab a fork in it, apparently if the juices run clear it's ready but for the more cautious cook, stab the uglier side with a knife continuously so you can check it's not pink in the middle.

And serve on plate on foil to make it look better than it actually is.


(Yes, I finally didn't massacre something!) There's no potato. (I am not responsible if this recipe burns your house down.)

Get a bag of Walkers' (Originally Smiths) Salt and Shake out of the cupboard if it's that bigger issue. Oh, I forgot. Add the cream when you add the milk and butter for the sauce.

And don't leave all the washing up for granny to do, because that's tight.

If anyone makes this, I want to see pictures!

* - Not advisable for people who are allergic to mushrooms. But try substituting if you like, be adventurous!

Nice! I might try that later in the week.

Watch this space.

In some twisted sense, I can't wait to see the outcome.

I am going to keep adding my recipes one a week, and some have been absolute disasters

Inspired by LittleFrog's post made back in 2006, I made some homemade tuna fishcakes!

Here's a very basic recipe, which is full of flaws and mistakes, and probably isn't very accurate at all.

Ingredients y'all need!

Small tin of tuna (130g)
Roughly 3 small to medium potatoes (Please note: I actually haven’t got a clue the proper amount of potatoes to use because I just made it up as I went along - how reassuring!)
Flour (to coat the fishcakes)
Egg/breadcrumbs to coat the fishcakes (optional)
Butter for frying/to use in the mash (again don’t know how much you’d need, so tough use your bloody common sense.)
A splash of milk to make the mash more creamy (optional)
1 onion (optional)
Seasoning (optional)



Method!

1. Wash your hands - God knows what you've been doing with them you filthy *beep*!

2. Wash and peel the potatoes and boil them in a saucepan of water. Add a pinch of salt to the water. Why? Because I *beep* said so.



SPUDS! Here’s a picture in case you can’t read and just like to look at the pictures!

3. Chop the onion up. Stop blubbering like a big baby and grow a pair. If your eyes sting too much then well maybe you shouldn't have eyes you ungrateful sods. I’ll give you something to cry about you wimp.



Alternatively, to stop yourself from crying, you could just chop the onion up with your eyes closed. I wouldn't recommend it though because you might chop a finger off instead - if that happens then wear a BLUE plaster. Invite your friends over to draw smiley faces and ‘get well soon’ messages on your plaster.

4. Once you’ve stopped fannying about and the onions are chopped, fry them on a low heat until Gordon Brown.

5. By this time the potatoes should be boiled, if not then what the *beep* have you been doing for the last 15416515 years?! I didn’t spend a good 30 minutes writing up this recipe just so you could fart around. Drain the potatoes and mash them with a potato masher. Make sure the potatoes are soft and not hard because if they are hard you won't be able to mash them, as I soon found out myself. Add butter and milk to make the mash more mashy and mash those spuds until they are nice and fluffy.

6. Get a tin opener (or use your teeth) and open the tin of tuna taking care that you don't cut yourself on the sharp edges. Drain the tuna and add to the mashed potatoes. Then add the onions in and stir it all in nicely. Add any seasoning you want and chuck in anything else you fancy – a pair of jump leads, a tin of paint, Bing Crossby’s greatest hits etc etc.

7. Once you’ve mixed it all in this is where you get your hands dirty! Take a handful of the mixture and smother it all over your sexy body, go on no one’s looking, you might as well. Put some in your mouth and chuck it back out again. Repeat. Then kick it around the garden for a bit, then put it in the washing machine on full spin, then roll it into a ball and send a herd of elephants to trample all over it to flatten it out. Repeat until all the mixture is gone. The mixture should make 4 generous sized fishcakes, if it doesn’t then you’ve obviously done something wrong you total, complete and utter waste of space. Chuck it all in the bin and start again. I’m joking, please don’t waste food.

8. Dip the fishcakes in flour to help the fishcakes ‘stick’ and not fall apart. Ideally, dip the fishcakes in egg first and then flour and then breadcrumbs to give it a crispier finish. It’ll probably fall to pieces anyway but at least you can say you made the effort. I didn’t have any breadcrumbs though so I used my toenails clippings instead.



9. Once all the fishcakes are coated, pop them in the frying pan and fry for about 5 minutes, or until the smoke alarm goes off.

Serve with a portion of salad and some chips, or whatever else you fancy, or just have them on their own as a snack! The great thing about them is they’re quick and easy to prepare and cook, and if you have any mixture left put it into a container and pop it in the fridge to rot for a week.



Ewww they look gross, but not bad for a first attempt. They tasted better than they looked I swear!

So there we have it you bunch of miserable sods, homemade tuna fishcakes! Or if you are a complete lazy *beep*/too *beep* stupid you could just nip down to Sainsbury’s and buy some and claim that you made them yourself.

Tuna in (see what I did there?! I know, I know thank you I’m here all night) next time where I’ll be teaching you how to make....brandy snaps!

I've actually made Tuna Fishcakes before and I went wrong when I didn't coat them in flour! I just mixed in bread crumbs and they all got stuck together. That was foul, the toilet couldn't even handle me right now.

Anyway, thanks for the recipe *beep* and I'll try to remember to put flour n shizzle in it next time innit.

I made some...er well tried to make some brandy snaps. Unfortunately it didn’t quite go to plan and I had to abort cooking lol, but here’s the recipe anyway! It’s from an old recipe book that has gone a funny colour over the years.

Brandy Snaps

Ingredients:

2 oz. English or Welsh butter (I'd use English butter personally, you can't trust anything that's come from Wales). IT'S A JOKE PEOPLE!
2 oz. Granulated sugar
2½ oz. Golden syrup
2 oz. Plain flour
1 level teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons lemon juice
¼ pint fresh double cream (I accidentally bought single cream instead because I didn’t bother to look at the recipe properly lol).

SO WHERE’S THE *beep* BRANDY? WHAT A LOAD OF *beep*.



I had some ground ginger that’s use by date was 2005! I was doing my GCSEs that year!



Ooooh, and look! You get a massive close up of my thumb you lucky thing! I’d have booked myself in for a manicure if I knew that was going to happen! My cuticles are terrible! Ooooooooh! *camp gesture*

Anyway, so what if it’s a bit out of date, I still used it. Some might class that as trampish but I don't really care so there. When you pay for my 'out of date ginger' you can tell me whether I can use it or not, until then keep your whiny opinions to yourself. Thaaaaaaanks! How can a spice go off anyway? It looked and smelt alright so it was good to go! I could even go as far as to say it had my ‘thumbs’ up! (oh dear).

GET ON WITH IT BANKER! NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR STUPID THUMB.

Method

1. Put butter, sugar and syrup into pan.

2. Stand over low heat until melted.

Erm, well if it’s all the same I’d rather not - but thanks anyway!

3. Sift together flour and ‘out of date ginger'. Add to melted mixture with lemon juice.



4. Drop 4 teaspoons of mixture (well apart to allow for spreading) on to a large buttered baking tray.

5. Bake in centre of moderate oven (325°F. or Gas No. 3) for 8 minutes.

6. Leave 1 minute. Lift off with palette knife. Roll quickly and loosely round buttered handle of wooden spoon.



Well I think I mastered that perfectly! It looked like ear wax and then it fell on the floor.

7. Leave until firm and slide off handle.

It did that by itself. Maybe it wasn’t cooked long enough.

8. Repeat with rest of mixture, making total of 16 Brandy Snaps.

On the second attempt I forgot they were in the oven and must have baked them for about 20 minutes. They bubbled up and looked like cheese on toast.

9. When cold, fill both ends of each with stiffly–whipped cream.

Hmmm when I’m cold, I just tend to put a jumper on.

Well what a complete and utter disaster that turned out to be. The recipe is obviously incorrect and stupid, nothing to do with my culinary skills.

Here’s what they’re meant to look like (minus the candles and holly, unless you’re still hungry afterwards):



Coming up: Banker attempts Cookie's fried chicken on a bed of mushrooms with wild mushroom sauce, and chili con carne! (Not together though coz that would taste gross innit).

LOL! I think you could cook for the Queen!

And you've just made my day.

Ha, glad I made your day!

Here’s my attempt of Cookie’s fried chicken on a bed of mushrooms with wild mushroom sauce!

Basically I used the same ingredients as Cookie except I had two chicken breasts instead because there were 2 in a pack so I didn’t get a choice and also I’m a greedy pig that skipped breakfast so I’ll have no trouble eating all that. I couldn’t find any wild dried forest mushrooms in the supermarket so I used a handful of Merchant Gourmet mixed mushrooms (shiitake, oyster, and porcini) instead which came in at the price of £1.58. The rest of the ingredients that I had to buy came in at a total of £5.54. So Cookie, this better taste good or I’m sending you the bill.



The sauce didn’t go brown but more of a creamy colour. I boiled some potatoes to go with.

It tasted quite nice actually! The sauce was delicious and the dried mushrooms were really nice!

EEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH you've made my recipe look like a pile of sick! Someone pass me the sick bucket!

Just joking! It looks delicious.

It looked better in real life! It's not my fault my phone has crappy picture quality.

Anyway, here's my recipe for chilli con carne!

Ingredients:

400g of kidney beans
1 large onion
½ a 326g tin of sweetcorn
Salt
1 level tablespoon of flour
500g of lean minced beef
390g of chopped tomatoes
¼ pint of water
1½ level tablespoons of chilli powder

Serves the entire population of Africa.

Method

1. Drain kidney beans. Cook in boiling salted water until almost tender. Strain and keep on one side.
2. Chop onion finely. Fry gently in butter or oil until gold.
3. Add minced beef and fry for 5 minutes (or until brown), stirring it at all times.



4. Add chopped tomatoes, sweetcorn, kidney beans, chilli powder, salt and half the quantity of water. Stir it all in. If you like your chilli con carne hot then add 1 level teaspoon of caraway seeds or/and a medium-sized green pepper (remove and discard seeds of pepper first).



5. Cover and cook over very low heat for 45 minutes to 1 hour (or until beans are soft), stirring occasionally.
6. Combine flour with the rest of the water. Pour into pan.
7. Cook and stir until mixture thickens. Remove from heat and serve straight away.

Serving suggestion: Serve with rice or tortilla chips.

Anyone tried my recipe?

Maybe hundreds of people have tried it and they died as a result.

It's not that hot...

I hope you have a sweet tooth! Because you certainly won't have any by the end of this. (I mean teeth)

Chocolate cream cake.

HAVE YOU EVER DREAMT OF A PUDDING SO NOMMABLE THAT IT MAKES YOU WANT TO CRY? HAVE YOU? YEAH? HAVE YOU? YEAH? HAVE YOU? IMAGINE A LAYER OF BISCUIT BASE HOLDING FIRM OVER A PILE OF CHOCOLATE MESS AND TOPPED WITH SMOOTH CREAM.

So yeah, basically it's just a deluxe cheesecake that looks messy.

Before we start, I would like to say if you live near a CK's Supermarket, firstly, how are you still alive?! And secondly please avoid it for ingredients because cream that's turned to cheese (not even cream cheese) is never a good thing. Also, biscuits that have already disintegrated without you even doing anything isn't all the best either. And they don't know what Angel Delight is. Speaking of ingredients; you'll need:

1/3 block of butter
Middle sized pot of double cream (twice the kcal and easier to whip!)
A packet of chocolate Angel delight
A small packet of plain digestive biscuits
Milk
FLAAAAAKE and chocolate buttons to garnish with.

1. If you've got a really rubbish cooker like I have in my student accommodation, you may need to pre-heat the hob for 5 minutes! While you melt your butter in a saucepan, find an empty bag with no holes in it and start smashing the digestives to pieces. When I say the bag can't have holes, this is not just because the biscuits will suffocate, but because I made the amateur mistake of using a bag that did have holes in and got crushed biscuit all over the floor and then broke the flat's Henry the hoover trying to hoover it up. Nevermind, he's seen worse things.

Meanwhile, if your crappy hob hasn't set on fire yet, pour the biscuit into the saucepan and stir with a WOODEN SPOON (for obvious reasons - burny) and continue to all the bits and bobs of biscuit are covered with the butter. In a cake tin or a flat serving dish or whatever, pour the biscuit in and flatten with a suitable utensil, or if you really don't give a *beep* like me, use your fist.

2. Leave the biscuit in the container overnight in the fridge. Or a few hours if you're like me and wish to cut corners.

3. Follow the instructions on the back of the Angel Delight packet on, how to make Angel Delight, funnily enough! Once it has been made, pour it onto the biscuit to set, and put back in the fridge. If biscuit floats on top, you've done it wrong and your cream cake is technically ruined and you may as well throw it in the bin. The Queen wouldn't eat it, so nor should you.

4. Once it's set, time to make cream! Pour into a bowl and whisk with electric whisks if you're a posh *beep* but if you're like the rest of us, you may have to use a fork. Warning, you may be here for a long time so put on some tunes about good things. Once the cream is thickened and not dripping from the whisk, pour onto the angel delight and smooth.

5. Crush up a flake and throw bits on the cream, then squidge in some chocolate buttons on the top and voila, nobody will ever know it contains dairy!!

Will this be appearing in WeightWatchers' latest newsletter?

You bet.

I thought I'd share another recipe! Get your sick bags out!

So yeah, this is my second recipe. When I say mine, it's basically just my mum's recipe tweeked by me. You say it's not very fair... I say life's not fair. So shove that in your pipe and smoke it.

Anyway, anger management issues out of the way...

Creamy chicken and bacon parcels

I would like to state, once again, if you live near a CK foodstore (plague kept more so in South Wales) then PLEASE avoid it for this recipe. I bought the chicken breasts and bacon from here and they smelt as bad raw as they looked errr... raw? The smell didn't go away and cooked green chicken is never a good thing. Even my human dustbin of a best mate turned his nose up at it, and when that happens, *beep* goes down. Anyway, just use normal supermarkets such as Tesco, Morrisons etc, or a butchers if you're feeling adventurous or are fighting consumerism.


This brings me on to ingredients. These ingredients are to serve 2 so you do the maths if you are cooking for more or being unsociable and cooking for less... You will need:

- 2 skinless chicken breasts
- 1 pack of bacon (of about 4 or 6 rashes)
- Cream cheeses such as Philadelphia (or Morrisons budget student equivalent)
- About 4 or 5 baking potatoes, slightly more if using a specific type such as Maris Piper.
- A small bag of frozen peas

So basically, it may be an idea to marinade the chicken in advance. I only suggest this because roast potatoes take about an hour and a half to cook, so may as well. Some even believe that it enhances the flavour! So after cutting the bad bits from the chicken breast (if you get them from Morrisons, let's face it, there will more than likely be bad bits) plop them into a bowl and shake on a few mixed herbs and pepper.

Peel and quarter the potatoes and drop into a saucepan covering them with water. Boil the potatoes for 15 or so minutes and then drain using a colander, or a sieve if all the colanders are in a massive washing-up pile which everyone refuses to wash up. Once done, place into a baking tray and drizzle with vegetable oil and put them in the oven at 190 degrees centigrade. Every 15 minutes remove the tray and using a spoon, re-slop the oil over the potatoes to give even cooking. THE OIL IS HOT!

Now, you have time to get messy and prepare the chicken. Using a yellow chopping board (yellow is for poultry) or white if you're like me and really don't give a *beep*, slice a slit in the side of the chicken breasts. Stretch the pocket wide as the only thing you need to spoon in is loads of creamy cheese! Once done fold the flap back over so you wouldn't even know the cheese was there and get the bacon and wrap around so the chicken is covered by err... bacon. Season with... actually, don't do it, we all know still how salty bacon is, even on a good day.

After the potatoes have been in the oven for about an hour, wrap the parcels in foil and place on a baking tray and put in the top shelf on the oven. If you only have one shelf, just don't put them on the bottom. Just don't do it. That meat at least deserves some royalty after you hacked away at it!

20 minutes after the chicken goes in, open the foil so the bacon has enough time to become kind of crispy. A bit like *insert stupid and pointless description of something mildly crispy here*

Now, boil peas in saucepan with water. They take 5 minutes. Do it. They count as one of your 5 a day.

After an hour and a half since the potatoes have gone in and half an hour for the chicken, they should be done! you might want to hack away at your mate/parent/spouse's (delete as appropriate) chicken to make sure it is cooked in the middle. It will be slightly pink due to the bacon however as long as the juices run clear you should be fine. That's what someone told me, dunno if it works or not.

Toss together on a plate and voila, a semi kind of roast dinner. In all seriousness though, it did look a lot more appetising than this picture shows. Honest!



Oh, you can also do gravy with it as well if you like.

I had 4 cookery teachers since being at secondary school. The first was obsessed with us making pizza and fairy cakes and once we even made pizza swirls! The second (Year 9) couldn't control the class and gave up and just told us to bring in ingredients for whatever we wanted and as a result someone brought in chocolate and pastry and made a giant chocolate pasty.

I also took 'Food and Nutrition' (Aka cooking) for GCSE but our room was falling to pieces and we only had 2 out of about 10 ovens working till someone accidentally smashed the glass with a stool into a working one.

I took food for an AS level too but my skills went from bad to worse when I tried to make cheese on toast and the bread set on fire and I burnt my arm on the grill pan and then accidentally put it under boiling water and my arm blistered like crazy. After receiving my grade E certificate ( ) I decided to give up cooking and stuck with Business, Psychology and English Lit...