New Year, New Family

Happy New Year - a little late!

We've had an exciting and busy 2011, a house move, threat of redundancy, and most importantly the arrival of Olivia Rachel.

We've also eaten some notable dishes, from our first try of haggis on a camping holiday to Scotland to our discovery of the lemon chilli chicken served at the excellent Mozaic Cafe, and a fantastic meal at the Lamb Inn, as well as a couple of outings to one of our favourite restaurants: Kantipur.We've also cooked some favourites this year including Carbonara (which I can now have again since having to give up undercooked eggs!), various curries from the excellent Curry Secret book and revived the old recipes of our grandmothers of raspberry buns and cornflake cakes. We've even experimented with homemade preserves as gifts this Christmas - more about those to come.

Our predictions for 2012, food-wise, are less of the "Eat Out" and more of the "Eat In" and more one-pot dishes that can be frozen, or re-heated easily. And much greater use of the slow cooker. Also at some point over the next year our kitchen will no doubt be full of various purees all ready for a little mouth!

Our New Years Eve was a quiet one. We all stayed up to see the new year in, but I guess Olivia thought it was just a normal day/night! We ate a rather lovely baked Camembert with garlic, thyme and white wine (baked in our new cheese baker which was a Christmas present), along with a rather special bottle of Camel Valley sparkling pinot noir which we had been saving for a special occasion. What better way to see out what was perhaps the most memorable and special years of our lives.