Boring title. I toyed with ‘cookery’ , equally boring, and ‘foodie’ – of the moment, but naff. My ideas for page titles are limited; what you need to know is that this section will contain all things scrummy! Food topics will still appear on my blog, but here you will find recipes, ideas, pictures, and anything else that occurs to the food infested part of my brain. It is a very large part. Food has a connectedness about it that I love!
We all need food to live of course: a complex chain of molecules and proteins and trace elements that form nutritious, and often delicious, fodder. I am an eater above anything else, but I do love to bake, and trained as a chef in a former life. I cook from scratch most meals, most days and enjoy trying new foods and new ideas.
I became a strict vegetarian aged 11, much to my family’s disgust, but since have developed a more complicated philosophy and approach to food choices. I am grateful that becoming vegetarian at a time when no one had a clue what that was, forced me to re-think my approach to cooking as well as eating out. Thankfully things are a lot better these days, but the whole eating out experience can still be very disappointing!
My food considerations try to balance ethics, economics, welfare, taste, supporting local producers, growing my own, environment, and practicality. Mostly it’s impossible, as they don’t make easy bed-fellows, but sometimes I succeed.
I put together my first cookery book when I was 16 – a loose collection of vegetarian recipes I’d made for myself over the years- and have had recipes published in various places. I act as food advisor to friends and family, but mostly I am a greedy lover of eating fresh, well prepared, good looking food!
Recipes
I should warn you that I am of the ‘handful of this’ ‘pinch of that’ persuasion. I know this isn’t helpful if you are new to cooking or if you like to be precise, so I will bear this in mind, but I can’t promise there will be exact measurements for everything! The only exception is patisserie and bread, which is far more scientific and needs accuracy to work.
Most recipes serve at least three or four, or two very generously, or with leftovers. It all depends on how greedy you are really! Again, I realise this is not very helpful, so I will try and indicate where possible. I’m used to coooking for three or four people and have never really developed the art of reducing recipes for two people, or solo, as I think it’s better to have ‘leftovers’, but I’m sure you can work this out for yourself.
Update
I didn’t really get the time to develop this area of my website as I became a self-employed cook in 2014 and continue to cook for a living. You can find my food and cooking blog at https://www.highlandhomecook.co.uk/scrapingthebowl where you will also find recipes.
My first published cookery book will be appearing in 2018.