Confessions

It's been a while since I've posted - packing up a house, visiting Barcelona with work, packing up some more, visiting my parents in Spain, unpacking again, beginning to tame the jungle that pretends to be our garden - tends to take away time and opportunities to be creative in the kitchen and thus give something to blog about.

Tonight however I have something worthwhile to talk about - food wise.

I'm going to be 34 years old next tuesday and I am known in my family as the one who is serious about food. Both assertions are true but the second should be qualified with the supplementary information that I am a self taught cook, following where my taste buds take me and nowhere near the syllabus of a profesionnal and serious cookery school.

So tonight I have bizarre step foreward that probably can't be underestimated in terms of future cooking options and roads to explore.

I've discovered pastry.

I started cooking when I lived in London after leaving university, my father introduced me to the idea of cooking good food for yourself. He didn't do it in any explicit way but we were there night after night chopping onions, saving a bit of that for something down the line (soup) and adding a bit of that and just chewing the fat. So the lesson that cooking good food is a pleasure and a social thing was one I got at 17. Probably explains the discovery of pastry taking another 17 years!

I then have to thank two friends for developing my interest further. One is a serious foodie who makes me look like an amateur and the other bought me my first serious knife which I have carefully sharpened this eveing.

So that gives us the background and now to tonight.

Red Onion and Goat Cheese Tart.

We have a vegetarian friend staying with us this weekend so we're making this old favourite from a book we have. The way it's always been done in the past is that I would get to chop 1kg of red onions and then Deb would get to make the pastry and finish the tart off, the wierd girly voodoo of pastry been her domain.

Tonight Deb is out for a girly night out and we're going walking tomorrow and will want to eat when we come home after a long day in the mountains and won't want to have to wait forever. I said I'd cook the onions to shorten the process. So I did, went and worked in the garden, did some mindless surfing of the Norwegian post catalogue - it's up to date our new address is there, and came back held back for a while and then just went for it. I winged it, made it up, I had a vague idea there was something to do in respect of baking blind and then just played it by ear. The last part of the process is in the oven now and it looks lovely. Mission accomplished.

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While we were in Spain I made a lovely ailioli - eggs, garlic, olive oil and lemon juice. We ate it with some butterflied prawns and some butter beans. Lovely.

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The cherries are coming to Norway which means it is time to try Clemfoutis again. Last time I tried this I burnt them, not this time. We ate them anyway as it would be a waste not to.

Remember cooking is about doing it from scratch. Never ever about the frozen ready meals. As to the bit left on your plate. It can be used for something later. Tonight the fridge received

*Rice (Egg fried rice?)
*Onions (left over from the tart - souptastic)
*Thai red curry sauce - tonights dinner and instant pick me up to something...or a marinade to some pork chops.